Eulogy for My Father

My father, Warren J. Painter, known to most everyone as “Lefty,” passed away on December 14, 2011. There will be much more to say about his life as time goes on, and about his marriage to my remarkable, redoubtable, inimitable Mama, the one and only Mary Alice. For now, I will simply post these remarks, which I somehow managed to deliver at his funeral. Doing so was quite possibly the craziest – and the finest – thing I have done to date.

We are here today, when all is said and done, however you look at it, because of the heart of Warren Painter.

First of all, because his physical heart, an organ which was a functioning miracle for nearly half his life, finally reached a point where it could no longer keep working.

It was 1973 when he had the heart attack that started his lifetime of cardiac care. Dad had congestive heart failure, but he had a lot of other stuff too. Atrial fib, PVC’s, bundle branch blockage, heart block, v-tach. These terms struck fear into various doctors, especially the younger ones, but to us they were simply terms for Dad’s ‘funny’ heart. In later life, hospital ICU staff would learn to turn certain alarms off lest the monitors clang without stopping.

We all learned to recognize the look that would come over a young doctor’s face when, decked out in his first white coat, he bent in with his stethoscope, poised to give a listen to Lefty Painter’s heart. His expression was at first puzzled, then disbelieving, then panicked. He would often walk quickly out of the room seeking help. If he paused in astonishment, Dad would glance up, a big grin on his face, and say, “It sounds like an old washing machine, doesn’t it?”

So we are here, literally, because of Dad’s heart, in the sense that it was a machine that finally grew unable to work as hard as it had to in order to sustain him. But we are also here because of Lefty Painter’s heart, the heart you all knew and loved so much. We are here because he had a great heart and he touched people’s lives with kindness and decency, and that is far more important than any medical terminology telling us why he is not here today.

Dad had cancer three times, in addition to his heart problems. The first cancer was a gall bladder cancer, undiscovered until a routine laparoscopy to remove it. This meant the cancer was cut into four pieces inside his body prior to removal, making it impossible to be certain all the cellular contamination had been removed afterwards.

The family was ushered into a room days later to hear the details, as a very senior staff doctor knelt beside Mom and Dad and delivered the news. It was grim – they told him to get his affairs in order, and take a few days to decide whether or not he wanted to have radiation treatments, which they said may or may not help him, and might make him quite ill and decrease his quality of life in the time left. “This is about the worst news we can give a person, Mr. Painter,” the doctor said.

We left that day feeling shell-shocked. Dad, as we drove out of the hospital, didn’t answer when we asked “What do you want to do, Dad?” We repeated it, and we didn’t mean about radiation. We literally didn’t know whether to turn left or right – to go out for lunch, or just head out to Lone Tree to Deb’s house.

Dad sat quietly, and then he said, “I want to fly my plane upside down.” I looked at him. He did not have a plane, and to the best of my knowledge none of his war experience included flying. Asked what he meant, he simply repeated, this time with a little smile, “I just want to fly my plane upside down.”

Maybe sons will get the meaning of that right away, but for the Painter daughters on hand his response was mysterious. I figured out that he was talking about something way beyond literal flight, but it took some time before I understood. I gradually came to see he meant he wanted to do something different in his life, to make a statement, to live in an interesting way all his own under the shadow of his own mortality. He wanted to fly his plane upside down, and I believe he did it.

He went on living his life – gardening, spending time with family and friends, being an advisor and neighbor, husband and friend, brother and father, until the darkest days of our lives, in 1995, when Mary Alice grew suddenly and catastrophically ill and passed away after five days. In those moments, Dad’s heart was wounded more than by any illness, yet he was a hero for his wife. He tended her at her bedside with grave sorrow and great care, always being kind to us as we talked to her in her coma, carried in her beloved objects of oceanic art, brought her flowers, and put her favorite tv shows on hoping to lure her back into this world.

None of it worked, and we were all with her as she passed, leaving Dad with the greatest sorrow he had ever known. Still, through it all, he was heroic. In the face of a sadness we could see all over him but could not fathom, he was her perfect partner in life, helping her to leave this world with a tenderness amazing coming from a man so big. He did every brave thing he could for her, and he was in those moments a hero to me and to us all. The lessons we learned then were among the most important, and terribly difficult, lessons a father can ever give his children, and Dad was magnificent. His own faith helped us to keep our faith alive after this great loss.

