For Dad
A Eulogy by Maya Shadid
When I was a young child, my father read me bedtime stories. One particularly resonated, whispered over and again on many nights until crisp consonants contorted into the frequencies of sleep. In the book, a mother raised her son. He began a tender baby, docile and dependent, melting into his mom’s embrace each evening as she rocked him to sleep. He grew, as children too-quickly do - a menacing toddler, to an impassive child, to a rowdy teenager. But every night, no matter how old he became, how charmingly troublesome, his mother snuck into his room as he slept. She scooped her son into her arms and sang him a song: “I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as you’re living, my baby you’ll be.” She sang to her child and took care of him until he became an adult.
And, my dad took care of me. He helped me with school posters and projects that always ended up looking far out of my capability. A confession to my 2nd grade teacher: when you told our class to make model houses and I showed up with a 4-foot-tall paper mache castle including a moat with a retractable bridge… yeah, I had a little help. Dad assisted me with math homework until I reached calculus, at which point he told me I was on my own. He drove me to high school at 6:30 every morning until I could drive myself, and was the first to pick up the phone after each of my four resulting car accidents. But, what I carry with me most is his creative guidance. Any idea I had, whether it be for a movie script, a poem, a song, or a short story, he was there to exchange feedback and encourage me. I wish I could use the talent he gave me to rewrite his story. If my father were alive, I probably would’ve had him edit this speech. He was so perceptive, both inspired and inspirational, you could see it behind his big, vivacious eyes - the eyes my sisters and I now carry, carved into our countenances. When I stare into the mirror, I see those eyes staring back at me. I see him thinking of what to say next. My mind is so loud, buzzing with the echoes of words he might select, but beyond the walls of my memories, it’s silent.
It saddens me to think his brilliant brain has conjured its last thought, sent its final nerve impulse. I mourn the millions of ideas not yet pondered, lost in a future he never gets to live. Where did it go? The tomorrow I thought was guaranteed? It was stolen by a thief of profound power, an evil of immense magnitude, yet with a name so small: cancer. A year ago, I remember him coming home after undergoing surgery to remove his tumor. It was the first time I realized how skinny he’d become. That was only the beginning. I continued to watch my once-chubby, cuddly, plump father shrink. The cancer swallowed him into itself, swallowed him away from us, from me. From walking me down the aisle at my wedding and dancing with me. From holding his grandchildren. From reading them the bedtime tales he read to me. I wanted to watch him grow old with my mom. Instead, she’s forced to face the fate of her mother: widowed. And I face the fate of mine. My father has departed this world. But though the cancer ate him away, his body, his dreams, his unmade memories, it could not consume his legacy.
During my dad’s hospice care at the hospital, it became apparent how many lives he had touched. His room and the hospice-wing waiting area were filled with friends and family. People flew in from out of town to wish him safe travels on his journey to the beyond. He was such a beacon of kindness, even the nurses were touched by his warmth. While my Dad was still battling in the hospital, he arranged for me to shadow one of the nurses, as I hope to be a doctor in the future. Such typical Ferris-fashion, thinking of his daughters even as he was constrained to his bed in his final days. I was dressed in a white medical coat with a stethoscope wrapped around my neck, and I visited my fathers room to surprise him. He wept and cried when he saw me. I am grateful that, even if only for a moment, he got to see me as a doctor. That day, he went to sleep and didn’t wake up. He passed a week later on the 26th, waiting until after Christmas. Of course he did.
In the week that he was unresponsive, we all tended to and watched over him. It brought me back to the book he read me all those years ago, a tale of the everlasting bond between parent and child. I will always feel my father through our beautiful connection.
Dad, you taught me love. For the rest of my days, your imprint adorns my heart. For the rest of my days, your personality shines through mine. For the rest of my days,
I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my daddy you’ll be.
Source Attributions
Munsch, Robert. Love You Forever. Firefly Books, 1986.
