{"id":1680,"date":"2017-09-25T18:52:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T22:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/thezenpagan\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2017-09-25T18:58:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T22:58:45","slug":"a-eulogy-for-my-father-mark-swiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thezenpagan\/2017\/09\/a-eulogy-for-my-father-mark-swiss\/","title":{"rendered":"A Eulogy For My Father, Mark Swiss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My father passed away suddenly on September 18th. The last thing I could give him was my words. I gave two different versions of this talk, one as a memorial service at the funeral home, and one at the funeral service at his church. (At the church I left out the Buddhist<\/a> and Transcendentalist parts, and told more of the stories.)<\/i><\/p>\n

Thank you everyone for coming. It means a lot to my Mom, my brother, and me to see so many people here.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to say a few words about Dad.<\/p>\n

\"dad_and_uncle_jeff-1000\"<\/a>
My Dad (right) and Uncle Jeff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My father grew up Catholic. Not just Catholic but Polish Catholic. He was the grandson of immigrants and very proud of that Polish background.<\/p>\n

Over his adult life he and the Church sort of grew apart. I know he was happy when Mom found the community at Epiphany Lutheran. And I know he was moved by how supportive everyone there was when Mom was sick last year, especially Pastor Arwyn and Deacon Roger.<\/p>\n

Roger, I really want to thank you for the support you gave Dad during Mom\u2019s illness. You were there for him when Mom was in extremis, and having seen that I know how you\u2019re going to be there for her now. It gives me a lot of comfort.<\/p>\n

Dad was just starting to connect to Epiphany. But he really did consider it his church.<\/p>\n

But Dad was never narrow about religion. He had a strong spiritual side but never let it get limited by one faith. He always had a universalist take. So I don\u2019t think he\u2019d mind if I go Buddhist for a minute here.<\/p>\n

There is a story about the Zen master Gud\u014d T\u014dshoku. He was the teacher of the retired Emperor of Japan, and one day the Emperor asked him, \u201cWhat happens to an enlightened person when they die?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gud\u014d said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emperor said, \u201cYou don\u2019t know? But aren\u2019t you an enlightened teacher?\u201d<\/p>\n

And Gud\u014d said, \u201cYes. But I\u2019m not a dead one.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have hopes about an afterlife. I guess some of us have fears \u2014 Dad didn\u2019t, thank goodness. His God was love, and he knew that whatever comes after could never be something to fear.<\/p>\n

What do we really know for sure about what comes after? Well\u2026sometime, long down the road, many years from now I hope, maybe I can tell you.<\/p>\n

But whatever the truth about that, the Buddha noticed something important about our life here.<\/p>\n

In this life each of us is a combination of things that come together for a while and then separate. The atoms of our bodies come together, and they do their dance, and then they go apart. But the atoms are still there. Just spread out more.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s also true of our ideas and experiences, all the thinks that make up our mind and our spirit.<\/p>\n

In this life, Dad was the things he learned and felt and thought and said, the things he did and the things that happened to him. For all those years there was a center to those things, something easy to see. Now that\u2019s gone. That center isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

But all those experiences and ideas and thoughts and feelings are still around.<\/p>\n

All those things that came together to make up Mr. Mark\u2026they\u2019re not gone. Dad always liked to point out that energy can\u2019t be created or destroyed, only changed. All those things that made up him, are still with us now.<\/p>\n

Dad is just spread out more. He\u2019s mixed into all of us.<\/p>\n

When Mom was sick last year, while she was unconscious my cousin Jenny suggested that I read to her. One of the things I read from was Walt Whitman\u2019s Leaves of Grass. And there was a passage that just floored me, like finding it was a message from the Universe. I thought it was a message about Mom but I guess it was about Dad. The Universe is a weird place sometimes.<\/p>\n

But this is what good old Uncle Walt had to say:<\/p>\n

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
\nAnd what do you think has become of the women and children?<\/p>\n

They are alive and well somewhere;
\nThe smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
\nAnd if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
\nend to arrest it,
\nAnd ceased the moment life appeared.<\/p>\n

All goes onward and outward . . . . and nothing collapses,
\nAnd to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.<\/p>\n

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
\nI hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.<\/p>\n

I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and
\nam not contained between my hat and boots,
\nAnd peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good,
\nThe earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
\nI am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
\nI am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
\nfathomless as myself;
\nThey do not know how immortal, but I know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I said that Dad was very proud of his Polish heritage. But more than that he was very proud of his parents. His father was a fire fighter, a lieutenant in the Baltimore City Fire Department. His mother was a nurse. And I think that to understand him you have to know that the way that his parents served the community was very important to him.<\/p>\n

In high school, Dad was not the most devoted student. He was an intelligent guy but he didn\u2019t really know what to do with himself. He was more interested in hanging out with his friends Tom Passaro and Jim Staniewicz \u2014 the men my brother and I were named after \u2014 than in his studies. But one thing he was interested in was photography.<\/p>\n