Two more cancers came and went, each one vanquished by Dad’s spirit and strong constitution. Each time the doctors gave him the news, and told him their recommendations, he would consult with us and especially talk with Mary, who was always his confidante then.

“Well,” he’d finally say to her – “I guess we’ll fight it. We have to fight it, don’t we?” And he’d smile that big smile of his, and we all knew then we were in for lots of hospital time, but somehow also lots of fun with Dad.

He was fun, and he made friends everywhere, even in crisis. Nurses checked in on him, and he always had a joke. This last trip he said to one of us about his nursing care, “If they leave the room laughing, they’ll come back.” At a less happy moment, he said to one doctor, “If you’re not going to do anything, you might as well go home!”

When he passed, we were all there. He was quiet, and had no pain. We got to tell him how much we loved and admired him, we got to tell him to be with Grandma Painter, Mary Alice, and his brothers and sisters who had passed before him. We tried to be for him as strong as he had been for Mama, but it was hard. You see, he had a great heart, and it is harder than anything to let go of someone like that.

Today we say goodbye to our father, our friend, our inspiration and anchor in life. We are at sea, but we know he will be there to guide us, like a blanket of stars. He was a man without material wealth, but he was nonetheless rich in all that mattered. He taught us that a man of strength can afford to be tender and merciful, that to win does not mean to subdue or humiliate another, and that if you possess strength it is your duty to look after those who do not.

As we leave here today, we must remember: We each have a heart. From Lefty Painter we learned that we should never be afraid to use it – it is a miracle within us. We can never exhaust its love, no matter how much we call on it. Beating within each of us, it is a little engine that will carry us farther and farther, just as far as we need to go and farther than we ever thought we could manage.

Thank you Papa, for all you gave us, and for all you were to us.

L’Italia: Hypocrisy in High Places

Qua la moglie e là il marito,
ognuno va dove gli par;
ognun corre a qualche invito,
chi a giocare e chi a ballar. 

Here the wife and husband there,
Everyone goes where he wishes.
Everyone runs to some invitation,
Who to play, who to dance. - Goldoni

I’ve been paying greater attention to Italy lately in an attempt to resuscitate my familiarity with the language and now it is always in my head. I’ve been tweeting about the public evils of Silvio Berlusconi, the civic virtues of Emma Marcegaglia, and assorted other personalities and issues for the better part of three months now. One of the more interesting topics to erupt there in the fall was an ‘outing’ of legislators that drove the country into a positive frenzy.

But first, this necessary word on European/American relations. One of the great ironies of the fragile personal relationships between Europeans and Americans is this: We feel immensely, achingly inferior to them. And they feel immensely, achingly inferior to us. And we feel immensely, defensively superior to them. And they feel immensely, defensively superior to us. We carry ourselves internally with the hubris and optimism of the very young. They carry themselves internally with the arrogance and pessimism of the very ancient. It is around this awful nexus of pride and humiliation that we dance through our encounters in life, politics, and culture. It makes for a damned funny picture sometimes, but it also makes cross-continental commentary something of a minefield. Do trust me when I write that I love Italy with my whole heart, and also when I lay claim to the full panorama of hypocrisy, violence, and stupidity (plus all the finer stuff, for sure) that has made American public life what it is today.

On to the story: A list of ten names appeared on a phantom blog hosted in the US as September drew to a close. The blog purported to be outing ten Italian politicians accused by the publishers of being closeted gay homophobes who use their political positions to deny civil rights to LGBT citizens.  It was the same fiasco we’ve seen unfold here in the US so many times. It was, apparently, something close to a first for Italians, at least in terms of its concreteness. Everyone was up in arms. I’ve been reading the sites of journalists, (now former) government ministers, and others concerned with the situation.  It was an interesting scrum.

The prime objection that came as a backlash against the publication was, simply, that blogging the list was in itself a crime against human dignity and the right to privacy. In addition, it was perceived as an invitation to those who would perpetrate still more discrimination or even violence against LGBT Italians. Finally, the release was itself deemed a violent and ham-handed canard by no less a personage than Mara Carfagna, Italy’s (former) Minister for Equal Opportunity.

