Yale Class of 1963 - 50th Reunion - 2013

"Eulogies to the Living"

under construction

Our Remembrances of living Classmates

Eulogy defined..

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A eulogy (from εὐλογία, eulogia, Classical Greek for "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person(s) or thing(s), especially one recently dead or retired or a term of endearment.

Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. They take place in a funeral home during or after a wake. However, some denominations either discourage or do not permit eulogies at services to maintain respect for traditions.

Eulogies can also praise people who are still alive. This normally takes place on special occasions like birthdays etc. Eulogies should not be confused with elegies, which are poems written in tribute to the dead; nor with obituaries, which are published biographies recounting the lives of those who have recently died; nor with obsequies, which refer generally to the rituals surrounding funerals. Catholic priests are prohibited by the rubrics of the Mass from presenting a eulogy for the deceased in place of a homily during a funeral Mass.

Eulogies are usually delivered by a family member or a close family friend in the case of a dead person.

On occasions, eulogies are given to those who are severely ill or elderly in order to express words of love and gratitude before they pass away.

Organization and Intent:

Dear Jon,

Congratulations on creating another way we can make sure that "time does not avail" to break the friendships formed at Yale!

I agree that we should use the time we have--today and in the days to come--to share our appreciation for our friends and loved ones. And, of course, on this site especially those friendships made in New Haven--that unique place and time and continued, deepened and expanded so miraculously over so many decades now.

These would be Eulogies for the Living.

And I have to say, Jon, today how much I appreciate your labor of love in making sure the story of our Class and all our stories are told in so many ways. You have helped create through all these different threads of shared experiences a kind of harmonious tapestry of our history.

Thank you Jon for your creativity, your incredible labor of love in making sure our time together has been recorded--now in many ways forever.

Here's to your great idea, Jon, of a way to use our time at this time to celebrate the lives of those we love and the friendships that time cannot break!

Gates

P.S.

I also appreciated your last paragraph with kind comments about me. This is a demonstration of the positive power of such timely sharing!!

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From: Jon Larson <jon_larson@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Jun 3, 2014 8:42 pmm
Subject: The "Living" In Memoriam...

Gentlemen,

With the recent attention to adding the In Memoriam section to our web site and the recent email chatter about our 50th In Memoriam Service and what would be most appropriate at future reunions, and with the email that arrived this morning copied below, Gates presents me with the perfect entrée and impetus to advance a proposal I have thought about for a long time, "The Living In Memoriam." I have already discussed this with some of you.

I have reflected long over the years regarding the many and unfortunately increasing number of memorial services I have and am attending for friends and family.

I sit there, usually in a church pew, and listen to so many wonderful things being said about old Fred, Harriet, Sam, Karen, Bob and others.   Loved family members and loved friends spew forth with absolutely insightful and endearing memories regarding what a great person has just passed. Good father, loyal husband, the best grandfather in the world, the best employee I ever had, the world is smaller now that he has passed on, I remember when.....   and on and on, wonderful things about the recently departed.

And then I am left after thinking, gee, don't you think old Fred or Harriet or Sam or Karen or Bob would perhaps have liked to hear some of these many wonderful things when he or she was still here with us and could really savor and appreciate and use them..

We started in 1963 with close to 1040 of us including several who stayed an extra year and others who left us early to move on to other pursuits felt more important at the time. With 865 of us still living in various stages of good health and fortune, and using straight line projections for 25 years out, we will lose 34 of us every year. In actuality it will be skewed towards the back end, but we still end up at the same place after the last man standing turns out the lights and leaves. That certainly will not be me the way I have abused my health over the years with excess weight, a driven life style, and making too many risks and stress added choices.

Each of us should take the time, when an admired or loved one is still here with us, to compose and deliver his or her In Memoriam ahead of time, saying all of the things we would plan to say at the service for his or her passing, but said now while that person can reflect upon, cherish, appreciate and internalize the good things that folks have come to believe about that person, those unique customs, quirks, attitudes, loyalties, expressions, and humanity endowing achievements that came from successes and a life well intended for sure, but also from sharing human mistakes and failures in the past.

