I know this isn't exactly adoption-related (and rather long) -- but losing her Grandpa has been exceedingly difficult for the Pipsqueak. Her "the five of us" family has been the bedrock upon which her life as she knows it has been built, and the past several years of losing Dad bit-by-bit to dementia have affected her in many ways. She's an old soul and amazingly strong, but the truth is she's not even 14 yet and she's been watching her beloved Grandpa change and fade away since she was just nine.
Interestingly -- and comfortingly in an odd way -- Dad's death has not (apparently) triggered the feelings of aloneness & abandonment that Miriam experienced so strongly during the first pandemic lockdowns back in 2020. Back then, the realization that all her friends (save one who lives a long distance away) had siblings at home who were close in age while she only had Mommy in the house triggered a resurgence of the emotions associated with abandonment, of being left alone, of not really belonging to or with anyone. The fact that she has both intellectually and emotionally been able to separate those feelings from what's been happening for the past four-plus years and the inevitable end (just over a week ago, wow) gives us hope that she has developed the tools she needs to better deal with her emotions and a family background that in many ways separates her from the vast majority of her peers. We'll see -- and she knows that as long as Mommy, Uncle Brian, and Grandma are around, we've got her back.
Miriam first wanted to write a poem to recite at Dad's funeral, but it didn't take long for the restrictiveness of that format to get in the way of her expressing what she wanted to say so we encouraged her to just write from the heart and not worry about the format. Andrea & I also wrote eulogies of our own, and during the memorial service that preceded Dad's interment, the rabbi called us up to speak, with Miriam going first. I've reproduced the text of each eulogy in order below, tweaked to include any extra asides or off-the-cuff additions.
(Note: I clearly remember finishing reading my eulogy and sitting back down next to Miriam only to have her lean over, tightly grab my hand with one of hers while using her free hand to pass me a tissue and concernedly tell me, "I've never seen you cry before!" It should tell you something about what kind of person the Pipsqueak's growing up to be that in the middle of all her own emotional pain, she was concerned about someone else.)
Oh, and yes, I am "outing" my sister with her full first name. After 12 years plus 9-1/2 weeks of blogging, we figured it couldn't really hurt anymore.
Miriam's Eulogy - "Grandpa and Me"
Grandpa and me were always meant to be. We shared things like the moon, history, our love for learning, and cared about each other endlessly. Every time the moon would be out we would walk down the driveway and point up at the moon and stars. We loved the way the moon shone in the sky and all the different phases. In addition, one of my favorite places to go is Gettysburg. Grandpa would always love to take me there and loved sharing it with me. Furthermore, we would always teach each other new things. Lastly, he loved taking me out in the car and driving to different places. Grandpa would always [love to] come to my school events, birthday parties, dance performances, etc. He loved to come and I loved when he did. Grandpa would always call me "Princess Hunny Bunny" and I loved it. No matter what, he always made sure I knew I was loved. I loved him so much and I know that he loved me too. And that is the story of Grandpa and me.
Andrea's Eulogy for Dad
First off, I want to thank all the caregivers who helped us take care of Dad the last number of years. I don't want to say names because I know I will forget someone and none of you are forgotten. And a special thanks to those of you who have gone out of your way the last week to help us as well. You all know who you are.
As Dad liked to say, he was born at a very early age. He was the youngest of seven — his sister was upset she had yet another brother, though he adored her. He grew up in New York, attended Jefferson High School four years ahead of Mom. He always talked about his time playing football & playin the trumpet, something he did for many years. I have fond memories of listening to him play & watching football with him... Mom complaining we watched more football together than he did with Brian. He was born left-handed but forced to write with his right; his handwriting was almost impossible to read. Mom would have to help me decipher letters he sent when he went to Belgium.
Dad enjoyed his time in the Navy -- it opened the world to him. It also started his lifelong love affair with the Coral Sea and with traveling.
He and Mom met at a New Year's party where she remembered him as the nice sailor who carried his drunk friend home. This was the start of an amazing friendship that turned into a marriage & partnership that lasted through everything life sent their way. Dad dragged his family to Chile in 1965. Though my memories are fuzzy, it was a great five years. He also took us along to Belgium -- his "National Geographic tour," as he liked to call it. We visited as many places and battle locations as he could fit in. I saw more of the Normandy beaches than I think my feet wanted. He and Mom went back to Europe, to Holland, many years later. Brian and I enjoyed visiting and (again) going all over. Dad truly loved every job he held.
He also loved to drive. I didn't know people actually flew within the U.S. until I was an adult. He could drive for hours -- Mom would remind him to stop so we could eat, go to the bathroom, and maybe sleep in a bed at night. During his Navy time he thought nothing of driving back & forth on a weekend pass between Pensacola, Florida, and New York City.
Though we spend many hours lost, Dad was never lost. He always told us he knew where he was -- not quite where it was for our trip, but at that moment. When he taught me to drive, I hit the school and broke the filament in the headlight. All I heard on the way home was his cursing in disbelief that I broke the light.
Dad never admitted he was worried. I learned that his pacing and quietness, with bursts of annoyance, gave him away.
He loved his granddaughter Miriam with all his heart. I'll never forget the look of joy and love he had the first time he met his birthday gift, his granddaughter, through Skype. Her Gotcha Day is his birthday -- a special bond they both cherished. He would carry her and share the moon with her when she was little. He also shared his love of history with her.
He had a knack of not being around to pack for any major move we had. He came to every school event and recital we had well into his 80s.
He loved his family more than anything and taught us how important family is, and that family always comes first. I have a lifetime of memories I will forever hold dear to my heart.
Dad -- you still owe me a piggyback ride.
