Big Fat Irish Funeral
Today, as I got myself ready , I did as I would do everyday and turned on Pandora. The very first song that came on was, Cary Hudson, "Little Darlin." I've heard this song a number of times, but the words never spoke to me until today. "Hush little baby don't you cry, daddy's gonna teach you how to fly a kite...Little Darlin' don't you cry." The song went on and I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "You can do this. You've got this." And then, in a blink, like most mornings, my comic relief appeared!! I swear I couldn't make up my life stories even if I tried. What would I do without my boys? As I'm holding back tears, having a semi-serious moment with oneself, this is what I am faced with. Not a challenge in my eyes, but in the eyes of a four year old, major challenge. "Mommy, I can't find my pants."
Really? How can you not just love this face? We certainly can't show up to the funeral home like this!! Batman shirt, Tom & Jerry boxer briefs and pink and blue argyle socks. In the background you can hear the Star Spangled Banner being sung by the tune of a 6 year olds developing pitch. I look through the kitchen to see Tripp waving the small flag that I got for his brother and him to be placed with Granddad at the burial. But he is walking around, scratch that. He was marching around the living room, waving the flag high in the air (knowing good and well that he is trying to hit the ceiling fan), singing the anthem, with mid bites of a toaster strudel. Then, on cue, Baxter yelled, "Mommy, mommy come here! Quick, come here!" Terrified, I darted back to his room and he is standing there in the same get up, with his hand to his heart and says wide eyed in the biggest four year old elation, "My heart is beaping! It really is beaping." "Buddy, I wasn't there for your pacemaker, so it should only be beating." Tripp, comes back and says, "It's 98 degrees, mommy." "Yea right, buddy, and I'm still 25. Good try, put your long sleeve shirt on." "No, really, it's 98 degrees." Sure enough, the 90s boy band was on the Today show on the TV. Oh my, where is my sippy cup with a mimosa so I can officially look myself in the mirror, hold up the glass and and say, "Cheers. I can do this. WE can do this."
As we headed into town, there it was. Our balloon. Now, I'm smart enough to know that this was not some kind of sign from Granddad. We haven't seen the balloon in months with the winter weather and it was so fitting to see the balloon, my constant reminder at times that everything will eventually be all right, to just keep going and it will fall in place at the right moment.
As we approached the funeral home, I realized that the boys think this is a party. Day number two of seeing our family and getting dressed up. No cake last night, so there has got to be cake somewhere with all these aunts that typically feed us, right? When do we get dressed up to be sad? Exactly. Never. Quick time out for a huddle to regroup and refocus. As you can see, they are about to play red rover red there in front of the funeral home. This momma is not Comin on over.
After the burial, the whole McIlwee crew headed home to Mom & Dads for Beer, BBQ, and apparently Babies. They were everywhere! It was perfectly loud!! Family scattered all over the house, kids running in and out of the house leaving doors open. Tell jokes, horrible jokes and laughing at memories. The 2nd generation has now turned into the table that tells, "Oh did you hear about ______?" or "I read in the paper about _________." Third generation talking about jobs, vacations, latest electronics, and of course, Virginia Tech football. With the 4th, we all experienced deja vu as we saw ourselves in our children in what we loved to do as children. Play, make messes, get spoiled rotten, and crash hard by the end of the night.
Goal for Tripper
Jen & I. Closest thing to a sister that I have. We grew up right next to each other for 15 years.
The Grand & Great Grandkids
Today is done. Tomorrow is another day. Thank God. Tomorrow we will wake up and life will go on. And as the Beatles sing it best, O-bla-di, o-bla-da, life goes on, brah!...Lala how the life goes on.
Many of you have asked for a copy of the eulogy that I gave today. Here is a copy of the words.
My eulogy for my grandfather:
Good afternoon. For those of you that may not know me, my name is Amy, Doug’s daughter. I am one of Eugene’s nine grandchildren. Many of you are here to honor a man that you knew as a father, a friend, a neighbor, a cousin, or maybe a fellow farmer at the Stock sale. But to me and the other grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren – Eugene was known simply as Granddad.
It is an honor to be here before you. An honor to have the opportunity to give my family words of peace and encouragement. And it is a pleasure to share with you my story of this extraordinary man. But it is daunting to do justice to a life that spanned almost 91 years. I don’t know enough about the whole of Granddad’s life, but I, along with my cousins and brother, have had the greatest of luck to be his grandchildren, and I can tell you what it was like to know Eugene McIlwee as a grandfather and one of the hardest working farmers we knew and loved.
And really, is there any better title that can be bestowed upon a man than Granddad? Okay, maybe since I am looking at my two children, the 4th generation, how about the title, Great Granddaddy?
It is almost impossible to think of Granddad without also thinking of Grandma and the home that they shared for 66 years. It has been just a little more than six years since we lost her, and yet, the strength of their bond – both as a loving couple and as supportive grandparents – it gives me strength to stand up in front of you today to know that he is at “home” with her.
It’s tough to admit it, but when Grandma was still with us, Granddad often faded into the background. And I’m pretty sure he liked it that way. He was a farmer who wanted peace & quiet to watch his beloved Orioles play on Sunday afternoons, but that often fell short as we ran past him to use the bathroom. If we left the back room door open, he would only speak up to say, “Shut that cockeyed door. I feel a breeze coming through here.” He was a simple man. He wore suspenders on his jeans and flannel and long underwear even in the hottest days in the summer. And if there was a family function, well, you could usually find him in his chair back at the house watching a sporting event, eating Vienna Sausages and of course, …drinking a Budweiser.
