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| Richard E. Roderick - 2009 visit to Madison, Wisconsin |
Eulogy for My Step-Father
By John-Brian Paprock
My step-father died on December 18, 2018. I am not sure how to feel. When I found out, it was like a punch in the gut. I was stunned. My sadness and tears came later.
When my biological father died, I knew he was dying and, before he passed, I was able to visit with him for a short time and pray with. In hind-sight, it was too short a time. We had been greatly estranged through the years, having contact off-and-on over the years. There were intense emotions at those contacts. The intensity obviously connected to the divorce when I was seven years old.
For all of those emotions related to my biological father, I do not have this same intensity for my step-father, who I joyfully called “Dad” in the idyllic life that came with him into our lives. Richard rescued us (my sister Dara, my brother Matthew and I) from a poverty-stricken household in Chicago where parental alcohol abuse infused regular intense arguments. He brought us to a large house in River Forest. He honored us and seemed genuinely interested in our well-being. He read classic books to us – Treasure Island, Three Musketeers, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea – acting out the dialogue with dramatic voices. He taught me how to play chess, including the importance of strategy and the difference between game playing deception and inter-personal dishonesty.
In reflection of the years Richard was actively my parent (which were only a few years), I always felt loved by him. I always felt he loved my siblings. Even after his own son was born, he made sure that we were not dismissed or pushed aside to make room for his son. In fact, he made a special space for us that was never threatened.
When his relationship with our mother deteriorated, Richard took moments as they were available to emphasize his love for us and told me that he did not want to leave us. He continued to financially support us through the hellish years that followed until my mother hit alcoholic bottom. He could not save us from that. Even his own son endured that hard time. He told me at a later time (when he invited me as a young adult living in NYC to visit him in his cabin home in Medford Lakes, New Jersey), he wished he could have done more in those years after he and my mother broke apart.
In the few other occasions we visited over the years, Richard had his own issues and problems. Maybe this observation is more one of seeing him as an adult and less as “Dad.” It was very clear that we had our different lives and there were fewer occasions to connect, but it seems, in reflection, neither of us made the effort.
Although we did not talk much, when Richard visited Madison in 2009, I sat next to him at a diner, smiling. I was filled with reminisces of the time he was my “Dad.” That was the last time I was physically near him. I got a photograph of him outside the diner, one of my cherished photographs.
We did talk a couple of times by phone and interacted a little bit online after that. It was a manner of communication that he did not prefer and, so, did not use it much. In those conversations, it was clear to me that Richard was struggling with a variety of issues. I told him I would pray for him and for the circumstances. It was clear I would not be able to save him they way he saved us – sustain him the way he had sustained us through the dark and lean times – help him the way he helped us.
This is why I am not sure how to feel. I feel a great loss of an important and consequential person in my life, but I am filled with gratitude for what Richard gave to me, to my siblings. The most important and the greatest gift has been my youngest brother, August.
Toward the end of one of those telephone conversations, he told me that he kept a crayon drawing I gave him when I was seven-years-old in a frame on the wall in his office. He told me that it was a wonderful piece of art and would receive many compliments for which he would proudly say that “one of his sons” did it when he was in second grade. It reminded him of a special time in his life. I am grateful that we shared that special time.
And then he said, “Even if I don’t see you much or talk much these days, remember, I love you.” Yes, Dad, of that I have no doubt.