\"dad_af_1-1000\"<\/a>And one day in 1963, the Air Force recruiters came around.<\/p>\n

Dad liked the idea of serving his country, serving something bigger than himself. And they told him, \u201cOh, hey young man, you\u2019re interested in photography? Well we do all sorts of surveillance photography in the Air Force! We can give you training about different sorts of cameras and film and development techniques and set you up for a civilian career afterwards. Just sign here!\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, as it turned out, they didn\u2019t need him to be a photographer. They needed someone to be an Air Policeman in some country he\u2019d never dreamed of being sent to, Vietnam.<\/p>\n

But before they sent him there, while he was stationed at Dover Air Force and hitchhiking home whenever he got a weekend pass, he met a young lady at a New Years Eve party.<\/p>\n

Now Mom was dating someone else at the time. But a while later, she was looking forward to graduation and thinking about who might escort her to the dance. Mom\u2019s grandmother told her, \u201cYou should write to that nice boy Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad would be the first to tell you that that was the best thing to ever happen to him.<\/p>\n

He spent his year patrolling the air base over there. There\u2019s one story about his time there that just amazed me. He got though his year without too much excitement, and was on his way home. He had gone from the airbase where he was stationed to the one where, I think, he would get his plane back to the world. He had a drink or two in the Enlisted Men\u2019s club and just as he came out, the base came under mortar attack.<\/p>\n

He and another guy ran for a nearby bunker. It was a one-man bunker.<\/p>\n

They took turns in it for the duration of the attack. He would jump in for a few minutes, then of his own free will would get out to let his fellow airman take shelter.<\/p>\n

So he made it though that, came back and got engaged. And he got some advice from his Uncle Eddie, about how getting involved in a newfangled field called computer programming could be a good opportunity for a young man. With his GI benefits he went back to school. He did better now with the self-discipline he\u2019d learned in the service.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t get a degree \u2014 they didn\u2019t have computer science degrees back then! \u2014 but it was a two year vocational program. That set him up to work in the field for about thirty years.<\/p>\n

\"mom_dad_honeymoon-1000\"<\/a>He and Mom bought a house and had two crazy boys. He took that same desire to serve that had led him to the Air Force, out into the Rosedale community.<\/p>\n

He was active in the Holland Hills Improvement Association, and played Santa in the neighborhood\u2019s holiday canned food drive for several years. He helped with the youth group at the Church of the Annunciation.<\/p>\n

And his sons got him involved in the local rec council baseball program.<\/p>\n

There have to be a hundred boys \u2014 and at least one girl \u2014 who knew Mr. Mark as their baseball coach. That was his personalized license plate, \u201cMr. Mark\u201d, with a frame, a holder, for it that said \u201c25 years of teaching youth baseball\u201d. Over the years he was a coach, manager, program chairman, and umpire. In his last days we was still trying to contribute to that by writing a book.<\/p>\n

He was very proud of all the lives that he was able to touch through baseball, how he got to help teach young people life lessons though sports.<\/p>\n

How many of you knew my Dad from when you were a kid? Some of you called him your \u201cother dad\u201d. And man, that makes me feel proud and lucky.<\/p>\n

A couple years ago I was talking with a friend about why baseball had become popular in Japan, and I realized that it\u2019s a game that comes down to two things that are core values over there: teamwork and fundamentals.<\/p>\n

And those were two of Dad\u2019s core values.<\/p>\n

\"baseball_1980-1000\"<\/a>
Dad is in the blue cap. My brother is front row center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw on Facebook (and here today) so many people who knew him from his first career in computers \u2014 \u201cdata processing\u201d, as they called it back then \u2014 or his second career in real estate. They talked about how great it was to work with him. He knew how to treat his teammates.<\/p>\n

And he never lost track of the fundamentals. Yeah, his desk was always a mess \u2014 he had one of of those little \u201cPlease don\u2019t straighten the mess on my desk, you\u2019ll goof up my system\u201d signs (and I think I may take that for my desk\u2026) \u2014 but he had a handle on things.<\/p>\n

That was a challenge these last few years as his health started to fail. But he kept it together.<\/p>\n

Work out the budget. Pay the bills on time. Bring Mom flowers for no reason. Walk the dog.<\/p>\n

And help people.<\/p>\n

That was one of his big fundamentals, going back to what he learned from his mom and dad.<\/p>\n

I remember one time \u2014 and I\u2019m pretty sure this was when we had the station wagon, so I don\u2019t think I could have been more than ten \u2014 he came home one evening with two teenage girls. Someone had attacked them and stolen their bikes, threw the bikes in their pickup truck and sped off. And the girls were trying to wave down help from the side of the road. Now this was way before cell phones, so he brought them to our house so they could call their parents and the police. (And they did catch the guys.)<\/p>\n

It would have been really easy to keep on driving by. Dad never would have.<\/p>\n

And I remember another time, there were two men in the neighborhood having a really bad argument and about to get into a fight across the street. One of them had a knife. Dad walked over and talked them down.<\/p>\n

