Eulogy Draft #1

My dad passed away on the night of September 12, 2009. During his memorial, I came to realize what he had meant to me by listening to the remembrances that people close to him had prepared. Their stories cemented the lessons he taught me into my consciousness. He taught me how to lead by example but still respect others, how to stand up for what I believe, and to always be grateful for what we have. He inspired me to try to be the best human being I could be.
My dad loved sports. No matter what it was, he loved it. I know this because he was always there on the sidelines, cheering either my brother or me on, in any sport we did: Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Swimming, Volleyball, even Bowling. Yes, Bowling is a sport. And while supporting us in whatever we decided to do, he taught us how to lead. Whether it was leading by taking charge of the team to get through a tough game, or by showing other teammates how to respect other people on the team, he taught us how to do it. But, what I didn’t know was where he learned how to lead. He was born with it. My uncle told us that he was always the quarterback, he was always the catcher, and he was always the point guard; that he was born with the confidence and strength to lead in these positions, but also had the cool, level head under pressure that these leadership positions required. But this leadership and respect flowed into the other aspects of his life: his job, his friends, and his family. He knew when to step up and grab the reins to guide people to success, but he also knew how to step back and let other people lead.
Listening to all the old stories, it seems that my dad had a reputation among his peers back in the day. He was big, strong, and never backed down. You wouldn’t want to get in a fight with him. But people told me that my dad didn’t pick fights just to pick fights; he fought only when people did something that went against his own morals. I remember one story that my auntie told me. My dad was on the basketball team at his high school and they were playing a game. Throughout the game, one of his friends was getting more heat than necessary from the other team because he was smaller than them. Fed up, my dad grabbed the other player and threw him to the floor, and just walked off the court, knowing that he would get ejected from the game anyway. I can guess my dad felt that if you’re going to pick on somebody, pick on somebody your own size. I won’t lie; when I heard that story, I was surprised and proud. I never knew my dad as hot-tempered. He was always calm, never raising his voice unless there was no other way to get us to listen. Well, while he didn’t exactly teach us how to fight, he did teach my brother and me how to stand up for ourselves and what we believe in. He taught us that fighting wasn’t the way to go about it, but to use other means to get our point across: our voice, our actions, and sometimes, you just have to walk away. You’re not giving in, but instead taking he better road.
Being an educator, my dad got to see all the roads of life. From the rich, all the way down to the people who were barely getting by. I’ve heard that he looked for people who didn’t have everything, or had trouble with something. In my auntie’s words, he had a special place in his heart for the square pegs that didn’t exactly fit into the round holes. He didn’t judge people based on their background or circumstance. Instead he gave them a chance to prove to him what they could do. His classroom always had an open door policy; students could come in and just talk to him about life.
But unfortunately, I wasn’t around to witness these stories of leadership or moral choice firsthand. I did, however, get to see how much my dad loved us. Thank you was never missing from my dad’s vocabulary. He made sure he always thanked people for the things that they had done for him, even if it was the smallest of things. Nurses, doctors, friends, and random people who would hold the door, everyone got a thank you from my dad. While talking with my dad one day, he told me why he told everyone he cared about thank you everyday that he could. He said that he was afraid that he would never get the chance to say it again. This past year, I found it difficult to say thank you to my dad, because it was as if I was saying goodbye to him, and I wasn’t ready at the time. It was just so hard to think that he wasn’t going to be around forever, but it tore me up that I might not get a chance to let him know what I felt. When I finally got the courage to tell him, he looked at me and told me that I didn’t have to tell him how I felt; that he knew from my actions how I felt about him. Sometimes I don’t think he realized that we felt the same about him. That he didn’t have to say “thank you” or “I love you” everyday. His actions, his love for all of us spoke volumes of words that cannot be dictated. Every hug was “Thank you.” Every kiss was “I love you.” Every wordless car ride was “I enjoy just being around you.”
My dad is an inspiration to me through his words, actions and love. I strive to be the leader that he was, the brother that was always there, the friend that always stood up for the people he cared about, and that caring human being that didn’t judge any person without giving them a chance. But most of all, when I have kids, I want to be the dad that he was to me.