I always planned to start this in my family with my own father, and had composed his In Memoriam for the next trip to Honolulu to visit he and Mom at Arcadia, where I could deliver it in person, probably on the golf course of the Oahu Country Club up Nuuanu or over coffee at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki where we often had breakfast when I visited. Being an old Swede, an engineer by training, and very tight with his emotions, I knew it would be difficult for him and myself, but something I just knew he would appreciate later. Dad never solicited nor did he ever receive many plaudits and attaboys and thanks and unconditional expressions of love from his hard working Swedish immigrant parents nor his hard driven work at Hawaiian Electric where he worked to support his family. So I knew my words would be well received.

And then I got the call here at home. "Your father was just taken to Straub Hospital, he might have had a stroke, and you had best get out here immediately." So I took the first flight out of San Francisco in the morning, clutched my In Memoriam love letter I had planned to deliver to Dad, and practiced and improved it on the airplane going out. But alas, I did not get the chance to deliver it. So many wonderful things about my Dad I wanted to tell him, including four words I had never been able to say to him, "Dad, I love you." When I arrived at the hospital at 11am, he was already semi-conscious, and he passed that evening with no words exchanged between us. I read the words of course, at his service in Atherton Chapel at Central Union Church several weeks later, but as I read them I kept thinking if only I could have delivered them in person while he was still here.

As the years march on, many of us are going to be in this position with loved ones, and they eventually will be in the same position with each of us. How nice it would be to be able to sit in on our own funeral service and hear the wonderful things people have to say about us.   Each of us will be very surprised to know how much we are loved and our efforts appreciated. Maybe we can teach them to be able to tell us how much they love and appreciate us now while we are still here and can appreciate it. Let's invent a way for this to happen.

With your advice and consent, I propose we add a section to our www.yale63.org web site of "Living In Memoriams", notes to individuals of us from classmates, and Gates has so wonderfully created a model for us to follow. Genuine, reminiscent, specific reminders of what a great colleague Hank has been to so many of us over the years, and thanks for his many achievements and contributions and what they meant to the recipient.

I am thinking out loud here, without processing. But Gates has presented me with too good an opportunity to pass up regarding introducing the idea of our developing a "Living In Memoriam" we can all share with and about each other. I have at least ten of these already lined up about you guys, so get ready. Like between Dad and I, this is not going to be easy, especially for Yale men of our generation. But I think we can get it going and it will become easier for each of us to contribute over time.

And a special thanks to Gates for doing what he does so well and has done his entire life, open doors and turn on lights and share intimacies so that others can see and learn and be encouraged, with eloquence of communication and writing skills and speaking talents that we all have come to envy.

Please advise,
All the best,
Jon

cc: Yale Council

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From: writermgg@aol.com
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 09:40:14 -0400

HI Hank,

For some reason I have a feeling that today is your Birthday!   So: Happy Birthday!   And if not, please let me say how much your birth has meant to me--and all our Yale Classmates.

You have truly been a loyal blue.

Yesterday I was in New Haven visiting an old blue named Joe Fox. I think he might have managed the football team for the class of 1938. In any case, he is 98 now and is in the Whitney old folks home--where good Yalies go when they get old.

Being together again at almost exactly this time last year--talking late into the night with you and Larry Gwin and so many other old and new friends reminded me how young--relatively-- you and we still are.

And how much you have given to all of us in your sense of youthful energy and commitment to making sure that "friends made at Yale" stay that way throughout their lives.

I always think of you smiling a happy welcome whether I saw you in NYC or LA or, of course, most of all at your beloved Yale and our class gatherings! But, speaking of Joe Fox and football, I also know how much your dedication--even devotion--to Yale football and making sure the friendships built at the Yale Bowl have continue through the years. Today I am in Norfolk Connecticut where Dave Mawicke also now lives, brought here--in some sense--because of a football reunion you organized for that undefeated team. I could go on and on about all you have done.

Enough to say: Thanks for sharing your love for Yale and friends made there, Hank, in such a way that you brought us all along to enjoy this lifelong experience.

Happy Birthday whenever it is, and wherever you are!

Gates

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