It would have been very easy to just close the door and pull down the shades, and say \u201cI don\u2019t want to get involved.\u201d Dad didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"dad_mom_tom_1-1000\"<\/a>
Dad, Mom, and me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But there was one more fundamental that Dad took care of: build in some time for play.<\/p>\n

Last weekend Dad and Mom went up to the Turning Stone Casino and Resort in upstate New York to see Barry Mannilow (that was mostly for Mom, though Dad had come to appreciate him too) and play some blackjack (that would be for Dad \u2014 and he came out a winner \u2014 though Mom put a few bucks in the slot machines). And they had a really wonderful time.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how he spent his last days: having fun with the woman he loved. I think that\u2019s pretty good.<\/p>\n

A lot of you here know that just a few days short of a year ago, Mom was in the hospital hanging between life and death. And I sat with Dad while Mom was in the OR. We talked some, and it was really a raw moment.<\/p>\n

And as I was thinking about telling you this, I was going say something about how I really saw his heart during that. But I realized that we all really saw his heart all the time. He was one hundred percent a genuine and sincere guy. You never had to ask yourself \u201cWhat does Mark really think about this? What is he hiding?\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a line from Confucius: \u201cSincerity is the Way of Heaven\u201d. I hope that that sincerity will stay with me and with all of us.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one more thing I want to tell you about Dad. You may have noticed this stylish necktie I\u2019m wearing. It\u2019s one of his. Yes, Dad, I\u2019m wearing a tie, it\u2019s truly a miracle. It\u2019s a print of birds. And I\u2019m wearing it in honor of Dad\u2019s feathered friends.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t just mean the Orioles and the Ravens, as big a sports fan as he was. There\u2019s one thing that Dad didn\u2019t get from his parents, that he got from Mom over the years. And that was a relationship with companion animals.<\/p>\n

\"dad_mom_g_c-1000\"<\/a>When they first got married, there was Clyde the canary. Dad would put Clyde on his finger, take him out to his Volkswagen, put him on the steering wheel, and take him for rides.<\/p>\n

Later there was Bonnie the parakeet (if you have Clyde, you have to have Bonnie). There were cockatiels and lovebirds: Jake, Elwood, Lucy, Bob. I think I\u2019m missing a couple there. Dad would talk to them, sing to them, let them hang out on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

As Dad\u2019s first close animal friend, Clyde also paved the way for dogs.<\/p>\n

When I was about a year old, Mom talked Dad into getting a beagle mix puppy, Buffy. So my brother and I grew up with dogs.<\/p>\n

And when I was about thirteen and one morning old Buffy couldn\u2019t walk anymore, it was Dad who picked him up lovingly and took him for that last ride to the vet. For my brother and me, that was our first death in the family. And seeing Dad handle it with love and compassion and gentleness was really important.<\/p>\n

And there was Kato, and Fritz, and Danny, all rescue dogs, all mutts, all loved.<\/p>\n

And because of that I went on to have dogs myself. And it\u2019s a strange thing that happened a few months ago.<\/p>\n

We had spoken on the phone just a few days before his trip, but one of the last three or four times I saw Dad face to face was in June. He was in the VA hospital and I visited him there. We talked about this and that for an hour or so. And as our conversation wound down he said, \u201cWell, you\u2019ve got a pooch at home waiting for you.\u201d I think Dad was missing Danny and so was thinking of dogs. I had a pit bull mix, Ringo, who was not quite eight years old, perfectly healthy. Dad had met him a couple of times.<\/p>\n

Well I got home, Ringo greeted me. I called Mom to update her about Dad, and went out back to get ready to mow the lawn. Ringo came out with me, was rolling around on the grass in the sunshine.<\/p>\n

And I looked over two minutes later. And without any warning or sign, Ringo had just suddenly passed away. He was gone that quick.<\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t know. Did Dad have some sense that I should go home to be with Ringo at the end? And\u2026did he have some sense that his time was coming, and knew to spend his last weekend with Mom?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always a skeptic about stuff like that \u2013 but Dad was always a believer. So he left me with a little bit of mystery.<\/p>\n

You got me, Mr. Mark.<\/p>\n

Love you, Dad.<\/p>\n

\"mom_and_dad_1-1000\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have hopes about an afterlife. I guess some of us have fears — Dad didn’t, thank goodness. His God was love, and he knew that whatever comes after could never be something to fear.<\/p>\n

What do we really know for sure about what comes after? Well…sometime, long down the road, many years from now I hope, maybe I can tell you.<\/p>\n

But whatever the truth about that, the Buddha noticed something important about our life here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1860,"featured_media":1691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[712,8,35,3],"tags":[56,796,705],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-death-and-life","category-life","category-poetry","category-zen","tag-death","tag-mark-swiss","tag-suzanne-swiss"],"yoast_head":"\nA Eulogy For My Father, Mark Swiss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We have hopes about an afterlife. I guess some of us have fears -- Dad didn't, thank goodness. 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