PROMPT: FAMILIES AND LINEAGES MONTH

The Speech I didn’t Give at my Father’s Funeral Mass

It was better not to

One day, I discovered Eben Alexander’s book, Proof of Heaven. This American neurosurgeon, a leading brain specialist, only believed what he could see with his own eyes. One day he had a near-death experience in which his brain shut down while he floated, conscious, above his body.

He understood that consciousness has an eternal existence outside the brain. I gave this book to my father, and he read it again and again. He loved books, especially those written by leading authorities on consciousness. He needed to find coherence between his Catholic faith and the discoveries of science. Dad had an inquisitive mind, always needing to understand.

His life began with some difficulties. He looked like his mother, but his mother avoided mirrors, so it was hard for him to fit in. He didn’t study further than the certificate, and went through the war, which ended when he was 18–19.

As a pastry chef, he won prizes. He worked for the famous Parisian baker Poilâne. My parents settled in Dinard in 1958 as bakers. Then in 1962, when he had to change jobs because of his health, he learned accounting by correspondence with the Pigier courses. We had to move to Lamballe in the winter of 1962–63, when the sea froze over. Throughout his life, he learned English, Spanish, Portuguese, Breton and German, all on his own with Assimil.

He had a great sense of humor and enjoyed telling amusing anecdotes, especially about his life in Hénanbihen. Even though he would repeat them, we enjoyed hearing them again and again, rather like a singer singing his greatest hits. He did it, of course, with a Hénanbihen accent. Sometimes I still use these expressions in a Hénanbihen accent for fun, and my wife always jokes with me, saying “Stop being such a Maurice!

When we had family get-togethers in Maman’s family, he’d start arguing, especially with his stepfather who was as stubborn as he was, so he’d get angry and we’d have to leave the cousins to go home in the middle of our games.

He did a lot of physical exercise with tenacity. I remember how every day he would run in place in the bathroom. He swam far and wide. He would also take ice-cold showers and encourage us to do so. We’d go with Mum and him to the beach, and he’d go swimming for miles. In the course of his life, he saved the unwary by the sea. He’d play jokari or go fishing on the rocks. Later, when we’d swim as far as we could, he’d yell at us in vain to come back closer.

He lived to be 97!

He was a passionate fisherman, and fly-fishing was his ultimate passion. He had plenty of books and magazines in French and English on the subject. At home, he raised cockerels and used their neck feathers to make artificial flies. One day, when we came back from vacation, we realized that the hen house was empty — no doubt some of the neighbors didn’t like fishing.

When we were children, we were afraid of him and suffered from it, but I’m grateful to him for having been our father. Everyone does what they can with what they think is right, even if it sometimes creates misunderstandings with relatives. He loved us, even if the expression of his love was sometimes awkward from our point of view.

Our conscience chooses to be born into a family tree that forces us to learn a particular aspect of the school of life. When we become fathers, we realize how difficult it is to have to play the wrong roles. Everyone plays their role according to their place in the family tree and according to patterns that have been passed down through the generations. Nothing is good or bad, they’re just experiences to be lived and transcended in the script that’s already written before us and that our soul has chosen to live in order to evolve.

If there is such a thing as heaven, as Eben Alexander and many others who have arrived at death’s door and come back to tell us, I’m sure that after finding Mum, his own parents and brother, as well as Christophe his deceased son and all his other deceased, Dad has gone fishing with his dead Barbary cocks feather flies and is currently catching rainbow trouts in a river of clear water.