Valerie Schultz: A tribute to the greatest man in one family's life
| Monday, Jul 27 2009 05:46 PM
Last Updated Monday, Jul 27 2009 05:46 PM
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(Author's note: My father died on the Fourth of July. The following eulogy for my dad is a shortened version of a cooperative family effort. It was read by the firstborn, my brother, at our dad's funeral on July 10. While it is surreal and very awful to be fatherless, many friends who have buried a parent assure me that the days will get easier. But the sense of loss, they say, will never really go away. It will make itself felt at random and sometimes inopportune moments. I miss my dad hourly. Still, I know that, even though my dad has gone from this world, he rests in the hands of our loving God.)
Our dad grew up as a classic middle child, having to know how to get along with everyone. Between summering at the Jersey shore and sailing the seas as a quartermaster signalman on a U.S. naval destroyer, he was a lifelong lover of the ocean. He was also a history buff, especially military history. He truly relished a 700-page book that described every detail of one battle. A little-known fact is that he graduated from college as a high school history teacher. He married our mother in 1951, a marriage that lasted for 58 years, and they had the six of us.
Our dad was known for his business acumen in the world of finance. He was the quintessential salesman, with a natural charm and an uncanny likability. He used to say he was a con man. But he had a romantic streak that seldom showed to others. He loved poetry, both reading it and listening to it. Many a Saturday morning we kids woke to the sound of Richard Burton reading Thomas Hardy. He chose the many greeting cards he gave our mom with great care, and he underlined two or three times the parts that made him choose the card, in case she didn't get it. His flashes of sentimentality were always surprising and sweet.
Our dad had many well-known idiosyncrasies. He often got names wrong, and was unapologetic about this failing. We always knew that he couldn't remember someone's name if he called him "Chief." He had standard lines he always used in a given situation:
"Would you do the honors?" or
"I gotta see a man about a horse!" or
"What's new and exciting?" or
"Helluva deal!"
He wasn't what you would call a religious man, but he said his prayers every night, and he took good care of the people entrusted to him by God. He was a loyal friend who would lend you money, give you a job, give you a pep talk and buy you a darn good dinner. He was known as "Lucky Sid," but maybe it was good karma.
Our dad was known not only for his knack for making instant friends with strangers, but for his way with children. One of the ways he won them over was through pratfalls. He could make the shyest child laugh by pretending to walk into a wall, or by opening a cabinet into his nose with a loud make-believe yelp. He always had time for children. At family gatherings, he half-listened to the grown-up gossip, but he was most himself around children. Kids could sense this, and sought him out. Whenever he watched his grandchildren swimming or playing, he'd say, with a gentle smile, another of his standard lines: "This is what it's all about."
It was appropriate that our dad died on the Fourth of July, because he loved history, and he loved a parade. For many years our ever-expanding family has gathered for the Fourth. Every year he recounted for us his days as a drummer in the drum and bugle corps, especially the time he marched and drummed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The Fourth of July will never be the same for us: We may not attend any parades next year, but we will come together with his fun-loving spirit present among us.
Our dad always knew his heart would be the organ to betray him, but he expected it to be fast. It wasn't. His last 21/2 months were a slow and steady decline, but it gave us a chance to take care of him and tell him we loved him. In death, as in life, he did not believe in long goodbyes. He knew when it was time to go, and he exited quickly and with little fuss.
We expect our dad is now making himself at home in heaven, finding old friends, figuring out a way to charge the angels two points on a loan, and calling God "Ned." We know he is watching over us, as he did all our lives from the days we were born. He always made us believe that we were the best, smartest, most good-looking kids in the world, because we were his. We will always love him and honor his memory by living our lives with the class he taught us, and in ways we hope would make him proud.
