Farewell, Pop

Eulogy for My Father

I want to thank Reverend Sandy Elfring for those kind words about my father. I know that Dad enjoyed his time at your church, and very much wanted to return there this spring.

I look about this room at family—daughters and grandchildren to Bob—in laws—nieces—brothers—my uncle, Howard, my father’s only sibling from Colorado, who delivered such a poignant and elegant eulogy. I see others here, I hope all friends of Bob’s in some way—perhaps you lived here at the SkyRise; maybe you attended Church with him. What a blessing to have so many choices around you to Church. It is a truth that my father took full advantage of his local worship opportunities, and I hope made many friends and acquaintances along the way.

Perhaps there are those here from AA—my father was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and fought for his sobriety for many years. For the last seven years of his life, he won that battle. I count his annual tokens a valuable possession, tokens I know that he was very, very proud of—and for not only himself, but for his families—past and present. If you are here from AA, or if you ever helped my father to sobriety, thank you for coming.

If you are here from the Methodist Church, or any church he attended, and you ever encouraged his faith, thank you for coming. He counted you all among his most precious people, I am sure.

If you were simply a friend, or simply had a pleasant encounter with my father, if you lived in this place that he called home and if you ever spoke or did something nice to him, thank you for coming. And thank you to the SkyRise, who has graciously opened its doors to us once again.

Each of us comes to this place with a picture of Robert Rupp Skinner in his or her mind. I hope he’s smiling in that picture, for like all of us, happiness is what he ultimately sought, whatever that happiness means to each of us, I know Dad struggled to attain it in his own way, just as we all do.

We come with our memories; I want them to be happy memories. It’s not a function of a son, or any speaker for that matter, to negate to wholeness of a person that one never fully knew. Neither is it my intent to stand up here and paint a picture of a saint. My Dad would be the first to tell you he was no saint, but he would also ask you before that conversation ended, “If you are not a saint, then what are you?”

Regarding sainthood, I remember listening to a television evangelist say, “You are one or you are the other. You are saved or you are a sinner.” I wondered if it was as black and white as that, and I wondered, what of the verse in Romans, 6:23 to be exact: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” If we are all sinners, then can there even be a saint?

This pastor believed that the saved among us are, and ought to aspire to be, saints, and that sainthood is not an anointing, but a quest. I do believe that like many of us, Bob counted that aspiration, that quest that we call religious transcendence, that quest for what is good and Holy, among his top priorities, if not the pinnacle priority of his life. And like so many of us, I believe he struggled with regret and remorse and doubt and recrimination. How close he came to that goal is not for us to decide. What is left for each of us to answer is how well did we help Bob—and if not Bob—then someone else in the same searching boat—find his way to shore? I do believe that indifference adds to self-recrimination, and to the extent I lost concern for my father’s struggle, in light of my own, is a burden I will forever bear. It is a burden that only forgiveness can ease, and he is no longer here to provide me—or any of us—with that sort of absolution. But, I feel that when he said he loved me, and I heard him say that he loved all of his children and grandchildren, and yes, brother, that he was giving us the best—the most honest—part of himself, a self confused at times, full of those doubts and regrets, but one that was trying, with three simple words, to further himself along his path, and bring us with him.

I saw him pray, and I know that he walked to church many mornings and many afternoons when it was cold enough to nearly freeze your lungs, and sometimes hot enough to melt any of that prayerful energy. I don’t think he wanted to walk alone, not to Church, not to dinner, and not to AA—but he walked—more times than not, and he was happy doing those things because he knew that it was what he ought to do—if not for himself, then perhaps for some future day when we would all gather around and kindly remember him for trying—for that was what he was doing, even if he was alone in doing so.

We may come with mixed emotions, of which some of us will struggle with more than others. Some will find peace sooner, and by some act of divine grace or natural law, grieve less painfully, hopefully with much dignity and a fair amount of beneficence toward those that struggle with his departure more urgently.

We come with questions, perhaps regrets; we come with hopes, and faith, and some, a certitude that we live on beyond this physical realm. We may come here hoping that what we hear today might spark us to rethink the way in which we have treated those around us, or treated ourselves. Perhaps that will happen, because I think Dad would want something good to come of what his son had to say about the way that he struggled to reach his goals.

How do we remember those that have passed? How are we to remember them? I’ve already given you my picture of the ascetic Bob, wandering a noble path toward his idea of sainthood. It’s my gift to him, for in his core, I think it’s who he was. But, perhaps the path itself is less interesting than the quest. The goal is never as inspiring as the events that occur on the hero’s journey, or how—to use the language of a story—that hero negotiates his crises.

