My father was the smartest man I knew and gregarious in this. He was not just a professor, he was a teacher; it was a rare and precious gift, a passion to instill critical thought into generations of students. He was a man with a great social capacity, could work a room, make people feel better about themselves through intellectual discourse treating everyone as a peer.
It’s probably too soon for me to wrap my head around his passing. I can say the trite things people say to make the grieving family feel better; He’s at peace now, he’s in a better place, my thoughts and prayers go out. It’s my bias that sort of thing it’s disrespectful albeit with good intention. I loved my father, I loved him for who he was not his accomplishments, or what he modeled for me as a boy and as a man. I loved him too for his flaws.
I will write a eulogy when I’m not feeling quite so raw. Today, less than 24 hours after his passing, I feel relief and I feel it in the profound sense that those trite saying mean to convey; he is at peace, he no longer suffers. I am grateful that his wishes were followed; it’s a question of respect. He was at peace and died in his sleep.
I still don’t understand Dementia but over the past few years peace was a rare commodity. I clung to the lucid moments, and the not so lucid moments that were filled with song. I don’t know if that was an expression of joy but I choose to think of it as one. It’s not death that that makes loved ones wince, but suffering. I believe he suffered very little, I believe he was able to accomplish through his life a sense of accomplishment, to make a mark on the world in the way he thought was most noble; encouraging young minds to embrace critical thought as a cornerstone and the inherent morality that critical thought carries.
These are raw impressions, a bit stilted, in time memory, sentiment, and the cold realization that I will not hear a joke, a lesson, a song from him again will sink in and I will add something more like a tribute. There is a sense of the unreal right now, though we had seen his decline over the years. I didn’t expect yesterday to be the day. I mark the day and gather wool. I believe the kindest and most effective tribute is to remember the man as he was and why I loved him. It took me a lifetime to know him as he was and to love him and I am ill prepared, today, to take twenty four hours to sum all that up. I loved him as much for his flaws as his virtues.
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