Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Just Josh: Eulogy for Josh's Dad

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Just Josh: Eulogy for Josh's Dad · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and I thought I'd share
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  with you a few thoughts about grief and losing a parent and play for you the eulogy that
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  I gave at my father's funeral because there are lots of questions and very kind thoughts
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  that people have extended over this period.
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  I'll tell you, it's been tricky for the past month because I got the old influenza as
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  well not only have I been dealing with the passing of my father and the fallout of this
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  big long round the world podcast marathon tour but my handy hint for you all is don't
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  get the the influenza this year it's nasty it's a nasty strain I was an idiot I didn't
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  get a flu shot and now I've been not exactly sick I wouldn't say exactly sick it would
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  be unfair to say that I felt you know proactively sick but what the flu makes you feel which
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  a regular rhino virus like a cold doesn't is it makes you feel like you've run a marathon
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  bench pressed 300 pounds and then gone on a worldly roller coaster that spins you around
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  and you dizzy and can't stand up apart from that you feel fine so if that's the way
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  you want to feel go out don't get a flu shot this year and go out and catch the influenza
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  I'm fine now ish as you can hear by my voice ish and because I don't want to sort of leave
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  you all hanging about messages of sympathy about my father who died when was that must
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  have been at least a month ago now I should probably you're supposed to remember people's
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  death dates is an important thing to know do you need to know when your father died it
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  won't long ago but lots of people have been saying how you're doing was that all about
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  let me share a couple thoughts in case they're helpful because at some stage you're probably
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  going to have to deal with somebody dying as well I hope I mean hopefully you deal with somebody
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  dying if you don't that means that the person who died was you so let's all look forward to having
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  everyone around us die because that means that means we get to we get to live a long life the
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  thing about losing someone to Alzheimer's which is what my dad died of is that you go through this
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  very strange period for years where the person isn't really there in the sense that you don't
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  have a relationship with this person where if something funny happens to you or something you know
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  unusual happens or there's something that you want to share with the people close to you you
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  can send them a text or give the person a call they don't exist in that in relation to you in
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  that way anymore because their brains have been so corroded and yet you also have not had the
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  opportunity to grieve them in using any of the normal tools the sort of contextual cultural tools
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  that we have the processing grief we know what to do when somebody dies you know you literally
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  bury them in the ground and you say goodbye to them and you say whatever prayers or you know
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  poems you want to and you cry and then you move on but as long as the person's body is still alive
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  as long as they're still a living breathing member of the species homo sapien you haven't done
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  any of that and yet at the same time you don't have a father in the sense that you don't have the
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  person to text when you're proud of having done something or you want to share a joke that you
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  and for me this is just a piece of advice to people whose parents might be getting old or might
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  be entering that phase of sort of early dementia and not knowing how bad it will be or how long it
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  will last for me I feel like an absolute idiot for having been blindsided by the loss of my ability
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  to communicate with him and for it to land the way that I wanted it to because nothing was more
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  certain once you get the diagnosis or once you start seeing it happen you know the way this movie
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  ends there are like there has never been a situation in which you know someone starts getting
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  dementia and then some years later they're more capable of following the thread they're more
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  capable of sharing a joke with you they're more capable of coming up with an innovative or
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  interesting insight they're more capable of just chilling out with you and you feeling relaxed
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  about your relationship with them and your conversation with them in a way that is unclouded by
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  you're constantly having to second guess their dementia and what they can follow and what they
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  can't and you know you're having to sort of wrangle them and manage them and worry about whether
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  or not you're making sense to them like once dementia is beginning today is the most
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  cogent day that they're ever going to have it's as good as it ever gets so anything that you
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  want to share with them and anything you want to say to them has to be said why earlier than you
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  think it'll have to be said because by the time you notice that it's time to start saying those
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  things it's too late degenerative diseases are particularly demeaning the way that they sort of
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  strip in this case the soul out of the person while the body keeps chugging along seemingly
