John's Eulogy by Seth Ritter

            Before I wrote this, I watched my dad’s eulogy of his father.  It was not that long ago that he stood where I stand.  He perfectly summarized Clarence, my grandfather, both in content and form.  The eulogy was concise, modest, almost spare.  I hope that this eulogy is some small reflection of my dad and, to that end, it will ramble and be wordy, but hopefully with a message that underpins the storytelling.  If there is any music in my words, I credit him.  He taught me how to play.  If I fall short, it is due to my own fallibility, but I have lost my most important sounding board and editor.  He did leave two dictums in his journal, to which I will try to adhere.  They were:  “Tell the unadorned truth about me, maybe someone can learn from my mistakes,  that, and here I am quoting, “no bullshit.”

This is a profoundly sad day, but sadness is not all that I feel.  I cannot complain of the miracles that did not come, but rather celebrate those that did.  5 years ago my mom and dad first learned that Dad had an exceedingly rare and lethal form of cancer.  It took months of medical visits and dozens of doctors to figure out the exact type of cancer.  When he was diagnosed, there had been fewer than100 patients who had this cancer.  Most had all died quickly, living on average less than 6 months from diagnosis. 

Whenever dad would ask about prognosis, one of his doctors was fond of answering that dad was “an N of 1.”  Now my majors were psychology and Spanish, before I went to medical school.  So for everyone with an arts and humanity background, N is the number of patients in a treatment group.  Dad’s cancer was so unique and his treatment had never been tried for this type of cancer that he truly was an N of 1.  And that somehow seemed fitting.

My dad thought that he was dying 5 years ago, and given the facts, that was a totally reasonable conclusion.  He benefited from good hospitals and fabulous teams of doctors, nurses, and support staff.  Dad never was afraid to die; he was afraid to be living but not alive.  At first, he resisted undergoing treatment.  Ultimately, through persistence of the rest of the family and based more on hope than fact we prevailed upon him to undergo chemo and look for a bone marrow transplant.  I believe he thought treatment was futile, but he saw how much having that small hope meant to us.  For that, he acquiesced.  We called it treatment, but it was probably worse than any disease.  Still somehow, the horrendous treatment and the horrible disease fought each other to a stalemate.  His immune system barely existed and the cancer seemed to be in remission.

Against odds and exceeding expectations, he had 5 years free of disease.  He entered his 7th decade with a bourbon tasting party, he saw Mike and I get married, but not to each other, he met his first 2 grandchildren, and he had the grace to endure the latest in a long line of juvenile nicknames bestowed by juveniles.  My oldest daughter knighted him “Juan John Triceratops.”  When she gave him a triceratops pillow pet for Christmas for Christmas, he just smiled and thanked her.  He drank bourbon, actually when he went into the hospital he was cask aging some un-aged spirits distilled in this state, a proud if anachronistic Pennsylvania tradition.  He sat on his patio in a plastic chair, he drank bourbon and snuck cigarettes, and enjoyed shooting the shit with anyone who was visiting or happened to call on the phone.  He grew some of the best citrus that Pennsylvania has ever produced and mind you, he made custom dirt and fertilizer for each type of plant he grew.  He laughed too loud and too long at his own jokes, some of which were actually funny, but his laugh was always funny and it was infectious.  He was absolutely inseparable from my mom and took frequent road trips to visit my brothers, me and my family, and his beloved cabin in the Poconos.  As he points out in his journal, he had 5 more years of birthdays, holidays, and family occasions.  He did exactly what you are supposed to do with borrowed time; he lived the hell out of it.  He also spent a lot of time organizing and managing things to make it easier for all of us, when he wasn’t here anymore.  Even in his reprieve, he knew that day would come too soon and he prepared for it.

