The Hardest Stage
How do you capture a life’s essence in a few short minutes? How do you eulogize a man you loved and admired in front of his family and friends? Through tears, that’s how. RIP: James Whittaker 1930–2017.
The hardest part of writing this eulogy was the memories.
Memories, you see, had a way of following my family around. We collected them like souvenirs. From crazy times with our many relatives (that’s right Uncle Roy, I am talking about you and that wonderfully, completely indescribable family of yours) to private moments alone, my dad formed the center of our family.
I’m going to be honest, my dad wasn’t a doting father. He let us live. He let us make mistakes. He knew how to console and he knew how to punish. He let us learn the hard way or the easy way, it was always our choice. But whatever path we chose, we knew he had our back.
Yesterday when Danny and I were going through some of our dad’s possessions. I found this.
I remember when I was 13, waiting for dad to come home from work. I sat on the front porch with a baseball and our mitts. His job on the factory line ensured that we received a tired, sweaty and utterly spent man, but he’d smile when he saw me waiting, place his lunch pail on the driveway and throw with me until mom called us in for supper. “You’re throwing too hard,” he would say, “and not hard enough.” He knew it was keeping batters guessing that would make his skinny little son into a better pitcher. When I struck out the side in the last inning of the All-Star game that year, my dad was the only one who wasn’t surprised.
You see, that’s what dad did. He made everyone around him that much better. Spending time with my father meant becoming a better person. I never met a man more patient or more giving. He didn’t gossip. He didn’t judge. He lived his life for others. He was never his own priority. It was always us.
My father didn’t have any opportunities when he was young. He didn’t have someone to teach him about the world. He missed school to work the fields. He dealt with poverty, the words ‘dirt poor’ somehow combine to overstate his upbringing. His life left him hungry and he saw sickness and disease claim many of his siblings and kin. Somehow though, he managed to survive and the very opportunities he was denied, he created for his own kids.
Look at us now dad! Look at your daughters Shelia and Rose. Look how happy they are and the grandchildren they have given you. Look at your sons David and Danny and the lives they have created. And look at me, your namesake, struggling beyond hope right now to do your life some small justice.
Just. Look. What. You. Did!
But you didn’t do it alone, did you? You met a girl. A beautiful, amazing woman who stood at your side and became more than a wife and a partner. You two were bound together body and soul. You deserved her. She deserved you. Together the two of you wrote the book on what a marriage can be. Together for 60 years. Count ’em. SIXTY years.
When your health began to fail, that very same beautiful, amazing woman stepped up. When you feared being a burden, she reassured you. When you feared being put in a home, she swore to you that would never happen. I heard her promise. We all heard it. Watching her care for you. Witnessing the tenderness. Hearing her assure you that you would never be abandoned. Watching you swallow pain, and suffer without the barest hint of complaint. We were all witness to the power of your strength and her indomitable love.
Mother, you did it. You made him happy. You fulfilled your promise. You were the reason he died at home. In peace and in the arms of his son who, of all of us, is most like him in body and spirit. Thank you, Danny. You don’t know what it means to me that you, of all of us, was there to hear his last words and witness his last breath.
Karma some would call it. The kind of karma this amazing man earned his whole life.
The day he died was a great day. He spent it with people who love him. He ate like a king. He relived stories of his glory days. The power of his spirit flared strong and bright, one last glorious time. He returned to his home as he had done on thousands of occasions before. Did he know it would be his last time across that threshold? Did he read the portent in his labored steps and each hard-won breath?
He fell in the home where he loved and toiled and raised his family. He didn’t die in some cold or unfamiliar place. He lasted just long enough to come home.
His last words were “I can’t take another step” before he collapsed into the arms of his son and took his last, shuddering breath.
“I can’t take another step.”
You’re right, dad, you can’t take another step. So, allow me, the son who has your name, to take those steps for you. For what better way to honor the dead than by continuing to live … just the way you taught me to live. With honor. With purpose. And with strength.
For your strength is now my strength. Your heart is now my heart. I will carry it to my own grave and when my life is utterly spent I will join you in the great beyond.
Be at peace, my father. You shall suffer no more.