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  unaffected for so long and I mean I mentioned the sort of cultural context for grief but I mean
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  you don't even need to have culture and religion for this I mean as mammals just think about other
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  you know intelligent mammals that grieve they're dead it's obvious that there's a cycle to life
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  there's birth and you know puberty and then middle age and then decline and then death and
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  that shape of existence carries with it certain basics sort of hormonal and emotional and
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  psychological colors and textures you know the the exuberance of youth the kind of heedlessness
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  of young adulthood the the contemplativeness of old age the the contentment perhaps and then the
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  decline and it's so bizarre to have a loved one where you don't get any of the stuff that is
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  normally associated with the decline and death of the person because they're still alive by which
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  I mean just this there's no opportunity to grieve the loss of the thing because the thing itself
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  is so ineffable the thing that was lost because the person's still there but they don't have what made
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  them truly them now on some level of course they do have what made them truly them if you want to
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  get kind of spiritual and and deep about it like I mean to his dying days my father still had a
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  twinkle in his eye when he wasn't zonked out on morphine or completely you know asleep like
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  there were moment there were flashes where you saw what a religious person would call the soul
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  and it's obvious that that thing that like flickering flame of sentience is the same thing that's
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  been having these experiences all along like that it's recognizable even on the
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  to I guess second day before he died third day before he died he winked at me he was unable to talk
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  he was like literally on his deathbed but I was saying something and his eyes were tracking
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  my face and I smiled and he winked and that wink was unmistakably dad even though his brain no longer
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  had the capacity to follow more than five seconds of content I didn't even know if he was really
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  understanding anything that I was saying it was just a sieve through which clusters of
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  information would get held momentarily and then just pour straight through his fingers and we
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  knew this because when he you know some months earlier when he was still able to talk and jabber
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  and blabber and look around the capacity to follow the thread of anything was just tissue thin
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  just momentary it was just like it was an instantaneous relationship with reality that had no past
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  no no no future and yet there's still something inside that is the same like sparkle of life the
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  same sprinkle of pixie dust that has always been there all along and yet all of the scaffolding
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  of personality and articulateness and you know interesting ideas all of that is no longer there
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  and you've been robbed of that thing before you've been robbed of the shell of the human
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  so yes I guess this is my cautionary advice from the other side of the veil that if you're
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  beginning to enter this with your parents you know it sounds facile to say and I remember people
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  saying it to me at the time and me you know it's just not landing it's funny isn't it about life
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  like dad used to say the difficult thing about life is that you have to live it forwards
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  but you can only understand it backwards and it's like that with all the sort of wise tropes
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  like the number of things that the person who's 60 wishes they could impress upon the person who's
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  20 is endless and they're all very similar things you know take time to stop and smell the roses
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  don't get so caught up in what other people think of you don't could be obsessed about you know
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  status and money and you know with you fit in the pecking order you know this like you know
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  have time for creativity and friendships all of these things are the things that old people say
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  ad nauseam and the things that young people ignore ad nauseam because you can't really understand
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  the thing until you until you've experienced the the experiences that gave rise to the old
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  persons thinking that the thing was profound in the first place if that weird lookution makes
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  any sense like you know the the profundity of an insight has to be able to land with you and if
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  you don't have the experiences that are necessary in order to find it profound you can be
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  bashed over the head with it by some well-meaning codger or you want and it's not gonna you know
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  it's not gonna resonate you're not gonna understand it and when I was starting out in the process of
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  dad's grief journey you know sorry dad's dementia journey and my grief alongside it there were
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  people you know who'd lost their parents to Alzheimer's who gave me great pieces of advice you
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  know say all the stuff now that you you want to have said and I understood that but I didn't
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  understand it like I understood it intellectually I thought yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but
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  by the time it's too late then you actually understand that you actually understand what they
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  were saying and maybe there's just no way around maybe there's no advice I can give from this
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  side of the death marker that will make a lot of sense to people whose parents are still well and
