Eulogy

The eulogy I wrote on the flight to my father's funeral in December of 2009. It was delivered more or less as I wrote it, as I read it a dozen or so times before the service, and used cue cards.

Eulogy for my father Robert Lynn Johnson

Written and Delivered by Robin Scott Johnson                                       

(Composed on a U.S. Airways Boeing 757 on 09 Dec ’10.)

10 December 2009: Delivered in McAlester, Oklahoma

 

Good morning, everyone. I’d like to thank you all for taking the time off from your busy schedules to come here… on this cold day. (Pause) A Cold day indeed, but one on which we are all gathered to honour and celebrate the life of Bob Johnson. 

For those of you whom I’ve not met, and who don’t know who I am, my name is Robin Scott Johnson.  I am Bob’s only son. The middle child between his two daughters, Julia Lauren and Amy Elizabeth. I was lucky enough to be able to share a lot of adventures with my father, but few men can claim to have been to as many places or done as many exciting things as he accomplished in his lifetime...

Although he was from here in McAlester, he spread his wings early, both  literally and figuratively, joining the Air Force, and then afterwards embarking on a career with computers and living all around the world and taking us with him.  One of his early passions I share with him is aviation, and something I never got to see was his Piper Colt airplane, which came before I was born.  In it, he once flew over 10,000 feet above Dallas, Texas, just to see if he could.  He also had an avid interest in music too, specifically the blues and folk, and there is a curious story of my father and blues legend Mance Liscombe. In this story it is told that my father was witnessed sitting in his kitchen, learning the blues at the side of this true master. My dad ran a very special place at the time called the Rubyat where such stars as Mike Williams, Dan Seals, and Michael Martin Murphy performed to adoring crowds.  Mike Williams sent me a wonderful e-mail a few days ago,  expressing his sincere saddness at my father’s passing; that he knew full well that thousands would morn him now, and perhaps millions would in the future after the recordings of his days at the club of his own performances on his old Guild 12 string guitar become more widely circulated thru the power of the Internet. 

Mike addressed all of his letters to my dad as “FML” for Folk Music Legend. My father loved music more than perhaps any other thing… after his children, of this I am certain.

 

Next he moved his family to England…to teach those Brits how to use American main frame computers. This is where I came into the picture… then he boldy moved us all south… south of the equator to the Far Side of the World to  Australia, where I remember him as the high powered manager with Sperry Univac with his office high above Sydney, and later Melbourne.  By the time I was six, he had taken me and my siblings around the globe three times.  One time, when I expressed sadness that I’d missed out on a normal childhood, such as those of my schoolmates He told me that although I never had a chance to make long term friends, he had given me an advantage over most others who did not have the experience that we as a family had having been to so many places, and it took me many years to see the wisdom of these early travels.

My father in those early days was a pillar of strength and stoicism. He handled all of the problems we faced with either calmness eerie pragmatism.  Then, in 1983 we were all in London staying in a tiny flat while he worked for a couple of weeks, when we got the news that his father had died back here in Oklahoma. …. I do not recall seeing him that day, but perhaps it was for his own reasons, but my mother recalled that it was the first time in her life she had seen him cry, and I wish I could be as strong a man as to only cry the one time when my own father died…  but I am not that man (Pause and direct my hand towards the casket), because he’s right there.

 

In the mid 1980s he moved us back to the United States and suffered a terrible setback when the company was destroyed in a merger.  I don’t believe he ever recovered in a traditional way from this event, but instead it ushered in his metaphorphasis , which transformed him from someone who perhaps was previously more preoccupied with enriching us… and more to a man devoted to  loving us all and cherishing every moment of our lives.

I moved with him to Texas where he was seeking new career opportunities, but he confided in me that he never, would ever try to be in a management position again, as the sacrifice was too great, the stress too much,  and he would not have enough time for his family.

Then,  in 1993 my dad came to me with a choice.  I was in tenth grade at the time and for the first time in my life, my father could be proud of my report cards.  He said the company he worked for, Hallmark Electronics, was being bought by Avnet, a company out of Phoenix.  My heart sank as I remembered what had happened years before when Sperry Univac had gone under, but he saw my reaction and he interjected quickly that his job was safe, and that they had offered to pay for our move to Phoenix, but…. That it was my choice.  That if I wanted to stay in Texas, we’d stay in Texas.  I looked into my father’s eyes and saw that the right move would be for us to relocate to Arizona, a place I knew little about and had never dreamed of living.  So, a week later we packed up the car and headed west.  When we arrived in Arizona, my father, who was letting me drive without a licence, which I could tell from by looking at his white knuckles wasn’t completely comfortable with this, turned to me and said very profoundly, “Now begins the next chapter of our lives.”

Of course I could never have foreseen this, but it was in fact the last chapter of his life. He did well in Phoenix, financially. The land was full of opportunities and adventures that we both tried to enjoy. Since we didn’t have any real friends and family there, we would eat together at local Indian restaurants on Thanksgivings and Christmas, a tradition I keep alive, though now unfortunately I am alone behind my plate of Chicken Vindaloo, which is a dish he also loved for me to cook for him at home when I’d visit.

Then one day he found he was having trouble with a weakness in his legs, then his back, and then his arms. Through years of testing, it was clear my father suffered from musular dystrophy, a slow, and dabilitating disease where your muscles gradually, slowly, but inevitably, wither away, making a normal life pretty close to impossible.

The tragic thing is, even though we are all mortal creatures in the eyes of God, we do the best we can to enjoy our lives until our last days, but my father unfortunately didn’t get that opportunity:  The saddest thing I ever heard was when he told me he had wanted to spend his retirement living in the never attained bungalo across from my pool, playing his 12 String Guitar to his heart’s content, enjoying the music  created by his own hand  and emoted by his wonderful heart, but that was not to be, as there came a day about five years ago when he could no longer find any strength to make the chords with his left hand. That was the day the music died in my father’s heart, and that broke mine.  For five years his condition worsened until about ten days ago when I received a call from his private nurse telling me oh so apologetically that he had been rushed to the hospital and was in a coma.  Without thinking I jumped in my car, without even enough money for gas and drove from Nebraska to Phoenix with the hopes he’d wake up and that I could talk to him again and tell him how much I loved him, and that for him to know I was there for him.  We know he didn’t wake up, we know that he slipped away, but my friends… when he was moved to hospice I made sure that he was able to listen to some Gordon Lightfoot, his favourite artist, a man who’s songs he’d often strummed and sang to us on that old 12 string, and I know my friends, that he would have wanted you to know, that the music was alive again in his heart when he slipped away from us all, and met the Angels at the gates of heaven…(Dramatic  Pause)…holding his old 12 string tightly in his left hand.

 

Thank you very much for your time, God Bless you all.

Author's Note

I was trying to keep it under 15 minutes, but since we all only lose our fathers once to the icey grip of death, I wanted to make sure I did this right.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

You did.

A beautiful and fascinating piece of writing. It's not merely a eulogy but a meander through a past full of personal memories, memories that make you who you are, your dear father's son.

Thank you for allowing me to share just a corner of them.