My dad passed away unexpectedly a couple weeks ago from a massive heart attack. I am still in total shock and at a loss. I never thought I’d reach 30, but I never imagined that if I did, my father would die a week into my next decade of life. My heart is broken. He and I were super close in the last year in ways we haven’t been since I was a kid. I miss him and I am so angry at God for taking him from me now.
Why?
These last weeks have been the darkest of my life, and I am in a sort of despair I have not found myself in for over a decade. I am okay physically. I’m safe. But I’d be lying if I said my mental health was okay right now. It is quite simply not okay. There is no “but” to that statement right now, and I just don’t think there needs to be.
Below is the eulogy I gave for him at his funeral services.
“What punishments of God are not gifts?”
-JRR Tolkien
How do I even begin to Eulogize the man who was my father? There’s simply not enough time in the world to tell you all I want to, nor would he want me to brag on him. So I have decided to tell you a few different andicodes and stories I have of him.
He knew early on that he wished for my brother and I to see the country he so loved. So, every summer, we would pack into our car and drive for ungodly amounts of hours across the country.
I freaking loved it.
I am only 30 and have seen the majority of this country from the back of an SUV. We’ve traversed through Appalachia, rode through the smoky mountains, marveled at the peaks of the Rockies, saw the underappreciated beauty of the great plains of Nebraska, and got bilked by a shady repair shop in Arizona. All the while, my dad’s eclectic playlist of both Soviet marches and Rush Limbaugh played on in the background.
My dad was a master storyteller. He had stories from his career that would make you do a spit take. My favorite is way too inappropriate to tell here, but it involved a man and a woman on 7th Street late at night.
I will let you fill in the rest.
He passed the craft of storytelling on to his kids. In our own ways, my brother and I can also weave an epic tale.
In the latter years of his life, my dad had a profound faith. He and I had many conversations about heaven and what we would experience when we went through those gates. He would tell me he heard that the flowers sing to you in heaven.
Me, being the snarky son I was and still am, would tell him “dad, that sounds like crap.” But all I’ve been able to think about this last week are those damn singing flowers. I pray someday distant when I walk through those gates, I will see the flowers and then my dad with that smirk on his face telling me “Who’s full of crap now, Tim?”
My dad’s life was full of millions of little miracles. He beat the odds in many ways being in a stressful line if work as well as a man who had a child with special needs. He was a loving husband who lived the vow “till death do us part” and loved every moment of his marriage to my mother.
He was a dignified and loving father who taught both of his kids to do the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do and not to care about who gets the credit. He was a father figure and a mentor to countless more. He was a man of true humble confidence and an enormous character.
To end, I wanted to impart a little Tom Coe wisdom on you all.
When I was sad or scared growing up, he would often remind me to count my blessings. I think he would want remind us all of the same today. Even when life hits you in the head with a brick, as many of us feel it has right now, go ahead. Count those blessings up. You’ll soon find their number countless.
1… 2… 3… 4…
You have a million little miracles.
Tim Coe 