Dad, I know your beloved Skippy and the rest of our four-footed family members met you with lots of love at the other end of the rainbow bridge. I know family that transitioned before you met you with love and hugs as well.
Mostly, I hope you can remember again the amazing life you led and all the people you touched and helped along the way. And mostly I hope you are able to remember how much you were, and are, loved by those of us lucky enough to call you husband, Dad, Grandpa, Uncle, and friend.
I'm so proud to be your daughter. Rest quietly now that your pain is gone. I love you.
My Eulogy for Dad
This is a whole new kind of hard, so please forgive me if it takes a little longer to speak. I just want to thank everyone for coming to help us honor Dad's memory.
And Andrea, you stole my opening line! [Sorry!]
Dad was born, as he would say, at a very early age in the back room of a cold water flat in Brooklyn. From the beginning, he demonstrated traits that would shape his life and become his trademarks.
He was always curious -- about how things work, about what was over the next hill or around the next bend, about how things could be better, about history. This sense of curiosity became evident earlly in his life, when at the age of four he disassembled the family's radio to see how it worked... which it didn't afterwards.
He always found a way to do things better -- more efficiently, more easily, without strife. If this required diplomacy, he was always good at bridging differences between opinions; if this required action, he rarely lost a fight and didn't hesitate to put a bully in their place; and if this required native smarts, he had those in abundance. For example, he quickly learned which of the fancier movie houses he should sell papers in front of... os the guys coming out of the late show would give him a nickel for a three-cent newspaper and tell him, "keep the change, kid" to show off to their dates. Or he'd run errands for the butcher in the summer so he could step into that nice, comfortable cooler on hot days.
He was always about family -- he brought home all the money he made to his mother, celebrated his siblings' achievements as his own, participated in the impromptu family concerts when almost everyone picked up an instrument and played, and he even endured his sister using him as a bit of a dress-up doll when he was younger. I think he may have forgiven her for that in his seventies. Maybe.
When Dad loved, he loved deeply and unconditionally... and you knew it. Be it his dog Skippy -- to the point where I never attended a family event where there wasn't at least one, "No more Skippy stories!" -- or his family; or the second great love of his life, CVB-43, the USS Coral Sea; or Andrea, Miriam and I, or Mom, whom he never formally dated but who was the undisputed focus of his attention and partner for close to seven decades. Some folks will jokingly introduce their spouse as, "my better half," but he and Mom truly were half of each other.
Dad's life history could keep us talking here literally for days, with enough anecdotes to fill an entire set of books. His sense of humor is the stuff of legend, up to and including the loud stage whisper telling a certain groom "There's still time to turn back!" as he passed him going up the aisle. (You knew who all the Levs were there becasue they all turned around and stared at him without anyone saying, "Oh, who said that?") He had a way with words, expressing complex ideas with simple simile and allegory in a way that repeatedly stymied -- and sometimes outright silenced -- the interpreters when he worked for international organizations. He always wanted to help, be it the little old lady straining to reach the top shelf in the supermarket, the driver of a car that had just crashed behind us on the autobahn, the wannabe TV personality looking for a way to get an interview with someone Dad knew... He rarely waited to be asked; he'd just jump in anytime he saw a need.
As his family, we never had any doubts where we stood in his life. Time and time again, he made career decisions based on our wants and needs instead of his, accepting whatever the professional consequences might be to make sure we were all happy, healthy, and cared for. Andrea and I might have been a little afraid of being yelled at by Dad, but we were never afraid of Dad himself -- though he rarely had any qualms about teasing us over it later on. He was our rock, our provider, our protector, someone we knew we could call on anytime in a moment of need and who never kept score, the loving parent who was always there for us regardless of the cost to him.
Aside from teaching us about the history he so enjoyed, Dad taught by example. He taught us to always be true to ourselves, even as we "played the game" to be able to keep moving forward in our lives. He taught us that if you accept a job, you do that job to the best of your ability, period -- such as when he earned an end-of-semester student evaluation that read simply, "LEV IS GOD," or when he received a Nobel Prize Citation in recognition of his amazing efforts to establish the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (which received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize). [His response to that showing up in the mail was, "Why'd they give that to me? I was just doing my job!"] He taught us that while the destination is important, the journey also mattered and should be enjoyed. He taught us to judge people not by their labels or their appearance, but by their actions and their ethics. He taught us to elevate ourselves not by putting others down but by bringing them up, and rising along with them. And most of all, he taught us how to love fully and unconditionally.
Dad was born in the back room of a cold water flat. He went on to sail three oceans and a sea; travel tens of thousands of miles by land, sea, and air; live on three continents; serve his nation and society in both military and civilian roles; help, educate, and exert positive influence in the lives of literally thousands of people; meet famous people from around the world including a Pope, famous actors and actresses, politicians, and activists; humbly receive accolade after accolade with grace and no small amount of surprise; and even hang a freaking Nobel Prize citation on the wall. Not bad, as he'd say, for a kid from Brooklyn.
We love you Dad, and we are so proud of you. Thank you.
The exact texts of what we had written differed a little from the above, but it's hard to read when you're trying to speak out loud without crying. There was one moment of unexpected levity afterwards, when I was outside the funeral home waiting for the cortege to form up (in typical family fashion, the cemetery was about an hour away in another state). The Funeral Director approached, pointed her finger at me, and smilingly exclaimed, "You never mentioned anything about that whole Nobel Prize thing!"
We'll always miss you, Dad... but rest assured, that little granddaughter of yours will be encouraged, protected, supported, and most of all loved to the best of our ability until Mom, Andrea and I have crossed that bridge to meet Skippy -- and most importantly, hug you again. z"l