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  uh and conscious and sparkly and full of their faculties um the other thing I would
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  notice that there is a natural order to death uh I'm lucky blessed really blessed that the
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  deaths that I've experienced touching lots of wood knocking on lots of wood have so far been
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  of people whose time in some way it was to die uh you know dad was in his 80s he'd let a great life
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  when people express some enormous sympathy to me for his passing like yeah I appreciate that but
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  also what did you want him to live forever like this is how the world works this is not a there's
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  not a creature in the world who has not suffered the fate that my father did um and without
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  death life would not be magical I mean if we were all just born and then just lived indefinitely
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  forever you know at a setting of precisely five on the zero to ten happiness scale uh there
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  would be no texture to things uh I was reminded of that great clip from modern family I alluded to
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  this is recently in a recent sub-sub-sac live uh episode but it's an episode where the patriarch
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  of the family uh played by Edo Niel who played Al Bundy and married with children who you know
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  now is the patriarch of the modern family is giving advice to the the table of his children and
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  grandchildren and the grandchildren are about to have his great grandchildren and uh yeah they're
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  at a restaurant anyway why don't I just play this for you it's sweet it's only about a minute
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  have a listen to this you know let's think about babies you you fall in love with a baby with a
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  cutest little fat folds and bam they're gone but it's okay because in its place is this toddler with
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  the greatest laugh on earth and then one day the toddler is gone and in its place a little kid that
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  asks the most interesting questions you've ever heard and this keeps going on like that but you never
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  get the chance to miss any of them because there's always a new kid that take the place of the old
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  until they grow up then in a moment all those kids you fell in love with walk out the door at the same
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  time Jesus oh I don't mean to be a bummer I'm just saying it goes fast like the expression
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  you never know the last time you pick up your kid that's Ed O'Neal delivering some writing I think
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  the writers they earned their keep on that day the modern family writing team I think they
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  they they they did a good job that's true of course not just of children it's true throughout your
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  entire life and then it becomes true when you get old nobody like you know nobody wants the kids
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  to grow up too fast nobody wants themselves to grow up too fast like I don't want my kids to
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  no longer be eight year olds I really like this I'm not looking forward to them being
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  15 and I'm certainly not looking forward to them being 35 but you know I'm not looking forward to
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  someday being 60 either and dad wasn't looking forward to someday being 81 and he's sure as hell
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  wasn't looking forward to dying but guess what the advantage of this world is that it's the one
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  that exists unlike the perfect world in which nobody ages and nobody ever dies that we tend to
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  invent in our brains when we wish that things weren't with us the other thing that I'll just add
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  before we get to my eulogy at the funeral is you know you look at I looked at dad's life as he was
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  dying and I sort of thought about you know it was just a moment ago to a person in their 80s that
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  they were a kid and they remember you know getting married and then they remember these highlights of
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  their life and life feels so short you know where did it all go but then I've been going through
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  his stuff after he died and looking at his diaries from you know things that he was doing in the 1960s
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  and keepsakes and university degrees and photos from the holidays and I'm like I mean yeah life's
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  short but it's also pretty fucking long like you squeeze a lot into it if you want to life is
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  short when you look back on it after you've already lived it almost by definition because you already
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  did it and now you're just thinking about it and the time it takes you to think about it is not very
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  long because you're only really rifling through the memories that exist in your brain but the actual
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  doing of the thing takes a long time I remember I think it was Bill Maher who was on Jerry Seinfeld's
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  comedians and cars getting coffee and Bill is going oh man you know life it goes by so quickly
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  it's it's so quick and I think I was Jerry who was like you know it doesn't if you went back and
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  listen to it looked at every single stupid day you're getting up you're having your coffee
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  yeah there was a lot you lived a long time and I thought yeah that is kind of the right way to
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  think about life yeah of course it feels like it was short once it's already done almost by
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  definition that would be how could that not be true unless the act of remembering it involved sitting
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  in a room and then replaying it in real time over the course of 60 years like it goes by quickly
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  when you just glance at it but when it was actually happening shit there was a lot of stuff
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  there was a lot of stuff that dad did and there's a lot of stuff that I'm doing and I hope there's
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  a lot of stuff that you're doing and if you have the opportunity to say yes to more things even
