My eulogy to my father

Oct 19, 2007 21:58

Jim Gregory
May 14, 1947-October 7, 2007

The deal between Mom and Dad was that he got to name the firstborn child, and Mom the second. Well, Mom had come up with some fantastic names of her own in the meantime - Myriah Abril, or wait, this is my personal favorite, Allegra. Happiness… or an allergy pill? Dad didn’t think so - he swooped in as my hero, having heard the Neil Diamond song Desiree and decided that that would be my name.

Over the last three years, I have been lucky enough to not only have grown into a wonderful father/daughter relationship with my Dad, but also to develop an incredible friendship with him. I am a night owl, I have been since I was a teenager and I just don‘t sleep well. Over the summer, when Dad was having a progressively harder time sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time in bed, I would come in either from where Mom and Nika were talking, or after the two of them had gone to bed to talk to him in the living room. We would talk for sometimes hours at a time about everything under the sun - him advising me on professional stuff for work, regailing me of some of the innumerable stories from his life, telling me about Grandma Red and Grandpa Art’s families and countless other things. That talk time with him was so precious to me, having the opportunity to get his amazing advice, views and interpretations of things.

In addition to just talking to Dad, though, I got lots of lectures as well. I know that I tend to be just a bit headstrong and not always think things through before I decide to act on something, but he always made me stop and make sure I thought everything through all the way first. I will always hear him asking me, “What’s your plan?” Whenever I came to him with an idea or something I wanted to do, I had to have a plan. I could never just lay out a blanket statement and expect for him to accept it, I had to have a plan. For so long I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just go ahead and do what I wanted to do, but I think it’s one of the most powerful lessons that he has taught me, and one of the things that I struggled the hardest with - as great as having plan A. is, he taught me also to always, always have a plan B!

Our family is an anomaly amongst most, with Nika and I as the two adult children still living at home, and we are so very lucky but moreover, we are so very loved. Every morning when Nika and I would leave for work Dad would say, without fail, “Goodbye ladies, have a great day with those kiddies, be safe and I love you.” And, again like clockwork, when he would hear the back door of the house open in the afternoons, he would great us with a hello before he could even see us come out of the kitchen. Mom showed Dad that it was okay to tell not just her, but also the two of us that he loved us every time that we got off the phone with each other. Then at night, as we were going to bed there was always a goodnight and I love you to and from Dad.

My father was an amazing, powerful, motivating man, an incredible Dad and my best friend. You ushered me into this world, and I was here to help usher you out. I love you, Daddy
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