He took us on rides through the fields on his four wheeler. For the grandsons there was deer hunting, fishing, butchering, and bailing hay. For the granddaughters, it was the playful pinch of your knee, or a “punch” in your arm that went along with his signature laugh to toughen you up like the boys. Sure, he gave us hugs and received our kisses, but he generally left the nurturing and cuddling, the game playing and storytelling, to Grandma.
We have missed Grandma immensely over the last 6 years, but with her passing came a blessing of the most unexpected sort. For perhaps the first time, Granddad found himself without a buffer of communication between him and his family and let us not forget, a buffer between him and his stomach. For I said on Thursday afternoon, he lived six more years than I thought he would because I thought he would have starved to death without her cooking. Aunt Shelby laughed and said, “It was then that he learned how to eat and survive like an 80 year old college student.”
And so it was that now adults, some with our own children, we found ourselves building new relationships with him. I can’t recall a time that Grandma wasn’t frying something in the cast iron skillet, cooking beans on the wood stove, or baking bread after the dough had risen. When you would stop in to visit, she immediately would start warming something up to feed you. That was how she showed her love. After Grandma passed away, he found another love. Turning wood into beautiful boxes of all shapes and sizes. When you would visit Granddad, you didn’t just visit him down at the house. You had to see the latest new project in the Box Shop. Just as Grandma showed her love with feeding you, Granddad showed his love through making things for you out wood. During his 90th birthday party last July, while everyone was sitting around enjoying the beautiful breeze under the trees, Granddad got up, started up the 4-wheeler, and went up to the barn. Five minutes later, he came down with boxes for the great grandchildren as they climbed all over his 4-wheeler.
Since 2007, “Grandma’s House” turned into “Granddad’s House.” It has just been Granddad rocking solo on the front porch where they shared so many evenings over the years watching whoever it was, “go up the road.” He had a sweet tooth bigger than any of the kids and that you could always find something good to eat right on the couch! How the chocolate did not melt in the 100 degree room is still a mystery to me.
He was not a man to show affection. But you knew when it was time to say goodbye to him, it was through his words that you knew how much that visit meant to him when he would look at you, and say, “You come back and visit, okay?”
Every one of us has wonderful memories that we will treasure and pass on to generations to come. No matter which grandchild you were, whether you grew up one or two houses down and saw him every day, or saw him on our traditional Sunday afternoon dinners with a competitive family game of whiffle ball, Granddad had the uncanny ability to make you feel important in his life, silently cheering for each of us to find happiness and success.
It was the smallest of moments that Granddad truly made you feel special. I hope I never forget the way he said my name. I would walk in, poke my head around the corner and I would hear, “Well, hellooooooo there, Amos!” There was a ring in his voice and a smile on his face that left no doubt in your mind that, at least for that moment, you were the center of his world.
And it wasn’t just with us. He did the same with the great grandchildren. Even at the age of 90, he knew exactly who you were and what you were involved in, and it’s the little touches like that that make you feel important – especially in a big family.
Granddad served our country during World War II. His time in the service was sparse compared to his nine decades. Yet it was undoubtedly one of the most defining chapters of his life. I don’t know a lot of details about what he experienced during that time, but I could bet there were days when he thought his life would end in war rather than with his five children by his side years later.
I‘ve often wondered if Granddad had any idea how his future would play out after he returned home. Did he imagine 66 wonderful years with Alma Herbaugh, raising five children? Children, who following his ethics of hard work and strong morals, would go on to success in their own lives and raise their own amazing families.
Could he have imagined that his family would grow to include 9 grandchildren – fairly causing his small farmhouse to burst at the seams with our laughter and camaraderie on Sunday afternoons and holidays?
Could he have possibly imagined that he would live to experience the first 9 of his great grandchildren? That in the last years of his life, his greatest joy would be to sit on his front porch, a smile on his face, watching the kids play in his front yard - just as he had watched the two generations before them do the same.
The past three months have been hard leading up to the past week watching Granddad physically leave us. There has been sadness and tears and we are all feeling the emptiness of a home that will no longer see Granddad eating his Pringles or Three Musketeers bars in a living room that proudly displayed seventy years of photos of a life well lived.
But to my cousins and siblings, to my parents, my aunts, and my uncle, to my boys – you have only to look around you right now. Look at what Granddad McIlwee gave us. It is this family. This beautiful family is his legacy – every one of us – are part of it. How did we all get so damn lucky?
And should you find yourself missing Granddad today…well, I won’t name names, but there are a few apples in every generation of this family that didn’t fall very far from the tree. Go sit by them. I promise you…you will feel better.
To my grandfather, I have just one last thing to say – it’ll be a little while, but we will come back and visit, okay? I know that at this very moment, you are driving your sweetheart on your Massey-Ferguson around the farms of heaven. Try to enjoy the peace and quiet while you can, cause when we all get up there with you two…well, you know how loud it can get. Send Grandma our love and tell her I miss her Strawberry pie tremendously. And last, never forget just how much you mean to us.
I love you. Rest peacefully. You deserve it more than ANY man I know.
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