A eulogy for my father

(My father passed away last week. This is a eulogy that I wrote to myself about him. It won't be read in public, and likely won't be shared anywhere but here.)

I have three stories I'd like to tell about my father.

First story: I was a fat kid. Dad was always fit, and he was better than me at pretty much everything physically. After I took skating lessons for a couple of years, Dad brought me to the rink one afternoon. He was a bit unsteady on his skates, and I was excited to finally be able to show off something that I was good at. I skated past him too quickly, clacked his skate with mine, and he fell over and hit his head. I could tell it hurt him.

I felt awful. I thought he would kill me. After a minute or so of lying on the ice, he slowly got up and said "I think we should go home." He didn't say anything to me in the car. When we got home, he just told Mom that he'd fallen. He could have easily been angry with me, but he wasn't. An hour later, he was talking with me as if nothing had happened. That stuck with me for a very long time.

Second story: Dad had some tenants in his office building. When I was around 18, he asked me to come with him late one night. Apparently he had word that one of the tenants was trying to move out in the middle of the night to skip the rent. So, off we went to catch them in the act.

When we got there, you could see they were embarrassed, but also angry.

Dad said: "Why are you guys making this so hard on yourselves? It's OK if you can't make rent. We'll figure something out, but there's no need for you to do this in the middle of the night." They called off their midnight operation, and I'm pretty sure Dad gave them a generous amount of time to move out despite being financially on the hook for the situation. He didn't seem angry at them; if anything, he seemed hurt that they didn't trust him enough to let him know they were in trouble.

Third story. When I was a kid in the eighties, I remember Dad leaving for work every morning at 8-ish, and coming home by 6pm latest. He never seemed frustrated at his work. I never saw him overly concerned about finances. He worked on his many hobbies, had dinner with us every night, watched TV with the family, talked with friends on the telephone. He never missed a single school play or dance recital.

Not a very exciting story. It gets more interesting, though, when you consider the circumstances. In the 80s, interest rates rose to 20%. Dad's businesses depended a lot on credit, so he held a lot of debt. New deals were impossible, and paying old debts was even worse. When I was much older, he told me the numbers involved, and they were eye-watering.

I never noticed. He was a great dad. I think most people would have been a wreck in that situation, but from what I could tell, he kept calmly going about his life. I was probably more visibly stressed with my school assignments that he was with his work. In fact, I can't remember Dad being stressed about... anything, really.

In my early 30s, I was running a couple of my own businesses. Out of the blue, I was threatened with two lawsuits at once. I was extremely stressed; I thought my life was falling apart. I called Dad about it, and he said: "Forget these jokers, Mike. They can't do anything to you. They're just trying to bully you."

These stories highlight the things I'll always remember the most about dad.

He was patient and forgiving with his family when the worst happened.

He was generous in his relationships, especially when people were in dire straits.

And the thing I found most remarkable about him: He always reacted to danger with indignation. Not fear, not stress -- just a sense that something wasn't right, and he was going to fix it.

I think the world would be a much better place if all of us could live these qualities just a bit more in our lives. I'm sure going to try.

But for now, we have to say goodbye. I'll miss Dad, every day. But I know that, in his new home, he'll be meeting all sorts of friends, old and new. And if I know Dad at all, the first thing he'll say to his new community is: "How can I help?"

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