Thursday, July 7, 2016

My Dad

RONALD NEUWIRTH – tribute, 6/30/2016

Dad intensely loved life. I’m certain that was the message he would have wanted us to take away today as we remember his life.

With his soft voice and gentle manner, Dad sought out strong, life-affirming moments.

Sometimes they were about nature. I don’t think many people knew this side of him, but every time we were in Long Island, Dad would insist on going to the ocean, even if only for a few minutes. I don’t think I understood at the time, but as I’ve remembered over the last days, I appreciate that Dad really sought out awe. He would walk along the sand, looking at the powerful Atlantic waves, the wilder, the better.

He dreamed of going to the Hebrides, the lonely islands off of England. The closest we got was Nova Scotia, on a father-daughter trip for his 70th birthday. He loved the bed and breakfasts, the quaint restaurants, the farmland, but what he was most excited about was the untamed landscapes and the whales.

He looked for excitement in New York too and he knew all the best places, from Sardi’s to the Algonquin to McSorley’s. He showed me a speakeasy once in the Village and for the life of me I can’t remember the name or the location anymore – he was certainly my ticket. 

Dad was a romantic, he was a poet. The editor of the Southampton Press was kind enough to put together some of the poetry he published in that paper for us, and my son will read one poem after this. His favorite story was J.D. Salinger’s – For Esme with Love and Squalor, about a little girl with grown up words and loving ways, who reminds me of our daughter.

He loved folk music – it hit all of his registers – words, melodies, social conscience. As a kid he used to take me to concerts all the time, and I remember finding them nice but vaguely embarrassing. When I got older, I realized of course that seeing Arlo Guthrie or Pete Seeger perform wasn’t that uncool at all.

Dad loved words – the way they were able to capture and hold still a moment, the way they sounded, their multiple meanings. By the way, that was the basis of all his jokes – the double meanings of words, and it’s not a skill he passed on to me. Last night, my son was telling joke after joke from one of my dad’s books and had to stop and explain each and every one to his mom. So maybe it has skipped a generation. Let’s hope so.

He had a lot of stories- this was one about words. When he was Business Editor at the NYU paper, he was in charge of selling advertising. In order to encourage people to look at the ads, he had a creative idea -- starting a misspelled word contest in the paper; if you found the word, you’d get a prize. Hundreds of people responded, so it was a great success, just one problem. There wasn’t just one misspelled word, there were a whole bunch of them, so it turned out not that economical - they had to give out a lot of prizes.

And of course, Dad loved what words – and stories, and games – do – which is to help us to find our way to other people. In this day of distractions, multitasking, omnipresent phones, Dad was like an antidote. He was all about making the most of those moments we have together.

It didn’t matter if Dad was with people of totally different ages, backgrounds, interests… he had an incredible ability to connect. I have spoken with many people who knew him in recent days, and I’ve been so moved to understand how much even peripheral relationships he had were meaningful and mattered. Even if he only had a few minutes with someone, those were really human moments and they helped make people’s days and also lit up his life.

Of course, I was so fortunate to have  – along with my children – his most intense love, his worry and care and dreams. One of the things I liked most was watching him watch my kids. He had that uncanny ability to just sit back and enjoy, appreciate, to feel with them, find them beautiful and funny and amazing.

I want to thank you all so much for being here. In Jewish tradition, Tikkun Olan is the gathering together of pieces of shattered holiness in an effort to repair the world. Over these last intense days, I feel like I have been so lucky to glimpse pieces of my father that reside in many of you, it has been a great comfort to collect them and to hope that they at the same time stay with you too, and in that way, though I miss him dearly, he is still here, connecting us.

Thank you – my colleagues and friends – so many people from JDC. It means so much that you are here and that I can share this with you. 

To my Dad’s friends at Habonim and CBST, to family friends, to his very dear friends and our family  – I am so grateful for your care for Dad, for the long talks, the beers, and the memories. To Rabbi Kleinbaum – Dad was so inspired by you and I am so thankful that you are with us through this time.

To Karsten, my mom, and my children – your love was sustaining for him and it is for me.

May his memory be a blessing. 

POEM
Joy Personified
No recession could erode the strong silken ocean waves,
Lovely, shining, dancing powers that be.
As we skipped securely along a still vibrant universe's edge.
My 4-year-old grandson; joy personified- (& me) along the sea.
- Ron Neuwirth, September 3, 2009, in The Southampton Press