Moment of Reflection

Chapter 6

"Before I begin, I would like to give my sincere apologies for the outburst that took place during visitation," I said, taking a deep breath as I braced my hands on the podium. "But I would also like to thank all of you here for your efforts, large or small, to be here today, to help us mark my father's passing."

I couldn't believe I was standing, giving a Eulogy for my father at the age of seventeen. I also couldn't believe that Vito was sitting in the back of the room.

"I am honored to be here. I am honored to be here to speak to you all. I am honored to be here to speak to you about my father. Each of you here had your own relationship with my Dad, each of you has your own set of memories and your own words that describes this man. I don't presume to know the man that you knew. But I hope that, in this that I offer, you will recognize some part of the man that we all knew, the man that is no longer among us, the man who will never be gone until all of us here have passed."

As I spoke, I tried to keep my mind off of the fact that the man I had met only a week ago was seated in the back of the church at my father's funeral.

Why was he here? How long was he here? I thought.

"My father was raised here in Colorado. He grew up in Altona and went to school in Longmont. When he graduated, he went on to become a corporate owner of F and M, Heating and Air Conditioning with one of his good friends, Mike. I looked up to my father, I strive to be successful like he was.

At times my Dad would be presented with the need to help me cope with my own issues, and I am very grateful for that. He has been there for me through everything."

This was the first time I had seen him in daylight, however he was a distance away, so I couldn't make out any of his features. The only thing I could tell was that his hair was either a dark brown or black.

"A couple years ago I was on a school trip to Florida, and I get this text, well seeing it was from my dad I thought he was wishing me well, right? Well I opened it to see, 'Hi Daisy. I don't miss you at all'."

I couldn't help but laugh myself with everyone else.

"I also remember back when my dad first got a real smartphone. He knew how to text, but he did it on a completely different level. One time he texted me saying he was mad, then proceeded to send me a picture of him making an angry face."

Everyone, once again, laughed. After telling a few other stories, I moved on to things more in depth.

"I use the word values here a lot because I think it's a word that has real meaning when you try to describe my father.

My father can be defined in part, I think, by his sense of honor, by his understanding of right and wrong. He was a fiercely loyal man, loyal to his family, loyal to his friends and loyal to the values that he learned from his parents. My father has always striven to be fair above all, sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn't, but always he tried. These same character traits are ones that I have, learned or inherited, it doesn't matter, what he was, so have I become.

My father had a quick temper, a temper that flared, ran hot and died just as quickly. That could be thought a flaw if it were not combined with another part of his character, his difficulty in holding a grudge. He and I talked about this one day, it came up because he knew that I had struggled at times with that same temper. The way he put it was "call the man a bastard at 4 o'clock, drink his beer at 6″.

My father was never, in my experience, an overtly religious man, although there were a number of times in my life that I heard him refer to Jesus Christ. One time was the day I caused his hand to be pinched between an engine and a gearbox in a car he was working on in the driveway. Another time was when I absentmindedly dropped the hood of a VW on his head as he was welding the hinge. And of course he witnessed vigorously the day I caused him to weld his wristwatch to his arm.