The eulogy I read at my father’s funeral.

My father would often say, “there are people that I like, but I don’t like people.” In the past week I have received numerous condolences and offers of support from family, colleagues and friends. Clearly, there were a lot of people that he liked, and in turn, that liked him. As stoically as he presented himself, he was a compassionate man who cared about us all.

I work in Web Operations, a particularly stressful field of Information Technology. The ability to remain calm and clear during a service outage is a valuable and respected personality trait in my industry. I exude this, as did my father. We have very much in common and we grew to have an understanding with each other as to how we lived our lives. I am my father’s son.

Dad said that our family was one of “tremendous strengths, but great weaknesses.” He accomplished tremendous things. They were often not easy roads, but he persevered and lived his life as best he could. He did not complain; fault his problems on the gods or on other people. Neither did he sulk and blame himself for his situation. He accepted his own lot and chose his own way. I’m very grateful that he raised me to be the same.

I wrecked a fair number of cars in my youth. It wasn’t that I was a reckless driver, but I was living too hard and that had unfortunate consequences for the cars. After one incident, dad said to me, “it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong, it’s just that there is something that you’re not doing right.” That was all he said. He left it to me to consider and correct. He had a unique ability to teach others with his silence.

He was very successful in his career and craft. He was highly regarded as an instructor and mentor due to his great skill and natural patience. Yet, he was a simple and humble man. He would captain a $15 million dollar jet one day, then come home and cut firewood the next.

I take great personal pride in coming from a long line of hard working people. My father worked to support his family because he loved us. He did, as he would say, “what he had to do.” There was no long explanation for the meaning behind this. It was not an excuse for his behavior, nor was it a chip on his shoulder representing the sacrifices he made. I was raised to understand this, that some things must simply be done and there is no point stewing over them.

My father lived as this man. I thank you all for coming today to pay respect to him.