Secular Funeral

[Jenny A]

Just an update since the funeral which was last Saturday. The funeral home was very accommodating, provided we did the work. A funeral in which you provide all of the content is very time consuming, but also very satisfying.

My brother MCed it. He began by announcing that he and I are atheist and my father was a-religious and ditto Dad's ex-wife and friend. That was probably an easier announcement than it might have been elsewhere because most of the congregation were either colleagues of my brother (a scientific crowd) or my Dad's (an engineering crowd). He let people know that there would be a open mike sharing session and expressions of religion and spirituality would be welcome there. I think there were about two references to god in those.

I gave the first eulogy which was mostly about Dad the father. That was followed by two colleagues, a cello solo by my niece, a eulogy by his ex-wife, a slide show we put together of photos from birth to death, open sharing, and my brother closed with Dad's last years. We used music Dad loved for the opening, closing, and slide show.

It worked. And I think it did more for family and friends than anything else could have. We showed the whole man, mostly good stuff but also the warts. There was no mention of heaven, hell, or an afterlife. We did celebrate the life he had here and what it meant to us.

I wrote my little speech out instead of outlining it the way I usually do speeches for fear of crying, but I ended up using it as an outline anyway. I didn't choke up until the last two lines. The written version is here if anyone has any interest:

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I think one of things that all of us learn growing up is that our parents are people. And more importantly that they are not the same people. Every semi-intelligent child learns that somethings are better brought to one parent than the other.

I learned very early on that Dad was easily irritated parent. Forget your coat in the car, and want it now? Get the keys from Mom. Really, it's better that way. But, crash the car, now that's a job for Dad. Because if the problem was big enough, Dad would never ask, how the heck did you manage that? He'd just set about dealing with the aftermath. Large problems didn't phase him, only the little ones. And those only irritated him.

I think this was in part because of his parenting style. He saw his role as a father mostly as a provider. He saved for our college educations. And in his last years he saved for his granddaughters' college educations. His was mainly the big picture parent.

But when he did turn his mind to hands-on-child-raising, he was great. My best memories of Dad are all outdoors memories, because it is on vacation that Dad invested the most hands-on-time with us. It was because of Dad that our family took long happy vacations across the mountain west, to the west coast and up into Canada and once in 1976 south and east to DC, West Virginia, and Philadelphia to tour our nation's Revolutionary and Civil War past.

When I visited him with the girls shortly after he began dialysis, it seemed only natural that Dad took me and all three granddaughters to Bandolier. It's what he did with us, even when on dialysis. It was only when Dad ceased to hike and merely gave us directions to a good trail head, that I knew he was reaching the end.

His older brother, once told him that the way to get your family to camp, is to make sure that they are warm, dry, and comfortably housed (or more accurately tented). Dad took that advice seriously. There was always dry wood (even if it came with us in the car) and plenty of Boy Scout juice (otherwise known as lighter fluid). We always had warm clothes, including down coats that he sewed himself from kits. We brought warm hats and mittens in all seasons, summer included. Even when sports gear cost a small fortune and we were growing like weeds, we had good hiking boots that fit.

When we hiked, he carried a day-pack full of rain ponchos, extra dry socks, emergency rations, lunch, and of course OFF and sunscreen. If we got rained in in a campground, Dad took that as an engineering challenge: digging earthworks to prevent the tent and even the campsite generally from flooding; and constructing elaborate covered walkways from the canopy over the picnic table to the tent and beyond to the outhouses if possible, using rope, tarps, ponchos, and trash bags and anything else that came to hand. When he ran out of materials, he patrolled the fortifications emptying the rain from pockets of tarp with the shovel handle.

He really wanted to get us backpacking early and he managed it as soon as my younger brother turned seven. He trained us by taking us on hikes with packs loaded with books to the recommended weight capacity for children of our age and size. And he carried a huge amount of weight himself in order to make what we carried adequate. And we did fine, enjoying even the trip in which we got snowed out and ended up in Sand Dunes National Park the next afternoon with our tube tents looking odd and small between enormous RVs.

He not only took us camping, he taught us to camp, hike, and backpack wisely, teaching us: to pace ourselves; to bring sunscreen, mosquito repellant, wood, fuel, to bring maps, to wear bear bells, and to plan ahead. Much to my family's discomfort he also taught me to leave in the wee hours, and if possible drive straight through. But he also taught me to get information, read in advance, and plan multiple options for each day and place including at least one rainy day option. I still do those things, though I use the power of Google more than the power of writing away for information or books.

He was a good teacher generally. He was an excellent driving instructor, clear, calm and ready to push me to do more than I thought I could. And though I thought he was crazy asking me turn onto a busy narrow street on our first lesson, he was right, I could do it and do it safely. That too typified his parenting style. He was sure that given a nudge we would learn for ourselves. And so I learned to swim by being tossed out into the pool. He was right there waiting for me to swim to him. But I did have to do the swimming.

And it was empowering. When he took me along on a D.C. conference, he suggested over breakfast that I spend the day touring the Mall on my own. He gave me a little money, told me I could use the credit card and pointed me in the general direction of the subway entrance. I was fifteen and had never ridden the subway anywhere before. But he was so matter-of-factly sure that I would do just fine on my own, that it never crossed my mind that I couldn't figure out the subway.

Less fun, but similarly, I was alone with him a week one summer, when our basement flooded. Dad surveyed the puddles and handed me some cash with instructions to figure out how to take care of the mess and then do it. Then he went off to work. That may sound horrible to more careful parents today, but it wasn't. It was a lesson in self-sufficiency, and problem solving. And I am grateful.

I am grateful too that he really was there just in case I fell, sometimes literally, like the time I broke a ski, and he waited patiently for me at the bottom of each of three ski lifts as I made my way down to the lodge, the soul lonely figure riding down instead of up. Or when he slowly talked me through walking my way carefully around rather than over the rattle snake I never saw.

He rewarded interest and work with the equipment to do more. So I got my first typewriter, electric drill, electric saw, and computer from Dad. When I moved out, I got all weather tires, tire chains, and insulation for my hot water heater. But he didn't put them on for me. When I bought my first house, I got paint.

He didn't suffer fools, or even foolish behavior. There is a plaque in his office that describes his attitude perfectly: “At Johnson and Johnson, Stupid People Pay More.” He didn't talk about feelings very much, and he didn't tolerate drama. He was stoic himself and he didn't much like whiners. Whining in Dad's presence was the fastest way not to get something I knew of.

I never heard him swear. He was always calm, sometimes to point of driving anyone excitable up a tree. But it was mostly a comfortable calm. And though he was articulate and often talkative he was a good person to sit in comfortable silence with too.

He was a good father and a good man.

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