Eulogy
When my father died in 1998 It hit me far harder than I expected. I was at some stage informed that the local Parish Priest was going to do my father's eulogy at the funeral mass. This horrified me. He really knew nothing much about my father so what was he going to talk about? I could almost hear the usual inanities "he was a good man" ; "sorely missed by his family" ; "a husband and good father" ; "now in a better place" ; " a shining example" and so on ad nauseum. I felt very strongly that the congregation should not hear about the stereotypical dead catholic that the priest always talks about (They are taught how to do it at the seminary!) No-one has ever met this mythical person! The thought of such a eulogy being delivered made me both angry and sad. I wanted people to hear about a real person; I wanted them to know what my father was really like; I wanted them to know about and remember his journey through life. To me this man deserved a better send off than an oft repeated and rehearsed set of platitudes.
So I volunteered to do the eulogy. This was undoubtedly the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Just writing the last sentence has almost brought tears to my eyes despite the time that has passed. Writing the eulogy took forever. Each incident from his life that I described brought back memories of Dad and I kept on choking up. Eventually however it was all written down. It consisted of several pages of notes that had been pulled out from a spiral bound A4 notebook and then folded to fit in my inside jacket pocket.
If I though writing the eulogy was hard then delivering it was doubly so. Every time I spoke a sentence I choked up and could hardly speak. The picture gives you some idea. I thought I was totally screwing it up and that people were not understanding me which of course made matters worse as it invalidated my whole purpose in doing the eulogy. I remember that It seemed to take an eternity and yet now I find I can remember very little of it or how people reacted to it. I do remember however other members of the family commenting that they had never known about many of the things I had recounted.
There are of course many other things that I do remember about Dad's funeral. One of my dad's favourite songs was The Old Bog Road by Hank Locklin. My sister played this when we were carrying out his coffin from the house . It totally broke me up. I just found it on Utube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JWDXJo47OI and it had the expected affect on me. I do like the song however and maybe I will get round to buying it on itunes. I just played it again and it was not so bad the second time. The other one that was also on this album was Too ra loo ra loo ra - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=XTcqITqPLIU - Dad used this one to get us asleep at night.
Having told some of the stories about my dad that others had never heard my sisters asked if they could have my notes. Unfortunately I could not find them afterwards. So I was asked if I could write them down again which would have been very difficult for me in the immediate aftermath and I have never got round to doing it. I now realise that the best way these days to ensure something is remembered is to get it onto the internet. So the good news for my sisters is that I have started this blog and I will continue with further tales of my Father as and when. They will I hope be far more light hearted than this first one.
I thought of entitling the blog "The Johnny O'Connell Chronicles " or more pompously "A narrative on the life and times of JJ O'Connell". Maybe even "Johnnies Twentieth Century Short Stories" or "The Amazing Beatitudes of O'Connell JJ". For now I think I will stick with the Chaucerian "Dad's Tales".
I actually thought of narrating this on Utube but I don't really like hearing or seeing myself on Video and how would I cope with it going viral!
To be continued …..
