Eulogy for dad

If you ever rode in my father's truck, you know two things: the radio was always on the ballgame, and you were not allowed to change it.

I'm Jessica, Ray's daughter. On behalf of my mom, my brother and our families, thank you for coming, and thank you to the men from his union local who carried him in today. He would have liked that.

Dad was born in Gary, Indiana, and worked as an electrician for forty-one years. He wired half the houses on the east side of this town. He liked to say that every time you flip a switch around here, there's a fifty-fifty chance you should thank him.

He was not a talker. When I was a teenager, I thought that meant he didn't have much to say. I was wrong. He just said it differently.

When I was sixteen, I got my first job, at a diner across town, working the late shift. Every night I worked, for two years, my father's truck was in the parking lot at eleven o'clock. He never came in. He never said he was worried. He sat there with the ballgame on until I came out, and he drove behind me all the way home.

Years later, I asked him why he never just said he was worried. He shrugged and said, "I'd rather be there than say it."

That was my father. He'd rather be there.

He was there for my mother through forty-six years of marriage and three hospital stays of hers, never once complaining. He was there for his grandkids at every game, in the same folding chair. He was there for neighbors with a flashlight when the power went out, which, as he pointed out, was never his wiring.

He leaves us a lot of good wiring, and a family that knows how to show up without being asked.

Dad, the game's on. I'm not changing the station. Thank you for driving behind me all those years. I'll take it from here.

Dad drove a delivery truck for thirty years. He was never late, he never complained, and he knew every dog on his route by name. He taught us that there is no small job done carefully.

Dad had rules for everything. Never pass a lemonade stand. Always shake hands like you mean it. And never, under any circumstances, pay full price for a grill.

My father wasn't always the man you knew. He would be the first to tell you he made mistakes when he was young. But he spent the last twenty-five years becoming the grandfather our children adored, and that took more courage than anything.

Dad served in the Army from 1968 to 1970. He did not talk about it often. What he did talk about was the men he served with, and he called three of them every Veterans Day for fifty years.

The last thing Dad told me, a week ago, was "Check your oil." It was classic Dad. I'll check it, Dad. Every month. I love you.