The Eulogist

It has been a difficult year, a hard year, a sad year. Watching, helpless, as so many of those I held dear disappeared from sight, if not from mind. Death having come in rapid succession, like gunshots ringing out, piercing the night air. Bang, bang, bang, bang, BANG.

This past week it happened yet again. And in the troubled moments, in the hours after the light had been extinguished, I was called upon to tell the story, through my eyes, of what we had all been privileged to witness.

First my sister, then two dear friends. For it seems I have a capacity I neither asked nor wished for. I have become a eulogist.

And while my recital of the beauty and wonder that was my sister was a natural selection, I would not have chosen myself as one to recall chapter and verse of these friends. My relationship with each of them dwarfed by others far more intimate, far better positioned to recall the moments that made each a person of such force and importance. For each of them there were their children who spoke of those many wonders, bringing smiles and tears to the assembled. Granular, touching and hauntingly beautiful.

As for me, I told a story from, if not 30,000 feet, at least from a distance. Speaking not in seconds and minutes but of a lifetime. Not day to day but in the accumulation of days. Not in how they affected one life, my life, but how they changed many lives. Not in the consequence of that person to me but rather to all those fortunate enough to have felt the warm glow of their being.

It is a strange assignment, a bizarre quirk. This ability to synthesize, to crystallize. I think it results from the parlor trick I have been working on for nearly two decades, as I awaken most mornings to write down a thought or two and send it off to the world, ready or not here I come. It has apparently taught me a lesson or two along the way.

It is a wonderful honor to find myself a eulogist. A role I take with the seriousness it warrants. Not one to mess up, because one does not get a second bite at that apple. And those I have been chosen to speak of have been deserving of the highest praise, each a person of quality, each filled with a drive, a passion to make the world better for their having been in it. Each having had their passion become reality. Each with a legacy that will be, that should be, forever remembered. Each having left their mark.

I have received two tongue in cheek requests in the last day for me to start preparing eulogies for these callers, both thankfully still alive and well. Wanting to make sure I give them a proper send-off when their time is up. To both I say thank you very much, but no thanks.

I need to concentrate my energies for a while on the vibrancy of life. I have been staring at death far, far too often in recent times. And while a eulogy is a celebration of what was, I can certainly do with focusing my attention in the days and months ahead, on what is and what will be. Of tales unfolding.