Below
is a copy of the eulogy I delivered on January 20th, 2013 at the funeral of my
father John R. Powers. What I said was a little different, as I
discovered at the pulpit that I was missing the last page, so I had to wing
it... but I came pretty close.
I
think the ceremony itself was really lovely. It was held at Chapel on the
Hill in Lake Geneva with Pastor Bob Bardin overseeing everything. Our pastor, Keith Aurand spoke as did several of my father's friends: Michael Brandwein,
Jim Quinn, Chuck Thomason, Marie Martin (on behalf of Libby Mages), Matt Kramer
(on behalf of Tom Dreesen), as well as his sister Margo, my sister Joy and I.
We had lots of nice music, some hymns led by Denise Olson, Gordon
Wisniewski singing my parents' song "I Could Write A Book," I sang my
dad's favorite song "Once Upon a Time" from The All-American,
and a trio of trumpets (Ray Ames, Amanda Krause, and Greg Bunge) played
"Danny Boy."
At
the end we all released balloons outside of the church, attached to letters we
had written to my dad. There were maybe a hundred white balloons with red
strings, and even though it was freezing cold, they all floated, together in
one group so high until it looked like they turned into stars.
It
made me think of one of my favorite quotes from "The Little
Prince,"
"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I
shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when
you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can laugh!
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be
content that you have known me."
My eulogy, as you will read, is full of quotes. All of them my dad’s. His words are italicized. I hope they bring you the same comfort they
bring me.
For Those
Who Loved My Dad
“Life’s
not fair. So What?” It was the title of one of my dad’s one man
shows and a personal mantra, “Life’s not
fair. So what?” So many things seem so very unfair to me just
now, but I can’t help but hearing my father’s voice, “So. What?” There are a lot
of reasons for me to feel angry and slighted but there are so many more reasons
to feel proud and grateful that John R. Powers, playwright, novelist, speaker,
Emmy Award winner and man about town was my dad.
My dad was a public speaker, but in many ways, a very private man and
last year I told him that if he died tomorrow there would be a million things I
wouldn’t know about him. My father
wrote, “every moment on this planet is a
privilege” and that’s how he lived.
So, he didn’t waste a moment writing me an e-mail telling me a little
bit about himself.
First of all, I was a
very unhappy child as best I can remember. No one's fault. I was a
rotten athlete and sports, especially baseball, were big in my
neighborhood. I was a terrible
student. Also,l had very few friends. I was an even bigger pain
then than I am now. So, in the major three areas of my life, sports,
school and social life, I was a loser.
In high school, an
all-boy high school I was very unpopular and missed a lot of days of high
school. I just did not fit in and I was never that crazy about male
company. However, I took an interest in
the opposite sex the moment I discovered which one was opposite.
In freshman year, I failed music appreciation (the only
student in the history of the school to do that) and Latin. In sophomore
year, I failed Geometry. The last quarter of senior year, I had done a
complete turn-around and managed to end up on the Honor Roll - that was the
only quarter you got to keep your honor pin - some jerk must have been on the
honor roll for 15 quarters and, the last one, missed it and didn't get to keep
the pin.
In four years of high school, I took gym class twice. The
rest of the time I dodged it. I needed exercise like I needed another hole in
the head. In fact, the original title of my first book was inspired by a
remark the school coach made to me. "Memoirs of a Smart
Ass."
My mother was the big
one on education. My father drove a bread truck for many years, then
sold used cars. He was a very ambitious, hard working guy.
Both of my parents
always told me I was going to college even though my grades indicated
otherwise. I guess when you tell a big enough lie long enough, someone
will believe it. As I said before, I wasn't too bright.
Enough for now.
LOVE
Dad
In a brief biography that I found among my father’s things,
he wrote the following.
I grew up, went to school and worked on Chicago’s South Side. I have also worked various jobs throughout
the Chicago area. Having graduated in
the bottom three percent of my high school class, I was rejected by over
thirty-five colleges and universities. I
was eventually accepted by Loyola University and attended their Rush Street
campus. I also worked four hours a day
(and full time during the summers) paying for my college tuition. Since I spent approximately three hours a day
commuting from Chicago’s South Side, most of my studying was done on Chicago’s
public transit system.
In addition, I have worked in Chicago area television, have been
eligible for two Emmy Awards, and won both times. I hold a PhD from Northwestern
University. My dissertation topic was
the media career of Studs Terkel. I have
taught on the elementary, junior high and university levels. For many years, I was a professor of Speech
& Performing Arts at Northeastern Illinois University. For the past twenty years, I have been a
professional speaker, and have, with my wife raised two daughters.
And I know the story from there—although for the record, he
ended his biography by outlining mine and my sister’s achievements. Like anyone considering publishing his work
cared where his daughters went to college—but that kind of thing mattered to my
dad. That kind of thing made my dad
proud.
My parents met when my mother was in the cast of “Do Black
Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?”
They loved each other so much that they argued about trivial things all
the time. Someone as passionate as my
father, that’s how you know they love you.
He cared enough to fight, about who needed to drive the car, and which
day they should fly out for this trip or another, and a million other
things.
