All the Memories That Remain by E.M. Liddick

Those villagers-his mother and father, his Aunt Betty and Uncle Vern (who we affectionately called “Brownie”), his grandparents-informed and shaped his personality. That is, we begin, as we end-with memories.īorn in 1948 in Lewistown, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Dad was raised by a village. And I think the answer to my question lies there, scribbled in his familiar handwriting: “Remembering me is all that I ask.” For whatever reason, I saved those letters. Dad wrote dutifully that summer, at least once a week if not more.

More than twenty years ago, I spent a summer away at Parris Island. How does one begin to eulogize a man who possessed so many positive attributes and whose impact can be felt not only generationally, but also laterally? After all, no one has ever accused a lawyer of being brief. And I hope you will allow me the luxury of sorrow, allow me the honor of memorializing my father-however long it may take and however often I break. Nevertheless, I will do my best to do justice, if justice can ever be found, to Dad’s life and memory. And though we, his children, agreed this occasion should be a celebration of his life-perhaps not joyous, but at least a moment replacing sadness-I will leave those things to my brother seeing how, all things being relative, I was always the more serious, and some might say gloomy, child.

He never thought long before giving his reply: “I’ll let you know when I grow up.” That was Dad, ever the clown. I recall asking Dad what he wanted to be when he was a child, that frequent “what did you want to be when you grew up” question. I suppose this is how grief works, how we protect ourselves from sorrow through obscurity. But then, in the words of Virginia Woolf, “Suddenly, without giving us time to arrange our thoughts or prepare our phrases, our guest has left us.” And since his death-his bodily death-my brain seems shrouded by fog.

In those imaginations, the ideas and phrasings seemed clear, free-flowing at the forefront of my mind. Because I knew what would happen I knew what would happen the moment he took his final breath. Not in some macabre sense, but rather as preparation, for the inevitable. And so, while my words contain an elegiac melody that defines mourning, I hope you will hear it instead as a song of praise for the man who I proudly called “Dad.”īefore Dad passed, I imagined this eulogy. Formed from the Greek roots eu-, meaning “good,” and logos, meaning “speech,” eulogy conveys the notion of a “good speech” or praise about the individual. The first-elegy-can be traced to the Greek word elegos, which translates as “song of mourning.” The second and more common word-eulogy-also comes from Greek, but communicates something different. In English, according to Merriam-Webster, there are two words we use for a speech given in remembrance of one who has passed.

All the Memories That Remain by E.M. Liddick