eulogy

i decided in the spirit of full disclosure to post the eulogy i delivered this morning during my father's hong kong funeral ceremony. i don't know exactly why i'm doing this. for some reason i feel that this is such a private matter that i really shouldn't publicize it. but on the other hand, i wanted those who read this blog to know how much my father meant to me.

i don't think i've ever told any of my friends about these stories, at least i don't remember ever telling them. it was cathartic being able to think about my father, my daddy, in terms of my childhood instead of my father during my teenage/adult years. many people know that i didn't necessarily have the best of relationships with my father. but i guess death can make you forget about the bad times and make you concentrate on the good ones.

i have to say that the ceremony was brilliant. it wasn't flashy, just the way my father lived his life. but it was respectful and solemn, exactly the way my father lived his life. so i think he would have been proud of what he saw today. i have to thank my sister for working so hard to put it all together. my sister and i are two very different people with very different personalities. but in the end, we are of one blood and we are family, nothing will change that.

it was a rough night last night. i finished the final version of the eulogy at around 3am. couldn't really sleep. not because i was nervous, but more because... well, let's put it this way: i don't think one experiences one's father's funeral very often. so at about 7am, i woke up and got ready to go to the hospital with my mother to meet with my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and father choy, who was a friend of my father's.

if you've never had to identify a person/body, it's really the worst experience you could have in your life. whether it is a child/parent/friend/spouse, it's just not right. given that i was the son of the family, i had the obligation of identifying my father's corpse and claiming it for his funeral. (even writing this now, it's almost surreal. logically, i know my father's dead, but it's almost like my mind doesn't want to believe it.) my mother and sister suggested that my brother-in-law should go with me to identify my father because it is better to have the support. so we went into the morgue and identified/claimed my father's body.

something i hope i will never have to do again in my life. after the morticians put on the clothes we had provided for my father and some make-up, we went into a little alcove next to the morgue and father choy said a little prayer and sprinkled a little bit of holy water on my father's body (which was laying next to his coffin, covered with a white cloth with a gold cross on it) and his coffin. after the prayer, the morticians put my father in the coffin and loaded him into the hearse.

my sister and i rode with my father, while my brother-in-law drove my mother and father choy to a little chapel located below the crematorium. there, about 20 friends and family members waited for us. the ceremony was very beautiful. my sister and i gave our respective eulogies and then they once again loaded us up in the hearse and drove up the hill to the crematorium. there was also a bus for the friends and family members to ride up to the crematorium with us.

at the crematorium, father choy said a little prayer and after he and i sprinked more holy water on my father's coffin, i went up to the podium and pressed a little button to send my father off to be cremated. we then took everyone out to a reception as with tradition. i was very happy with the ceremony, as with my mother and sister. it was good. my father would have liked it.

My Father's Eulogy (7th of June, 2006)

Good morning, everyone.

Similar to what my sister had said earlier, I would like to express my gratitude to you all for being here today on this solemn occasion. As I look into the crowd that is gathered here in this chapel, I am glad to see a number of familiar faces--ones that I haven't seen in a long time, and some new ones as well.

So on behalf of my family, thank you for being here.

For the past week, I have been wrecking my brain trying to figure out how to deliever a befitting eulogy for my father. Slowly, I came to the realization that words can not describe what an amazing individual that he was and the incredible life that he had lived. So, instead, I would like to share with you some stories about my father that I will remember him by.

My earliest recollection of my father was when I was five years old, suffering from a kidney infection. I remember him buying me a toy robot while I was in the hospital because the boy in the next bed had one... and I wanted one as well. It was just like Dad, he didn't settle for just any toy robot. He got me the biggest and best one. When it came to his family, my father never just settled for anything. He always strived to give us the best.

He had incredible discipline too. I remember my mother telling me that when I was sick and was on a strict diet, which meant very little salt and a lot of bland meals, my father decided he would also go on a similar diet... so he can suffer along with me. Of course, he demanded that the whole family do the same, but my mother and sister would sneak into the kitchen to add a little bit os soy sauce on their food. But not my father. That was how strong-willed he was. No salt, not until his son was healthy again. And in hindsight, I can not begin to tell you how grateful I am to him for doing so.

It was also around this time that I remember making him sit with me after my mid-day nap and forcing him to take copious notes from a cooking show that we would watch together. Maybe it was because of the bland meals I was forced to eat, but I really loved watching that show. And Dad being Dad, he would take down the ingredients and the cooking instructions just to make me happy. I can't remember if my parents actually used any of the recipes, but that was not important... just knowing my Dad was there for me was enough.

And he continued to be there for me even after we moved to the United States. I remember him helping me with many of my homework assignments, especially in junior high and high school. He was an incredibly smart man. And no, he never did graduate from college, but boy, was he ever smart. From solving extra credit geometry questions to building the Pyramid of Giza from clay... I could not have done all that without him. Once, when i was in high school, he even found a mistake in one of my history textbooks about Chiang Kai-Shek. Of course, as my homework began to get more complicated, the less he was able to help. But I remember that didn't stop him (and Mom) from staying up with me all night putting together a project I had for my Advance Placement history class.

That's how important education was to my father. It was a mantra he would recite to us constantly. "Education is the key to success," he would say. They can take away your money, you house, your car, but they can never take away your knowledge. With knowledge you can do anything and have everything.

Sure there were times when my father and I didn't see eye to eye. No, not when his son had assimilated into the American culture. Not when his son wanted to have fun with his friends rather than to study all the time. And not when his son decided to postpone going to graduate school for five years more than he would have liked. However, he never gave up on me regardless of what I did.

And that's why I love my father so much and how difficult it is for me to see him go. I knew that he loved me, more than a person could possibly love another human being. He rarely said it though, but I knew. I saw it in his worried eyes when I had my kidney infection and when I broke my collarbone in junior high. I saw how excited and proud he was when I received my acceptance letter from UCLA eight years ago. And I sensed it too when I told him that I was going back to get my masters degree at USC.

I hope he knew that I loved him too. I rarely said it though, but I think he knew. So as difficult as it is to say goodbye to this incredible individual who was both a loving husband and wonderful father, we should take solace in the fact that he is no longer suffering in pain and that he is in a much better place now. He will always be in our hearts and his legacy will continue to live on through my mother, my sister, my nephew, and myself.

Dad, I love you and thank you for everything.

so there. that's what i told my relatives and my parents' friends how i felt about my father. but more importantly, that's what i told my father. i hope he could hear me wherever he is... up there in the great beyond.