My father wrote about the four reading groups in his school,
from top to bottom: The cardinals, blue jays, robins, and lastly my father’s reading
group: the sparrows. He often said, that
while he was a sparrow, he married a
swan.
My dad said that we are all teachers all the time and my
father taught me a million lessons.
“Life is a gift; this is supposed to be
fun”
And who had more fun than my dad?
Taking out our boat, playing tennis, perfecting his basketball shot from the
sidewalk, eating $2 burgers at Champs, taking my sister and I to the park,
playing board games after dinner, making shadow puppets in his office. Who told
more jokes? Who laughed louder? And as my father often said, “Laughter is the perfect prayer.”
“The World is a sea of chaos, each day
bringing a new wave of opportunities”
My father was ambitious and driven and
always looking for the next way to be better.
He believed that life was learning and learning and learning was life
and you should always be getting better at something. He worked so hard at
everything he did—not only as a writer and speaker, but as a husband and a
father and a friend. My father would
have said, he was not a workaholic, he
was a love-aholic, because he loved what he did, and that made him a truly
lucky man. He firmly believed that you
should never walk a road that doesn’t lead to your heart, and he lived by that
advice.
“You are not truly an adult until you
consider all the children of the world yours.”
My sister and I are certainly
reflections of my father. He recently
wrote to me, “Dear Jacey, you are not the
apple of my eye. You are the orchard.” But, my father felt a responsibility to be a
teacher not just to Joy and I, but to every child he met. He co-signed loans for two young men at the
local high school to guarantee that they could attend college. He would read The Polar Express every
Christmas at Caribou Coffee on Main Street.
He enjoyed volunteering his time.
This year he rang the bell for the salvation army, he served meals at
The Methodist Dining Hall at the Walworth County Fair, and he played the banjo
while my mother sang Christmas Carols for the elderly in nursing homes. That’s
the kind of guy my father was.
“The world would be a better place if
there were fewer air conditioners and more front porches.”
My dad loved our front porch. He loved a good view. My mother always felt the view was skewed by
the street and the cars, but to my dad that was part of the charm. He loved that there was life around him while
he worked in his rocking chair and that he could wave to everyone who passed
him by.
I was recently asked why I love being
an actor, and I answered that it’s because I really love people, and that is
something I got from my dad. My father
was a people person. I cannot tell you
how many people I called to tell of my father’s passing who said, “I can’t
believe John is gone. He was my best
friend.” He touched the lives of so many
people but more than that, he became involved in the lives of so many
people. He has many acquaintances, but
nearly as many best friends.
“Labels are for bottles, cartons, and
cans, not people.”
My father had what the Sun Times referred
to as “a blue collar aversion to pomposity.”
My dad didn’t care if you were the president or the postman, he treated
you as an equal. He would say, “I can either learn from someone or judge
them, but I can’t do both. One eliminates the possibility of the other.”
“Hope is the joy of planning for, but
not knowing the future.”
Just a few weeks ago, my father and I
were discussing religion and he said, “I
don’t get atheism. Where’s the fun in
that?” He couldn’t understand a
commitment to the idea that there was nothing bigger than us. He drew the following comparison: if you put
a watch in front of a dog, he won’t be able to read it, but that doesn’t mean
it isn’t 2:30. It made sense to me—time
is all around, and the dog is living in it and experiencing it, even if he
doesn’t understand it. And, I think my
dad believed or maybe hoped that God was like that—all around us, something
we’re experiencing every day that’s just a little beyond our grasp. He always said that he hoped there was
something more, someplace where he would see his parents and his brother again.
“Each of us is a rock that sends
ripples through generations.”
Every day I see my dad in the things
that my sister and I do: for better or for worse. His strength, his ambition, his cynicism, his
sensitivity, his ability to capture the essence of a moment on a page—I think
Joy and I both do that in our own ways.
“Today is a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity”
My dad lived every day like it was his
last. From the time he was a child, he
had a keen sense that we were not going to be here forever. At the age of five he decided he wasn’t going
to use salt, because he already used ketchup, and he didn’t want to waste days
of his lives asking for people to pass condiments.
He wrote about how his grandfather
would tell him, that when he sat down for dinner he should look around at those
faces and cherish them, because there was a first time, and there will surely be
a last.
He would go on to say, “There
is a first time and a last time for everything, but sometimes you don’t even
get that.” I think of all of the
things and moments that my father is going to miss, and of course I think…
life’s not fair, but I’m lucky, because my dad’s voice echoes in my ear: so
what?
I feel so lucky to have his voice with me, and I know the
advice he would give to me and Joy and my mom:
“Sometimes to get where I want to go, I have to start where I
don’t want to be.”
“I am strong enough to lean on others.”
“Nothing is wrong with having to start over, but everything is
wrong with not starting at all.”
My father worried all of his years growing up that he was a
loser, but looking around here at a room full of his family and friends, people
who loved him who were changed by him, I know he would be as content as my
constantly in motion always improving father could be. I also know what he said about winning and
losing,
“Winning
isn't anything. You can live an entire lifetime and never win, so it can't be
that important. But losing is as much a part of life as breathing...Live long
enough, you're going to lose jobs...and friends...and family. And dreams.
Losing, and learning to go on and live again, is the only kind of winning that
truly matters.”
