I have 5 sisters, plus a mother and an aunt. I will not likely get a chance to eulogize my father at his funeral. I also don’t believe in the “he was a great man who never made any mistakes” brand of eulogies. For myself and for him, I’d like a Speaker, to Speak the truth of those gathered in mourning; to try to Speak the truth of the deceased.
My father was a workaholic and he was rarely at home. When he was, we had little to speak about and less in common. But I loved him and valued his approval above all other accolades. He rarely expressed praise to me, but apparently conveyed praise for me to others (sisters, coworkers, friends). My sisters and I eventually learned to share the praise we heard him express about each other.
The memories of him that I will take with me, that always make me smile will be of my mother & me watching Star Trek: the Next Generation and him kibitzing in the background about how they just violated some fundamental of physics; he did this during James Bond, too. I can’t watch either without hearing his voice, softly reminding us that what we’re watching is fiction. I remember his uncanny love for older Spock (when he finally let go of those pesky human emotions) and for Sarek. To this day, Leonard Nimoy, especially old Leonard Nimoy, reminds me of nothing so much as my father.
I hated to disappoint him. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was stop taking Physics. I hated the subject but thought he wanted me to take it, so I suffered through it until I couldn’t take it. When I told him that I didn’t like it, that I was going to drop it and take Biology instead, he seemed surprised that I thought he might care. He’ll never know how much courage it took to tell him that. More than I thought I had.
I treasure the one Superbowl that I spent with him, eating bean dip & making model starships (both the Enterprise set & the Adversary set!).
I think of him whenever I take a plane: at the moment, just after the wheels leave the ground, when gravity reaches up to grab the plane back down to earth but it breaks free. I used to love the window seats because I could watch the ailerons move and feel the response in the plane. And that is a word I only know because of my dad. I think of him when the plane lands, no matter how smooth, no matter how rough, saying “Any landing you walk away from was a good one” or “A landing is just a controlled crash”.
My father was a first-class geek (he had a pocket protector, 70s pilots’ glasses, and proclaimed his slide rule the equal or better of any computer on the market) with a type-A personality (when he lost the ability to move himself around, he could still accurately tell me precisely where any object of his was located). And he fostered both in me.
My father was sometimes misogynist, often racist, absolutely homophobic, and always religionist. Yet somehow, he managed to raise me. He took me back to Germany and cultivated in me a love for the people, the language, and the beer. This may be the most we had in common: Germany, or rather, Bavaria.
He enjoyed (real) beer (and turned me into a beer snob) and whiskey. He could be a first-class asshole, especially when it came to my relationship with DH. There were times when I hated him—and I’m sure the feeling was mutual—but I always loved him.
Some people depict the soul as a bird, flapping its way out of the body, off to fly in an open sky for eternity. Or a wildcat, finally freed, off to hunt in the eternal forest. Maybe a tree, steadfast & strong, striving ever upward. My father’s soul is a 707 E3-A soaring up, past that point in take-off where gravity tries to grab him back and flying off to Kloster Andechs for a maß. I hope to make it back there one day, and drink one with him.