It is always fascinating to me to see how various people cope with this type of revelation – or more to the point, how they rationalize a failure to cope. For many people – certainly not just in Italy – there is a desire to let human attraction simply be what it is: a mysterious wonder that descends and sweeps us poor saps off into various states of intoxicated bliss and misbehavior. Then there are those who wish to label everything, so they can (presume to) know it and understand it and file it away in a neat category where it will sit in stasis forever. Still others simply want ‘truth in labeling’ so they will know what they are getting in the wilder marketplaces of romance.  I understand the wish for each one of these things. But the one inescapable issue with politicians in these situations, in any country in which they’re being outed, is the undeniable stain of hypocrisy. In this case they are alleged, by the light of day and in the Camera dei Deputati, to be giving and benefitting from the impression they are one thing – presumably, straight married people. In their off-hours, they are doing who knows what with who knows whom, apparently of the same gender.

Let me say right now that due to direct experience and observation I know a little something about the fabled ‘continuum’ of human sexuality and romantic attraction. I am quite comfortable operating without the use of tidy sexual labels. I know very well a person may have a relationship with a person of the same gender without being homosexual, simply by virtue of falling in love.

Coming from this vantage point I can honestly say I don’t care if some legislator has lovers of the same gender and chooses to shield those relationships from the public. I believe private matters do exist and it is fine to make room for them in our lives. But from the moment – and I mean the moment –they cast a vote against a gay rights bill, or issue statements about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, they are fair game to at once be placed in the sights of the loaded revelatory guns of any and all activists possessing the pertinent information. No tribunal, no mercy, case closed. You may fire those names when ready, attivisti!

The reasons for the perfect ethical appropriateness of such a response are apparent:  these are people who enjoy the privilege of holding public office, and the regard of the people they serve. It is not the noblest thing to have a lover in addition to your spouse in any case, but it is not something I am willing to rage sanctimoniously about or, certainly, reveal. However, acting in the manner of a rank hypocrite raises the choice-making of such officials to a whole new level of turpitude.

It is a dreadful thing for a politician to harvest all the back-slapping congratulations he can get for upholding the family when he turns around and cavorts sexually with the gays in his free time. Words fail me in my attempt to render the moral ‘ew’ factor of such a thing. Anyone who does it should be turned into a public joke at the earliest possible moment and hopefully soon thereafter turned out of office. (And let there be no doubt – I feel precisely the same about heterosexual politicians with opposite-sex lovers who tout in their speeches the sanctity of the marriage they later spend so many happy hours violating. Out them, and vote them out! Say – I think I feel a slogan coming on.)

Italy is enduring a multitude of paroxysms right now, chiefly assorted economic travails and the ongoing cringeworthy high farce that is the life, libido, and now aftermath of (former) Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. These difficulties are playing out in the world’s instantaneously updated media and increasingly jittery global markets, ensuring that Italians feel to varying degrees dispirited, anxious, or downright angry. There is a lot of great humor out there too, of course, but I see more serious emotions on venues like Twitter, the comments sections of Italian dailies, and the Facebook pages of (former) officials such as Minister Carfagna.

We should hold in our thoughts our long-suffering friends in Italy. We Americans have had, after all, way more than our share of embarrassing, hypocritical leadership. We have felt ourselves to be laughingstocks of the earth at any number of points in our history. [As I write this, in fact, we have police summarily battering protestors as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement expands to encompass more and more states and locations. Our president has reserved unto himself – and used – a proviso for actually assassinating American citizens under certain circumstances. And we are apparently perpetrating torture in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, country singers compare our president to Hitler and complain about the consequences in the entertainment marketplace, and presidential candidates positively stinking with self-righteousness claim their adulteries are “nobody’s business.” Clearly, we have no room to talk.]

But the troubles of the historical moment, however mortifying, always turn around. There aren’t any shortcuts, though. Politicians who misuse their offices to degrade the public trust through infamous hypocrisy – even in their ‘private’ lives – are a great place to start in pressing for reform.