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  if they're scary or unusual do that because the number of chapters of unusual shit in your life
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  are what will ultimately add up to its apparent duration of course it would be a terrible thing if
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  you got to the end of your life and your life felt short because you'd been sitting in a job that
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  you hated in a relationship that was unfulfilling you know with no appreciation for the incredible
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  gift of life that you've been handed then yeah maybe you could say that life was short because
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  you fucked it but if you can keep tap dancing if you can keep jumping across the lily pads in some
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  way and keep things interesting it's not short it's it's a long long time so without further ado
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  why don't we just play my eulogy to dad at the funeral it was held at the synagogue which I was
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  bar mitzvah at the rabbi was the same rabbi who bar mitzvahed me he was actually in his first year
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  at the synagogue when he bar mitzvahed me and this was his last year when he did dad's funeral
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  we are not observant Jews so I had barely seen him in the intervening decades but I thought it
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  would just be nice for a tradition's sake to do it there after the eulogy you're not going to
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  hear from me again that's it you can just turn off and I will see you next time for another
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  more conventional episode of uncomfortable conversations I hope this gives you some insight into
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  my father as a man and what I've been going through lately love you see you soon
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  dad had a lot of jokes to be honest most of them weren't very good jokes
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  we laughed at them all for a couple of reasons firstly nobody could tell a joke like dad his
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  showmanship and timing were off the charts and secondly after telling a joke he himself
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  would have rupt into such ferocious peels of hysterical laughter
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  that if you didn't laugh it would be insulting to him and hazard us to you potentially
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  and one of his jokes that stuck with me in recent days is about the guy who's on a train on
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  a long distance train and he's just mining his own business he's reading a book and an old Jewish
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  bloke comes up sits down next to him with the ringlets and the black hat and it's a very hot day
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  and the carriage is very stuffy in the old Jewish bloke it's just saying it's oh do I have a
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  thirst and the guy looks up from his book and continues reading and the old Jewish passenger says
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  oh do I have a thirst this thirst I have my thirst I have such a thirst I'm so thirsty
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  the guy continues reading his book until the guy says oh do I have a thirst and the guy puts his
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  book down and gets up goes to the dining car and buys a nice cold bottle of water for the guy comes
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  back gives the guy his bottle of water and sits down the guy takes the lid off chugs the bottle
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  of water signs with satisfaction and the first passenger goes back to reading his book in peace
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  until a few minutes later the old Jewish guy goes oh did I have a thirst
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  now the last place where it would be appropriate to get all analytical about comedy would be at
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  a funeral unless it's Henry Zepsis funeral so I always wondered of that joke who is it who
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  dad is identifying with and who is the butt of the joke is dad the long suffering passenger
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  trying to juggle the inscrutable needs of other people or is he the the thirsty Jewish guy
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  dominating other people's attention in his thirst for human connection dad was both
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  tough he was a man doing his best and a man so keen to connect that he got in his own way
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  or he did dad have a thirst what's been lovely about the period since he died and revisiting
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  other people's memories is being reminded that Henry Zepsis was not born as an aging patriarch
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  to Amos and me that he was just a kid who grew big who had kids who muddled through a person who
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  with the help of the most generous and patient and wise and loving woman in the world used his
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  first to will his life into being he would say your talents are God's gift to you
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  and what you do with your talents is your gift back to God and he would also say the world will
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  step aside for anyone who knows where they're going as an aspiring star with a funny accent
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  and a Jewish nose he got an accent coach and a nose job he learned acrobatics he studied the
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  method when he received a script I'll always remember this he would write out his characters
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  underlying intention in pencil next to every single line of dialogue he would nap at precisely
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  the same time every day for precisely the same duration to make him maximally alert at show time
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  he would do anything and everything to give himself an edge life he said is like bashing your
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  head against a brick wall but then he would add with a furious twinkle but the amazing thing is
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  if you bash your head long enough it's the wall that breaks
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  well you can count on both hands the number of Australian actors who made a living for 50 years straight
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  so I guess the wall broke he was a playful man whenever he'd pass a door that said no entry
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  he would say this sign is for me it's a no entry so enter in the go
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  he'd turn to mom out of the blue and say god you're beautiful multiple times a day
