I am not the type of person who holds anything back. I try to speak from the heart and be as transparent as possible. That’s just who I am. However, I’ve had one thing bothering me about this past week. One regret, that I feel I must write about. I was going to postpone blogging for a bit, but this thing has been gnawing at my insides since it happened.
I humbly delivered Emma’s eulogy during her celebration service on Saturday, and I’ve posted a copy of my eulogy here. I’ve delivered eulogies for close friends before, and I always went about them in a businesslike manner, knowing that I had to really work hard to properly celebrate the life of the loved one. As I approached Emma’s eulogy, I went about it the same way. I bawled my eyes out when I wrote the first draft, as it really came from the heart. However, after spending countless hours editing and rehearsing it, the eulogy no longer held that same feeling to me. It was just words on a page about a person I hardly knew. This no longer became a heart felt eulogy, but a performance for my friends and family. I feel like I phoned in the eulogy and left my real self stuck behind the business like mannerisms that I leaned on to survive.
I’ve had this funny feeling that I should have just spoke from the heart and winged it when I went to the podium on Saturday. Forget about the 2 page eulogy I wrote and just open up my heart to everyone, but I chickened out. It was more comfortable to deliver the presentation I was working so hard on. All that was missing was a damn powerpoint deck displaying a graph of my happiness level during different periods of Emma’s life. I failed and my subconscious knew it.
Last night, I had two dreams that will continue to haunt me for a bit. In my first dream, I was in a courtroom defending myself against myself. I was at a divorce hearing to decide how to divorce the superficial self who is just trying to impress others, from the person whom I had become in the last couple months. Emma has taught me to verbalize my love for people close to me, to rely on others, and always upon always be true to yourself. A superficial person only worries about what others think, and in my dream I wanted to divorce that superficial person who delivered the eulogy from the new person I’ve become. It scared the shit out of me.
In the second dream, I was paired with another techie to deliver the keynote address at a huge conference. I was really the back up guy who worked the deck, whereas my partner was delivering the material. We were to speak in a huge convention center in front of a couple thousand people. Before the presentation, I practiced the timing of the powerpoint slides with my partner and we had it down pat. Then the lights went dim and we were escorted on stage to deliver the keynote address. As the spot light came on, my partner informed me that he no longer believed in the slides and just walked off the stage, leaving me to deliver a deck that I knew nothing about.
Obviously, I have some unfinished business about what Emma really means to me. It may take a while for me to open my heart and share it with you all. I’m not sure I even understand it. I do know one thing though. It’s the most moving thing that has ever happened in my entire life and I can honestly say the person I am today is much better than the person I was yesterday. Thank you, Em. I love you.
Comments
#1 Well actually…
iain
12:00:00 AM Monday, Apr 14 2008
Hey man,
This is just my 2c worth as I thought at the time (& in reading it now) that your eulogy was perfect.
I think winging it would have made it much harder for you. Frankly, it would have made it impossible to get the feelings, memories & thoughts you had over the week out because the emotion would have got to you. Having some time in advance to sort that out allowed you to get right around what you wanted to say.
Hang in there, we’re all with you. You’re allowed to question whether you said the right things. The question really is whether it was enough for you. I think you did say the right things, but there isn’t anything stopping you wanting to say more. We’re listening.
Oh yeah, having done my share of the big tech talks, I can say saturday was 200x harder – there really is no comparison. Even if someone pulls a prima donna on you.
/i
#2 A rough week
Anonymous
12:00:00 AM Tuesday, Sep 30 2008
My grandmother holding my sister and I in 1972. I love the smirk on my sister’s face. As you know from
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