A Eulogy for My Still-Living Father
This piece is a little hard to share.
It’s something I’ve been thinking of writing for some time. It stems from a letter that I have written and re-written many times for my father. Those who know me well enough will know that my relationship with my father has always been a rather difficult one, and over the past five years he has decided to sever ties with me altogether (and has no interest in knowing my son). I’m sharing it here, as I think there may be others out there who struggle with their relationship with a parent.
I may even re-write this one each year as the years go by, but this felt like a good start to thinking about how I would eulogize the death of a person who is still alive.
I Come to Bury Caesar, Not to Praise Him
I recall a time during my 10th grade Advanced English class when we were tasked with memorizing Marc Antony's funeral oration from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act 3, Scene II).
Perhaps you remember those famous opening lines:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
These words often come to mind for me. In many ways, the literature and media we consume repeatedly as young people hold strongly in our memories, much as the impacts of the people who were part of our lives in our most formative years.
I might not have been the most diligent student when I first learned that funeral oration—truthfully, my time then was more devoted to partying and getting into trouble than to academics—but those words from Shakespeare have lingered with me. There is undeniable power in Antony’s lament, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." Antony goes on to cleverly turn the assembled audience against Brutus and the other assassins of Julius Caesar (at least, in Shakespeare’s fabled version of the event). Antony actually does indeed give the audience reason to themselves praise the doings of Caesar, but in that opening line he reveals the power in the place of the eulogizer and the words shared at the passing of the dead.
It is in this spirit of reflection that I write now. I have words to offer at the passing of someone significant—not in the traditional sense of death, but in a different, more complex way.
I write to eulogize my father. To honor his death.
But unlike a conventional eulogy, this is not prompted by the departure of a soul from this world. Instead, it is a reckoning with a man who, though still alive, has chosen his own form of death—separating himself from me and many who once knew him. My father, by his own volition, no longer acknowledges me nor most of his other children and grandchildren.
Thus, I write this as his only son, a son he no longer recognizes—a son he utterly and entirely denies. For this reason, I won’t even name him here in this writing, except to say that he was my father.
This is the path my father elected. And much like Antony’s words in Shakespeare’s dramatization, I come not to praise my father but to bury him. It is time to let go of the father I once knew, to accept the finality of his self-imposed absence. Even if I hear of the body he left behind, I must accept now that I will never truly see the person I knew as my father again.
Antony’s oration continues, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
When I think of my father, these lines resonate deeply. I fear that for most who knew him, the memory of his wrongs will outlast the good. Yet, in writing this, I hope to illuminate some of the goodness within him—goodness that once touched my life and that of my sisters. While I will never shy away from recounting his poor behaviors when I feel such is needed, I aim to also honor the ways in which he inspired, taught, and guided me. Some of his lessons, I admit, came in the form of showing me what not to do, but they were lessons for me nonetheless.
Later in the same funeral oration, Antony asks, “You all did love him once, not without cause. What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?” These words, too, echo my feelings toward my father. Despite his failings and the pain he has caused, I loved him once, and a part of me always will. I cherish certain memories of him, even if they are tinged with sadness. Because of this, I can mourn him—not just as the man he once was but also for what he could have been. I mourn the loss of my father even while his body lives.
Below are some of the ways he shaped my life, bringing good into the world despite his flaws.
A Love of Art and Music
My father gifted me an appreciation for art and music. His artistic talent was remarkable, especially in his youth. Some of my earliest memories are steeped in the scent of oil paint and linseed oil while records played in the background. He had a love for the history of art and was a fan of the works of Rembrandt as well as the of the artists of the Impressionist movement. My father had books of artwork that I adored as a young child—from works of M.C. Escher and Roger Dean to Monet and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. We’d had famous artwork around the house—Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night and Edgar Degas’ L'Étoile (The Star)—but also my father’s own oil paintings of nature scenery and even some of our family. In fact, many of our family members had my father’s artwork displayed in their own homes. When I was at some of my most impressionable in creative escapes and rebellious tendencies as an adolescent, it was my love for art and creation that provided outlets for expression, and that was very much an instinct instilled by my father.
The old man also introduced me to diverse musical genres and artists, teaching me to explore the depths of emotion in music and recognize artistic skill beyond the canvas and the page. He had such a diverse taste in music and a special kind of patience where he would listen to the same album over and over to know wholly each and every song before moving on to another album. Much of my own playlists these days are still inspired by the musicians and the songs my father enjoyed—Van Morrison, Tracy Chapman, Elvis Costello, The Crash Test Dummies, Bob Marley, Tom Petty, John Prine, The Counting Crows, Tom Waits, and more. I would argue that my own musical tastes far exceed those of my father—I value an even greater range of musical genres and artists—but I’m thankful for the early education in music I received from him.
The Value of Activity and Exploration
My father instilled in me a love for physical activity and adventure. From a young age, he encouraged me to join him while mountain biking, kayaking, SCUBA diving, and other outdoor pursuits. He showed me the beauty of engaging with the world through exploration and movement. I spent a great deal of time with my father when I was younger on our mountain bikes or out driving around and exploring together. I can’t know what those days meant to him, but for me they were powerful awakenings to the value of being in nature, of using our bodies for physical activity to engage with our senses, and of seeing the world in ways that exist beyond the commonplace.
