First Eulogy for a G.I.

No one chooses the time or place of their birth. We all emerge to circumstances, from parents, with a genetic inheritance, and in an environment beyond our control. When we are born there is only one thing promised to us, one day, soon or late, we will die. We are fragile creatures living in a fragile world. The only thing we can ever lay credit to is how we live the life that we are given. What we do with the time and talents we find ourselves blessed with between our emergence from the earth and our return unto it.

We have gathered to say “goodbye” to Donald Tooley. He was my grandfather. He was my friend. He was a man who played well the hand that he was dealt.

Donald Tooley was born in 1926 and in a few short years afterward would find his nation plunged into the Great Depression and his father lost to him. Guarded, protected, and nurtured by extended family and community, still he started his life without many of the things the rest of us take for granted. Other than an offhand comment that he would never eat another rabbit in his life because he’d eaten a lifetime’s worth of rabbit during the Depression, he never talked to me much about his childhood. When I look at the earliest pictures of him I see a lean but plucky and optimistic young man. Donald Tooley drew a difficult hand but he was never a victim. He believed in opportunity. He believed in the ability of the individual to overcome. He believed in the future.

Before he would graduate high school, he would find his nation drawn into the second great world war and the globe burned from Moscow to London, across northern Africa, and from India to Pearl Harbor. When he completed his senior year, he joined the navy as part of the preparations to invade the Japanese home islands. While the invasion proved unnecessary, it was a fight that was predicted to be so costly in terms of human flesh that the War department filled a warehouse with nothing but Purple Hearts that were to be awarded the casualties. Seventy-years later, after Korea, after Vietnam, after Iraq, and with the long war in Afghanistan on-going, our military is still awarding Purple Hearts produced in 1944. That is the kind of fight the nation expected. Donald Tooley signed up for that kind of fight because he believed in his nation, the values on which it was founded, and the positive role America could play in the world.

After the war Donald Tooley came home, furthered his education and became a teacher. Wearing a suit to
work he demonstrated a work ethic second-to-none. Going beyond the requirements of his work he was a mentor and role model, building cooperative education programs, often reaching out to young men who had lost their fathers. Donald Tooley believed in young people.

Donald Tooley was a craftsman, a carpenter and a woodworker. I have even heard, even from people who not close friends, say, “He does excellent work and he never charges what it is worth.” Don Tooley brought all of himself into every job he undertook. If it was worth doing, it was worth doing right. Whether the job was writing a sentence, refinishing a chair, or building a house, Don believed the craftsman is reflected in the work he does. He did not charge as much as some would expect, not out of some false sense of modesty, but, I believe, because he thought his neighbors were deserving of the best he could provide for them. Don Tooley believed in his neighbors.

Don Tooley was not a saint. He was not perfect. He was fully, completely, and utterly human. But he was a human who played the hand he was dealt with skill, with an attitude of service, a concern for justice and with a strong sense of human dignity. That we honor. That is the Don Tooley we carry forward as we make our own journey from earth unto earth.

How do we say goodbye to this man? I don’t know. I’m really bad at them. But if I may re-frame the question, “how do we honor and remember this man?” We honor and remember him by carrying forward the faiths that empowered him to live well. We honor him best, we remember him best, when we share some of his faith that made him who he was.

When we believe in opportunity, in our ability to grab hold of it, and refuse to see ourselves as victims.

When we believe in young people and help them as they help themselves grow into competent and confident adults.

When we believe in the values of independence, equality and human dignity which made America a light to the nations, even in the midst of foreign war machines, or domestic economic troubles.

When we believe in our neighbors and concern ourselves a little less with our own gain or loss, and seek to be of genuine service to humanity through the person right in front of us and at the job right at hand.

The peace I have in Don Tooley’s passing arises from the example we have received from him. Starting all at a different times and different circumstances but we too come from earth and will return to it and I am a better player of my own hand for his influence and his friendship. This is the inheritance that I have from him. For this, I am thankful.

Peace unto you,