A Celebration of Life
brief notes from speaking at a memorial service
Earlier this week, I spoke at the memorial service for a friend.
Joe was 85 and lived a beautiful life. It was a true celebration of that life.
Recently in an interview with NPR, Calvin Trillian, longtime journalist and writer for The New Yorker, was asked about how to give a eulogy. His written remembrances of his wife, co-workers, and others have made him a frequently sought-after voice for such an occasion.
Brooke Gladstone: What’s your approach to eulogizing?
Calvin Trillin: Well, I have a general approach to memorial services, which is that they last an hour (or as close to it as they can get). And if someone asks to speak: don’t let them speak.
Brooke Gladstone: (laughs)
Calvin Trillin: Keep it short. Don’t talk about yourself.
Brooke Gladstone: Well, sure. In order to keep it short, you have to boil down what makes that person noteworthy or you need to find that hook.
Calvin Trillin: Yes. That is true. I think Murray Kempton's obituary, which I think I did for The Sunday Times Magazine, the first line--
Brooke Gladstone: I have it here. You wrote,
"It would be surprising if the Last Gentleman turned out to be a newspaper reporter, but Murray Kempton, who may in fact have been the Last Gentleman definitely identified as a newspaper reporter on his tax forms.”
How do you distill an entire life into just a few words?
It’s impossible to capture all the glorious complexities of someone’s existence in a few words or images.
Still, we try.
Joe and his wife, Kay, have often been good sports about supporting my creative efforts through the years. The two of them even did a bit of voice-acting as ‘Bib and Dot: The Coolest, Oldest Couple On the Planet’.
Bib and Dot started as a comic for The Goodnewspaper.
My thought was to create a fictional elderly couple who went on awesome adventures and lived the kind of aspirational life I longed to one day have with my wife, Kristi. She has two relatives on her side of the family- an older couple named ‘Bib and Dot’. I loved the names so much. They sounded cozy, classic, and like they just belonged together, ya know?
As an experiment, I wanted to create a few, short video versions of the comic strip. For the voices, it only made sense to invite Joe and Kay. Who better to play the fictional coolest couple on the planet than … well …. the real-life coolest couple on the planet?
True to form, Joe refused to read from the script.
He constantly added his own thoughts, quips, and sound effects. This, of course, made me laugh and was an absolute blast to record. Unfortunately, between the sound of my distracting laughter and Joe’s ad-libs, the project was nearly impossible to edit.
I cobbled together one short, but the others remained unfinished - until this week.
This week, while missing my friend, I went back to finish the project. I revisited the audio. I laughed again. Cried again. A gift to spend time with him in this way.
I’d like to share these with you. They are silly and short but might bring you a bit of joy today.
Three Bib and Dot adventures:
David Brooks wrote about resume goals and eulogy goals.
“Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé virtues, but I confess that for long stretches of my life, I’ve spent more time thinking about the latter than the former. Our education system is certainly oriented around the résumé virtues more than the eulogy ones. Public conversation is, too — the self-help tips in magazines, the nonfiction bestsellers. Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character.”
Resume virtues and eulogy virtues have been on my mind this week.
Joe had an impressive resume - chemist, inventor, professor, astronomer, photographer, and more. Legendary. Most legendary of all, though, was his heart.
A man of deep faith, Joe lived with what Albert Einstein spoke of as ‘holy curiosity’. This led him to care deeply about every person in his path: family, friends, students, colleagues, and strangers. He was as generous as he was brilliant, as kind as he was hilarious.
The stories of those he loved filled a room earlier this week. Eulogy goals.
“Living has yet to be generally recognized as one of the arts,” wrote Karl De Schweinitz. Maybe so.
Yet, there are many artists of life among us. I want to be one of them. I’m learning from friends like you.
To life.
Thanks for reading.
I was fortunate enough to take one of Dr. Delay’s science classes. I always loved that he had a little mischievous glint in his eye and just genuinely seemed to enjoy life. He was serious but didn’t take things too seriously. I’m so glad he and his wife were the voices of Bib and Dot.
Brad, when I see there is a post from you in my inbox, my day is. just. better. Thank you.