What was his journey like? What did he face? What great attributes did he demonstrate in the face of danger? What was at risk? What was to be gained? And what can we learn from Bob Skinner?

If Bob was a character in a novel, he’d use no profanity. He’d eat a lot, and he’d pray. He’d be a quiet hero, but purposeful. If he were our protagonist, he’d lead us toward some answer, toward some resolution. He’d face down his demons; he’d exact a certain justice upon them; he’d bring back with him an elixir of some sort, a potion for us whom he had left, for ourselves to fight those same demons with someday, if fate would so desire.

I googled Dad’s name once and found that in the fiction world, there is a series of books by Quintin Jardin, a Scottish author, based on a character called Detective Chief Superintendent, Robert Skinner. Speak of creating a legacy for one man: Jardine’s titles include, Skinner’s Rules; Skinner’s Round; Skinner’s Ordeal; Skinner’s Mission; and Skinner’s Trail. How cool, I thought. “Dad will love this!” I ordered Skinner’s Rules from Amazon and gave it to him for a birthday gift. I suppose you’re wondering why the remark about profanity. Growing up, my father used more than a few curse words. I’m sure he did at the bars, too, and elsewhere. The first line in Skinner’s Rules, the author speaking of noble Scotland, read with some profanity: “Edinburgh is a two-faced bitch!” Such a metaphor drives someone like myself to read on. But Dad didn’t get much past those first words. If he did, or if he had read on, he would have read a truth that may describe not just Edinburgh, but all cities—and by extension, all of us:

“There is the face on the picture postcards, sunny, bright and shining, prosperous and smiling at the world like a toothpaste ad. But on the other side of the looking glass lies the other face: the real world where all too often the wind blows cold, the rain lashes down and the poverty shows on the outside. That cold hard face was showing as Bob Skinner made his way to work.”

To understand the hero, one must have some reference with which to interpret his or her actions—a history, a morality, a meaningfulness that may describe their hopes, aspirations, and dreams. Dad wrote such to me in a poem in 1983. As I look upon it with mature eyes, I can see amidst its inspiration a reference with which to gauge my father’s legacy—his actions—and his dreams. It is called the Castle Builder, written by Henry W. Longfellow:

A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks.
A dreamy boy, with blue and tender eyes.
A castle builder with his wooden blocks.
And towers that touch imaginary skies.

A fearless rider on his father’s knee.
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.

There will be other towers for thee to build,
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listening to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

It must have touched the father in him, as well as the adventurer, and the guide in him that I so longed for as a child, in whose absence I lament this day.

I look upon these verses from my grandfather’s eyes, as well. He must have felt pride in his own son, when Bob played and dreamed and built. What a gift it is to watch a child dream dreams of castle building. What a gift to watch a child grow into a man who not only keeps those dreams, but passes them on, the longing for their realization in his son, his own achievement in question, perhaps in ruin. This is generosity—this is beneficence. This was my father at his truest and truly best. This is what my father gave to me—the wish, the hope, the dream that I—that we around him—keep reaching, keep building for the future, as stalled as it may have seemed in those days in 1983—it is still alive in me, and must be in all of us. What a tremendous responsibility it is to take a baton like that from a father, for Bob and for me, but what a wonderful gift of faith and hope it is.

My Dad fought mental illness maybe all of his life. He fought addiction. He fought broken relationships. I know he fought himself over having lost not one, but two marriages. In his mind he must have felt he lost children and grandchildren, too. Loss can consume an individual without forgiveness. He fought for his dignity, and he fought for those he loved, and he fought to be loved. Sometimes I fear that I didn’t recognize that fight, that effort to build, and that my own regrets are nothing more than my own misrecognition of something lost to me, something contained in Longfellow’s poem. My father was a dreamy, gentle builder of a castle. He did not lose his faith in mystery, in particular the greatest mystery on earth—nor do I believe he ever lost his faith that the castle he was building was not earthly, but meant to exist Heavenly—and contained rooms for all of us. Unfortunately, it was too often a quest he felt compelled to walk alone.

Dad, please keep smiling in Heaven and know that we will keep building, keep reaching, keep striving for our own sainthood, in whatever form God wishes that to take. Please know that you were no more alone than the rest of us, and that I believe you when you said, “All our questions will be answered someday.” I hope we can all sit down and talk about them in the castle that you have built, to where you now reside. I hope you have no more regrets, only answers. I hope our ancestors have embraced you with a shade of the warmth that is in this room. I forgive you, and I pray your forgiveness in turn.

Thank you all for coming, and thank you for remembering my father.