Eulogy - July 19th, 2021
I am so glad you all are here today to give him the big funeral I know he would have wanted. I am so sorry you are here so soon.
It’s worth taking a moment, after trying to take a few deep breaths over the weekend, to thank everyone for reading. There are a million ‘thank yous’ to go around, but a particularly impossible and disorienting thing about my dad’s funeral was the people who came up to me and shared their stories of my dad — and how they connected with the things I’d written down in grief. Perhaps the most validating and sanity-bringing experience of the past two+ weeks is knowing that this big man who I so idolized was seen in that same radiant light by so many other people.
He would’ve gotten a real kick out of the idea of a priest reading stories about his life. He would’ve loved to see all the people — from all walks of life, and from all epochs of his time on earth — that came out.
My sister and I gave the eulogy at my dad’s funeral. It ran about eight minutes. You can watch it by skipping to 1:26:35. I’m also sharing the essay-version of it below.
One note: As I continue to think on and write down stories of my dad’s life and my family’s experience with grief, I’m going to effort to send something out on this blog every weekday. Hopefully it gives some structure to the processing, some guidance to the grief.
Again, 1:26:35 for the eulogy, or read below:
Eulogy for Michael Joseph O’Malley
Bridget Rose O’Malley:
Thank you all for being here today as we celebrate the too-short life of my father, Michael Joseph O’Malley.
Just six years ago, my father wrote a eulogy for his mother’s funeral. As many of you know, my father embraced his Irish-American identity and was proud of his upbringing in one of Boston’s tight-knit immigrant enclaves. At his mother’s funeral, my dad lamented that the big gathering that celebrated her life might be the last of its kind; as the families he was raised with assimilated and older generations died off, the bonds of his childhood neighborhood began to fade. Without that kind of tight-knit community, my father imagined the days of laypeople having funerals with hundreds of attendees were over.
I am so glad you all are here today to give him the big funeral I know he would have wanted. I am so sorry you are here so soon.
When my father wrote eulogies, he wrote histories. So, here is a brief history of Mike O’Malley:
Like many children of his generation, my father spent his early days running wild: he played street hockey and basketball in addition to participating in risible activities. From this rough-and-tumble youth my father gained his hustle and his strength. If my bedtime stories were any indication, he had a great childhood.
Somewhere in my father’s somewhat mysterious 20s, he learned to be vulnerable, and to reflect. For some people, living their passions is a choice. For my father it was a necessity. Five times, he tried to go to law school. Five times, he started strong and failed to finish the first semester. My father needed his passion — he needed to teach.
He also needed my mother, who he was tricked into meeting by mutual friends. My mother remembers my thirty-year-old father as a quiet, sensitive doorman with a voracious appetite for books. This was the beginning of their love story.
My parents traveled to South Carolina and later the Pacific Northwest where my brother and I were born. After his final, ill-fated, law school attempt, my father settled into a teaching career. With my mother and teaching, my father blossomed into the best combination of his childhood and 20s selves. He became a sensitive man with the charm of a ruffian. Most importantly: he was happy.
I was born a few years into my father’s teaching career. The father who raised me was a joyous man who lived every day of his life in awe of his good fortune. He sang love songs to my mother, enjoyed collecting knowledge, loved Oregon, loved his students, and loved being a dad.
With my mother’s help, my father found an unusual path in life that suited him perfectly. He may not have lived a long life, but he lived fully.
Daddy, I miss you. I love you. And I aspire to live my life as passionately, lovingly, and intellectually as you did. Thanks for everything.
…
Emmett Joseph O’Malley:
Dear Dad,
This is the last time we’ll ever be in a room together.
And what a room it is. You’d love it. You’d see all the faces of those people who carry little pieces of you with them. You’d be with Mom, with me, with Bridget, with everyone. You’d be smiling, thinking back to the good times in Galway, Dorchester, Quincy, Cambridge, Westminster, Olympia, Albany, Corvallis, and you’d be marveling at what you’d done. You built a life by sticking to your principles, and cheerfully churning through the work those principles guided you to. Along the way, you mentored generations of passionate, caring people. And every single one of us here today — all of us that you knew and loved — is better for it.
Dear Dad,
I was in awe of everything about you. And now that you’re gone, that awe can never cease.
*Boston Accent*: “What are we so in awe of, anyway?” you’d say, in a self-deprecating attempt to ease the pain of those of us in this room.
And we would answer: it was the way you listened; or: it was the way you made me laugh; or: it was the way you cared; or: it was the way you knew.
Because you did, Dad. You just knew.
Dear Dad,
You always said that we should live our lives as if every single thing we did were to become a universal law. You cited Kant. And what made you a role model to so many was the fact that you built an entire life out of a passion for caring and learning — an entire life out of a belief that if we all pursued our passions, if we all cared, then the universe would be a better place.
And when talking about how you were able to connect with so many students from so many backgrounds, you said, “They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." I’ll say that again because it is so quintessentially you, "They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."
That was you, Dad.
Dear Dad,
You always said that to live life fully, you had to live on both ends of the spectrum simultaneously. I don’t remember who you cited. I don’t think you do either. And I think you made it up.
As I have thought about all your dualities these past two weeks — all of the things you did simultaneously: serious but silly, formidable but gentle, brilliant but humble, charismatic but solitudinal, a citizen of the world but a family man— I can’t help but think about the duality of your life’s closing: A final duality in which you not only lived — but died — on both ends of the spectrum simultaneously…
You are lifeless in a coffin, but so very alive in every single person you engaged with and changed over the decades...
You are gone from this world, and yet you gave your whole self to it.
Dear Dad,
You spent your life giving parts of yourself away to make those around you better. And you did.
So what would you tell everyone here today? What would you tell me, as I stare down the rest of my life without you?
You’d tell us to feel our feelings, to pursue our passions, to care about the world around us, to cherish those closest to us, to work hard, and to live every single day like it was our last.
Well, Dad.
It’s your last. And I guess we’re lucky enough to have experienced thousands of your days — thousands of days that you lived like you’d never get them again.
And now, together, we’re experiencing the real One. The One Last Day in which you are with us all in a room.
Henceforth, you will only be with us in our hearts.
Dear Dad,
We love you so much. Take care. Tog go reidh é. We love you. Goodbye.
…...
Eulogy - July 19th, 2021
It was an absolutely beautiful celebration of his life, Emmett. I was so fortunate to be able to watch from afar, and I was impressed with both Bridget and your eulogies, and with the priest who did such a beautiful job as well. It was such a fitting tribute.
Your blog is raw, honest, easy to read and easy to relate to. Thank you for writing. You have an amazing gift, and your Dad would be/is immensely proud.