A Eulogy for My Father

Dad’s not dead, but I do hate the way we save our best words for people who’ll never hear them. Following will be redacted a bit before its public reading I’m sure, but for now, here are some reflections on one of the most important people I’ve ever met.

My father doesn’t have any stories about hanging out with his father, save, as a boy, getting yelled at for hacking into an old tree believed to house some ancient human remains, and an episode where they cleaned out the family’s septic tank together, with buckets.

I loved Grandpa. He was a kind, sweet person, but I don’t have any stories either, save the time he yelled at me for eating my french fries with a fork.

At some point in his own parenting journey, my dad decided to be different, and I have many stories to show for it, especially from my youth; building models together, wrestling, songs at bedtime, and hand-crafted wooden machine guns at Christmas. He took me camping one summer where I got sick from the heat and we had to come home because I was throwing up all over Oklahoma, but the memories of every other camping trip hold a special place for me.

There is a vast expanse between the way he was raised and the way he raised us, one that required a mountain of grit to traverse.

He’s one of the hardest working people I know, retired from a career in modeling/simulation that spanned decades. In the fall of 2008, St. Edward’s University, his alma mater, penned a brief snapshot of one of his career highlights:

Matt Landry ’62, of Colleyville, recieved the 2008 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Admiral Luis de Florez Flight Safety Award in August. The award is given annually for outstanding individual achievement in the application of flight simulation to aerospace training, research and development. Landry is the principal engineer for modeling, simulation, and labs at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. 

Upon his retirement, instead of kicking back and taking it easy, he started a blog that reflects at length on the “Secular Side of God,” and “The Phenomenon of Love,” both heavily influenced by the oft condemned Jesuit priest and thinker, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, of whom dad has been a big fan since I can remember.

It’s a dense read, and the product of  roughly 1,000 books about God, science, sociology and humanity in general that he’s read over the past 5 years or so. It would come off better as a university course of study, but he doesn’t have the academic pedigree to teach in higher education because he spent most of his life kicking ass in his career. For now at least, it will have to live as a blog, hopefully transitioning into a book sometime soon.

He also on-boarded, post retirement, with a company in need of consultation for their proposed fighter/trainer aircraft build – a very cushy, well-paying gig with lots of travel and nerdy tech things.

The brother can’t sit still.

Now, he has grandchildren, one from China, the other two from Ethiopia. They call him “Yeh Yeh” (Mandarin for “father’s father”), which always comes off as “Yay Yay,” with multiple exclamation points at great volume. It’s hard to articulate how fiercely they love him, but they were loved first.

When they talk, he drops whatever he’s doing and listens, engages, asks questions. With him, they have a voice, a sense of weight they won’t find anywhere else, not even with me. It has endeared him to them, and them to themselves, because, as an oft condemned Jesuit priest/philosopher once said, “the most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being.”

Beyond the things of merit that he’s done with his life, there are two aspects of his person that stand out the most to me, two things I’ll never forget about him.

First, he’s like an iron ship plowing through an ice field. Whatever he sets his mind to, he accomplishes. He doesn’t complain, and I’ve never seen him play the victim. Ever. He simply moves forward, slowly and surely, regardless of what life throws in his lap. His career, his marriage to a spicy Southern gal, and his relationship with his children are all testimony to this, and I can assure you that we’ve all thrown a few challenges at him over the years.

Second, and most importantly, he’s my father. He occupies a space reserved for no one else, and when he passes, will leave a permanent absence for all of us. As that day draws near, I feel the reality of his loss, and the weight of his life more tangibly than I ever have.

It’s painful, but oddly full of joy as well.

Last night, we took the kids over to Yeh Yeh’s for one of Nai Nai’s (Mandarin for “father’s mother”) famous home cooked meals. While everyone was fussing around in the kitchen, I poured a drink and slipped into dad’s office to hang out and get some much needed quiet. As I looked around at his books, his awards, the memorabilia of his career as a simulation guru, a father, a father-in-law, a son, and a thinker, I lost it.

One day, not so far from now, he’ll be gone. I’ll have some great memories to hold on to, sure, but I will miss him dearly.

“We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.” ~ Teilhard de Chardin

Happy birthday, Dad.