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  and he was a protective father committed to insulating Amos and me from the deranging effects of show
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  business his night of students remember him saying that theater acting is as if you're a lion
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  in a cage in a rage on stage and when he stepped off stage he would subdue the lion
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  and walk back through the front door of our house a sane man
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  his passion did alienate some people we would go to a friend's house for a barbecue and
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  he'd end up yelling at them about how Victor Hugo was wrong about free will
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  it's because everything mattered to dad the worst thing you could say to him was
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  he'd end up yelling at them about how Victor Hugo was wrong about free will
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  it's because everything mattered to dad the worst thing you could say to him was
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  ah it doesn't matter it's not life or death it is it is life or death he would say
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  we just grill on onions here bro
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  life was dad's religion he inhaled it he got up early every morning to go swimming in the cold
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  dark dawn he did Tai Chi every day for his bad back multiple times a day by the time he started
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  forgetting whether he'd already done it he learned his daily five bx exercise routine
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  which he claimed was devised for the Canadian elite armed forces
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  which looked suspiciously like him shuffling on the spot
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  every time he saw a sunset he would stop and soak it up and make everyone in the vicinity soak it
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  up too if you are a passer by on a shopping centre rooftop car park carrying a Harvey Norman
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  microwave to your car that was no excuse look he would say that is God
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  no matter how frequently he flew on planes he always insisted on the window seat
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  as a matter of principle to not look out the window was an insult to the people who mastered
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  flight an insult to Leonardo da Vinci an insult to creation
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  someone wrote on Facebook under the post about his death I was chatting to him after his brilliant
• 27:44
  performance one night at the theatre and he was explaining the virtues of electric cars
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  he actually insisted on driving me around the block in his tiny two seat smart car to show me how
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  roomy it was that was dad choosing to connect choosing to engage choosing to love life
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  as the rabbi said as dementia began sinking its dark claws into his head
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  you could see dad consciously choosing to keep finding wonder
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  one of our close family friends and wait says that a few years ago she casually mentioned to dad
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  something that had happened two weeks previously he said any I have no memory whatsoever
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  of what happened two weeks ago I now live entirely in the present and I've never been happier
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  all his life when people asked him how he was his reply was breathing in and out and in and out
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  man and out it's better than the alternative well now he's got the alternative
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  dad never whined about how unfair life was he didn't make excuses
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  he had another joke about this is partial to me for obvious reasons about a guy who walks off
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  the street into the abc radio headquarters and goes up to the security reception desk and says
• 29:32
  excuse me could you tell me how to get to the audition to become a radio presenter
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  and the lady at the security desk says sure just give me your idea and I'll sign you in
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  you go down the hall up to the third floor to the broadcast studios and they'll take your
• 30:08
  application up there thank thank you he says me he goes off comes back down 20 minutes later and the
• 30:16
  lady at the security desk can't help herself she this is how did how did the audition to become
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  a radio presenter go and he goes oh this the same thing everywhere they hate Jews
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  when dad's acting work dried up he didn't blame anyone else he sat his bum down at his laptop every
• 30:54
  morning and he wrote the one man show and then he wrote another one and then he wrote another one
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  from the outside he just kept having hits from the inside or he did he have a first
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  on dad's last night I sat next to him in the gloom of a sterile nursing home bedroom
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  and I said dad you've done your job you have a wonderful family you've had a great life
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  you don't have to fight anymore I hope that wherever you are dad you no longer have that thirst
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  but that's not true I want you to keep having the thirst I want that thirst never to die
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  I want the thirst to live on in me and my brother now children I want the thirst to live on in the
• 32:08
  artists of the world I want the thirst to live on in the Jews of the world it was thirst that got
• 32:17
  dad's father the hell out of Poland in 1938 it was thirst that got his mother to a refugee camp
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  to get birth to him it was thirst that made them come to Australia it was thirst that made him
• 32:32
  become an actor instead of an engineer it was thirst that made him perfect his craft it was
• 32:41
  thirst that made him never take his wife for granted it was thirst that made him do his stupid 5B
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  exercises every morning it was his thirst that touched everyone who saw him perform
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  it was his thirst that made me and Moss and it was his thirst that made him cling on
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  and fiercely retain his sense of wonder and his joy to leave in the midst of the most
• 33:13
  demeaning and catastrophic disease
• 33:21
  Dad you gave me thirst you gave aim Moss first
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  may our families thrive on it may our communities thrive on it
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  may the thirst never be quenched
• 33:38
  machayim dad and thank you