My favorite place to ride mountain bikes with him was a little lake area in Pennsylvania in William Kain County Park. There were a variety of trails that meandered around two lakes, Lake Redman and Lake Williams. One trail in particular was referred to as Trail 5—though some local bikers called it “the goat trail”—and it was on this trail in particular over many rides together that my father would coach me on how to maintain my strength and endurance on uphill climbs while managing to use my upper body to thrust the front of the bike over stumps and loose rocks. I’ll never know if those rides held as much meaning for him as they had for me, but I value those lessons learned.
An Adoration for Literature and Skepticism
While my father was never the most voracious reader and could often be heard saying things like, “you know, they say…”, while never really having concrete support for what he was about to proclaim, he still had a love for good books and knowledge and a healthy dose of skepticism when he was younger. He was super happy when I started reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series and read them along with me (we started competing, though he easily finished them before me). In my father’s garage, where I worked with him in his sign business, he would get audiobooks on CD to listen to over long hours of painting and fabricating signs. In this way, I listened along with him to narrations of great books. While he hadn’t read a large variety of books, he did have an appreciation for the collection of human knowledge.
I recall one moment when I was 12 years old and decided to tell my parents that I no longer considered myself a Christian nor a believer in the concept of gods. Neither of my parents took it very well. I recall my father saying, “no son of mine is going to be an atheist.” As hurtful as that was, it was his own teachings that in many ways helped me to question the teachings of the church and the Bible. My father had been quite skeptical of authority based on mandate. When I was a young child, he would often speak about his concerns about church leaders like Evangelical preachers and Catholic priests who would rake in so much money while not paying their fair share of taxes, all at the promise of a glorified afterlife and the calming of the fears of the masses. It was in many ways my father’s own beliefs that led me to question my own at such a young age, and I’m thankful for that.
Lessons in Emotional Strength and Empathy
My father also taught me through his varied shortcomings. He often lacked control over his emotions, prone to angry outbursts and rather incapable of self-reflection. He was physically strong and brave but emotionally fragile—a man who could not admit fault nor empathize with others. My father was the kind of person who put on a front of kindness and charity when in large groups, but then would secretly have rather bigoted language when around other men of his own demographic. While I don’t wish to recount many of the issues I faced with him here, I can say that he often made my existence one of competition and belittlement when I was a young child.
Observing these behaviors from my father taught me the importance of compassion, introspection, and emotional resilience. His failures emphasized the necessity of pausing between stimulus and response, of valuing humility over pride, and of building bridges rather than burning them. While they’re lessons I wish he had learned himself in the course of his life, I feel fortunate that I was able to see the value of what could be learned through the examples he was modeling—examples of how not to be if one truly wishes to be a good person in this world.
Approaching Life with Levity
My father was someone who loved the act of living. He loved to laugh and find humor throughout the day. While he worked hard and put in long hours on his business, he still enjoyed being playful and having fun. He showed me the value in living deeply. I’ll always be thankful for the times I spent with him when he was alive and inspired and through the sheer nature of feeling uplifted elected to lift up those around him. I think that within him there was always a young boy who was good of spirit and being who wanted to break free and live wildly and openly in the world but who had been hampered back, tamped down, and thrusted along a path that led him to grow into a man who couldn’t recognize his own faults nor have compelling and open conversations about himself with others.
Conclusion: A Reflection on My Father
Marc Antony’s oration in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar holds a profound truth: eulogies are as much for the living as they are for the dead. While Antony used his words to sway a crowd, I use mine here to reconcile a personal truth—the father I knew is gone, though he breathes still.
This realization has been both a mourning and a release, a way to grieve and to move forward.
To write this eulogy is not to sever the bond entirely but to acknowledge its transformation. My father’s lessons, both intentional and inadvertent, shaped the person I have become. The love of art, music, literature, exploration, and the many nuanced understandings of emotional resilience and empathy he imparted are threads of his legacy that will remain woven into my life. In this way, I honor the parts of him that deserve remembrance and allow the parts that do not to fade into the background with him.
Antony’s words, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” are sobering, but they need not be the last word.
I believe it is possible to let go of the pain someone has caused while still cherishing the moments of joy they brought into our lives. For me, the act of writing this eulogy is not to bury the good alongside the bad but to carefully extract and preserve a little of the beauty amidst the sorrow.
There is a somber peace in letting go of expectations, in mourning what could have been while celebrating what was. My father’s story is complicated, and so is my relationship with it. But like all human stories, it is one of both light and shadow. In eulogizing my still-living father, I choose to honor the light he offered, however fleeting, and to accept the shadows as lessons that have illuminated my own path forward.
In this way, I say goodbye—not to the man that he could have been, but to the man he chose to be. And with that, I continue forward in my own life, carrying with me the gifts he gave, the lessons I learned, and the resolve to live fully and freely, unburdened by the weight of what cannot be changed.