Preface to the Eulogy for George Richardson

These are my comments from my preface to Kathie's eulogy today for my grandfather, George John Richardson.  They include what I wrote on Wednesday, per the request of my family.  I did, however, expand upon them to give a little more context to what I had written the day he died.

George John Richardson

December 15, 1926 - June 13, 2012

I think every man has some wish, deep down inside of him and however small, that the world will stop the day he dies – if only long enough to acknowledge it has suffered some loss.  But it never does, not for anyone.  That’s a good thing, too, because if it did, nothing would ever get done.

Most men live lives that are seemingly unremarkable, and so their passing comes with no little to no fanfare or pomp. The significance of the event is marked solely by the presence of the people with whom they cared to share their lives.  It is our smaller, individual worlds that stop at these times, giving us an opportunity for reflection, a chance to take stock of what is important in our lives – to recall WHO is important in our lives.

It is moments like this that remind us that grief, though entirely human and expected, is a feeling based also on the negative sentiment of possessiveness: we want to believe that the person who has died was – nay, is! - ours. But they were not. They belonged entirely to themselves and gave a portion of who they were to us.

These gifts, our memories of them, are like the paintings of a celebrated artist in that they increase in value with their passing because new ones will never be made. They are that most precious commodity that can be traded between friends and family while never being lost to us ourselves.

It is in this way that we all achieve a modicum of immortality; not by inhabiting a material body eternally, but rather by touching the hearts and minds of those we have met throughout our lives. We are known to have existed because we are remembered.

We are the very ties that bind.

Knowing this, I want to thank you on behalf of our family for being here today to join us in paying our respects to a man who, above all else, cherished his family and friends.

Are you afraid of heights?

I'm afraid of falling from heights. Does that count?

Ask me anything

What's the most beautiful place you've ever seen?

Some of the worlds I've created in my mind are pretty beautiful. It's hard to translate them into something anyone else can understand, though. Maybe that's the part of writing that's so hard for me; if I can't express properly how something appears in my mind, it frustrates me to the point of not wanting to try. You really should see what I have in there, though ... it's amazing :-)

Ask me anything

Do you like to get dressed up for dates?

I like getting dressed up in general. That's not a gay thing, either. That's a man's man thing. If you aren't naked, you should be well dressed.

Ask me anything

Light

While I think a lot of people who know me would say I'm generally an optimistic person, sometimes I doubt the sincerity of my positive outlook. These days it's hard not to be a pessimist, especially if you also consider yourself a realist. But if I'm anything, I'm an idealist. I live in a world that's half fantasy and half reality - harboring frequent delusions of "how it should be," and joyously reveling in changes that make "how it is" that much closer to my expectations.

For the first time in a long time, I'm legitimately hopeful for my future. I am starting a new job soon; one that I hope will kick start a fulfilling career in an industry that engages my desire to be creatively productive with my life. It's a contract position that only guarantees me work for three months, but any opportunity is better than none. I have a chance to do something amazing for myself, and I am fortunate enough to be able to take that chance.

My current employers are allowing me to scale back my schedule to Saturdays and Sundays (in fact, one said he hoped I'd be willing to stay on part-time before I had told him what I planned to do), which will afford me the flexibility of taking the new job full-time while still supplementing that income with bar and dining room shifts at the restaurant.

If anything is making me nervous, it's the amount of time I'll be away from the house. I have no idea how Boy Boy will react to me being gone so much of the day. Fortunately, my family takes very good care of my little monster, so I know he won't be alone all day. It would make me feel better if he didn't have so much separation anxiety already at work in his crazy little dog psyche. If ever there was a candidate for doggie Xanax, it's Boy Boy. I'm sure he'll be fine, though.

There's a part of me that wants to wait for the other shoe to drop, but that voice is drowned out by the better angels of a faithful soul, singing out their hopes that these positive changes in my life will become permanent; the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and while I still can't see exactly where I'm going, I know I'm headed in the right direction now.

That's all one can ask, isn't it?