          What is remarkable is how little in my dad’s life view changed before and after Dad’s diagnosis.  As you all know, Dad was a teacher during the week.  Over weekends, he bartended.  He worked 2 jobs for most of my childhood, but never at the expense of playing with us or taking us to soccer practice.  He never complained and he didn’t take a sick day for 30 years.  On the contrary, I saw him bartending at the Anchorage and I had him twice as an English teacher, he was upbeat in perpetuity, always enjoying the moment, and picking his opening to casually drop something profound.   I remember him taking on the character of Dr. Evil during one of my English classes to draw out a quiet student.  I remember him singing Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” to raise money for Key Club which he advised for many years.  He had several backup dancers from the English department, as I recall it, most of them were women.  Who else would choose the Honey Badger as his cancer blog’s mascot?.  He never worried about how he would be perceived.  He was always up for anything, if it was good for a laugh, or for a good cause.  He was willing to try something a little unconventional if it might reach a detached student, such as myself in high school.  He was a person who ran towards responsibility and applied himself selflessly and tirelessly.  After my brothers and I had left for college, he took care of his parents, visiting them daily, cooking for them, laughing with them, enjoying their presence while it lasted.

          He had an earthy, timeless wisdom and patience that seems to be in ever shorter supply.  It was the kind of wisdom that comes from having family roots to an area that go back 300 years, and seems to be born of a close relationship with the earth and growing things from it.  He also had an erudite, well seasoned, literate intelligence.  He was able to, seemingly at will, greet any happening with a germane reference to poetry, Shakespeare, or something more obscure.  What is all the more remarkable is how he chose to apply these talents.  He mentored newbie teachers, students, and student teachers.  He talked to us as though we were on his level and subsequently, he dragged many of us closer to that level.  He helped friends in need.  I have a early memory of one of dad’s childhood friends sleeping on our couch for several days.  Although I didn’t know it and my parents explained only that he was sick, I now realize that he was withdrawing from alcohol.  He years ago died during another bender.  Dad always had a special place in his heart for cases that others considered lost, whether long term lapsed alcoholics or punk rocker students at lit mag.  I thought that this was just how people behaved, until I got to college and learned otherwise.  Perhaps  it is the way more of us should behave, more often. 

          Dad had vision; he saw things in people that we ourselves didn’t always see.  It wasn’t that he didn’t see the warts and shortcomings that we all possess.  He did, he expected it, he just didn’t let our more annoying features be his entire impression of us or cause him to discard us.  Dad was a bartender who ran an alcohol and drug support group at the high school for many years.  He saw the world as it was; he saw the grey in the world and he reveled in that stratum.  His treatment of a person was independent of your status as a sinner or saint.  He knew none of us were saints, but he loved us anyway.   In reading his journal, I came to know that this wasn’t innate disposition, it was a conscious choice he made.  It is a choice that I hope to emulate.

          One of the most amazing traits my dad had was to tell people exactly what he thought about any subject, anytime.  His positions were well reasoned, researched, and supported.  He did not always win his opponent to his point of view, but he nearly always won them to his side.  To be friends with so many people with distinct points of view, to have that friendship arise from mutual respect.  I always felt that embodied his heritage so well.  Ritter means knight in middle German and dad was willing to fight with uncommon determination when he felt it important.  But he also followed that tradition that drove our ancestors to this area:  he struggled for peace and tolerance, he helped the poor and disenfranchised; he held to his own code, which was above all else predicated upon love.  Although he largely was lapsed from formal religion, he better embodied the ideals espoused by all major religions than anyone else I knew.

.         Dad was a father, grandfather, son, brother, and husband.  He was a teacher of many things, a mentor, and a cherished friend.  He was in his own way a farmer, as our people have been for eons.  But he was a farmer of both plants and a farmer of men.  He cherished new growth whether on a peony or a person and he encouraged both with equal verve and dedication.  If life force was all that were required to live, we would have had him until I was a grandfather many times over.  We do not get to choose when or how we die; we only get to choose how we live.  We can cry today, but do not forget tomorrow to live, to laugh, to enjoy a sip of bourbon when appropriate.  Don’t forget to help each other, more than anything, he believed in helping people.  His impact on me and so many people will ring through generations yet to come.  He was well loved and lived well.  Truly, John Ritter was a good man.  

-- Seth C. Ritter