Goodbye My Father: Eulogy for My Dad

Friday, April 25, 10 AM, Our Lady of the Rosary, Little Italy, San Diego.

I trembled in my seat.  A hundred of my father's dear friends packed the Italian Catholic church in San Diego around me.  Standing room only.  I had carried my father's ashes down the aisle and left them on the ceremonial dais.  I stared at his smiling portrait, adorned with flowers, and asked him for strength.  I tried to control myself for the hour long service, as the priest, Dad's sponsor, and Dad's brother all shared final words of love and mourning.  

Then my turn came.  I walked as steadily as I could to the front of the Church, turned to face all of the people who had played some role in my father's life,  adjusted the microphone in the silent, cavernous Church, and said this:

_________________________________________________________________________________

Good morning, Dad.  Everyone’s here.  Your friends, your family, your children, your wife.  We’ve all come to honor you and celebrate you.  We all wanted to be with you right now, because we love you.  Thanks for being with us.

I want to share with you ten smiles that I remember in the 33 years we have spent together.  I love when you smile.  It’s my favorite smile in the world.  Are you ready?  Here we go.

Number One.  The first time I saw you smile was on April, 1981, the day I came into the world!  Mom was beside herself with emotion, because she thought that birthing a baby with no anesthetic would be a good idea.  Grandma and Aunt Irene physically held her down, and you nervously paced the hospital, fretting because you had eaten too many pancakes for breakfast that morning.  The birth was healthy, and on that day, you held me, Andrew Eoghan O’Riordan, in your arms for the first time.  I remember your smile.

Number Two.  In 1983, after a long stint in the hospital and a sailing trip of self-discovery to Mexico, you were re-born as a new man.  After a confused era of misguided choices and dead-ends, you built a foundation on sobriety.  You were clear-eyed, lucid, and driven.  You had a wife, a son, and a mission: To protect your family, earn your reputation, and create a life for yourself.  You worked your way into Prudential, and you began your career as a trustworthy, courteous, and respected professional.  As one stranger I once met said, “Michael O’Riordan is your father?  We all want to be like him!”.  I remember your lucid, sober smile.

Number Three. On Tax Day, April 15, 1986, the heavens showered you with blessings.  This time, in an anesthetized caesarian section (mom had learned her lesson), you were gifted with a baby girl, Katelyn Wiseheart O’Riordan.  Though she was sickly, asthmatic, and loud for the first two years of her life, she immediately had a direct line to your heart.  She was the one who you most aimed to protect, to cherish, to celebrate.  She was also a lot like you.  Charismatic, kind, socially adept, stylish, stubborn: Raising Katelyn would be like raising yourself, which, if you ask Grandma, would prove the rewarding challenge of a lifetime.  When your daughter was born, your smile lit up the room.

Number Four.  Skiing was your best passion.  You loved to sail and ride motorcycles, but when you were carving  powder in the alpine air, your grace, style, and energy emanated out from you.  You used to plunk Mom, Katelyn, and me in ski school so you could flash and fly through the mountains, but at the end of the day, we would meet at the top of the mountain and ski the long green run together.  Your six your old daughter, cute as a button with no poles, would fiendishly ski with her pizza pie wedge so close to the edge of the trail that one ski would hover off the edge into the air.  We called her peg leg as she would cackle and race down the mountain.  You smiled as big as the Rocky Mountains.

Number Five.  In August 1999 you and I flew back to the land of your childhood, New England.  You were always a New Englander in your bones, and your reconnection with your “salt of the earth” friends was one of the great joys of your later years.  Together we drover through Boston, Fall River, Swansea, Newport.  You showed me your boyhood home on Highland Ave., the hospital where your father worked as a revered doctor, and Bishop Connolly Catholic High School where you spent your formative years.  Together we relived the Springtime of your life.  

At the end of the trip, you dropped me off at my new home, Princeton University.  You snapped a photograph of me standing in front of my new dorm room, you kissed me, and you said goodbye, setting your son free.  You cried tears of joy as you drove away, and you smiled, because you had raised your son well. 

Number Six.  Your daughter, the apple of your eye, steered clear of boyfriends through her formative years.  The man who would be worthy of your precious girl was always going to face a dual challenge.  Number one: Measuring up to Katelyn’s standards.  Number two: Measuring up to yours.  Enter Christopher Mayer.  You couldn’t have scripted Chris any better.  A devoted, loyal, and powerful Catholic boy, Chris only had eyes for Katelyn for as long as anyone could remember.  He trained in martial arts, rode Harley-Davidsons, and emanated respect.  After a year of dating, dad turned said this: “I love that guy.  I hope they never break up, because I’d really miss seeing Katelyn.”  Chris, you are a son to my father, and there is no one on the planet he would entrust his daughter to than you.  You made my father smile.

Number Seven.  In August 2012 it was time for your dream to come true.  You had always envisioned that you and I would light out across America together on motorcycles, riding through sunsets and sunrises, racing endlessly toward the horizon.  The time had finally come.  For ten days, you and I rode 3,000 miles, traversing the Sierra Nevada, the Rockies, Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons, and the Badlands.  We rode and rode and rode, through deserts, mountains, and unknown lands.  Your dream came true, as did mine, because your dreams are my dreams.  As we freely flew across America, boots up, wind in our hair, sun blazing, mountains soaring, your smile radiated across the landscape.

Number Eight.  On October 12, 2013, you had a perfect day.  Today you woke up in West Maui, where I live and work as a schoolteacher, where you would celebrate my marriage to Leigh Fitzgerald.  Once again, Hollywood would have struggled to deliver a more ideal addition to your family.  An Irish girl raised in Massachusetts just a few towns away from Fall River, Leigh’s family remained New England to the core.  You had begun to worry that your 32 year old soon was moving into a hapless extended bachelorhood, and you were grateful and relieved enough to say openly to my bride, “Leigh, thank you for marrying my son.”  Before you walked me down the aisle, we lingered for a moment in a red-painted doorway, I with my vows in my hand, you with a palpable sense of pride.  Together we beamed a smile for the ages.

Number Nine.  February 13, 1955- April 19, 2014.  Every day of your life, you had reason to smile, because you were lived.  By your mother Anita.  By your father Eoghan.  By your brothers Stephen, Brian, and Sean.  By your sister Karen.  By all of your friends.  By your first wife Holly.  By your children Katelyn and Andrew.  By your stepsons Jon and Connor.  By your wife Carmen.  You were loved for your best qualities: kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, civility, warmth.  You were loved every day, and so you had reason to smile every day.

Number Ten.  Look around this Church, dad.  It’s time to smile again.  Everyone is here.  All the people who shared some part of your journey.  We are all grateful to have walked with you part of the way.  I am grateful for the 33 years we shared together.  Grace us with your smile, and we shall grace you with ours as we celebrate and remember your life.  You will live on in each of us, and you will live on in me.

A final message to you, dad.  I love you.  I have always loved you.  I shall always love you.  Never has a day passed and never will a day pass when you won’t live inside of me.  I want you to know that you are a good man, and you are my father, and I want to emulate your best qualities when I raise my own children.

Keep smiling, dad.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone in the pews remained respectfully silent, but we were all choked with emotion.  Following the indications of the priest, I retrieved my father's ashes, and stoically proceeded out of the Church. Together, he and I emerged into the brilliant light.