Julie Abramson’s remarks at her father’s memorial, 2002
I welcome everyone to share the sadness at the loss of our father, friend, colleague or relative and also to celebrate his life and many accomplishments.
In taking care of my father’s business this week, I found it interesting to uncover the depth of his connections to the people he dealt with in his daily routines. Each one (pharmacist, banker, lifeline person, post office worker, pack n’mail lady) seemed to have a strong personal relationship with him and all spoke of his interest in their lives and his tendency to “grill” them about the particulars. They also all knew about his writing his memoir.
From the time I was very young, I always understood that I had an accomplished and unusual father. I know that feeling must have come from others because he was not one to tout himself.
This came through most vividly on a trip I took to Czechoslovakia in the 70s to visit a woman physician who had worked with my father in his lab. She invited me to stay in her home and introduced me to other physicians who specialized in peripheral vascular disease. His field is much more prominent there and in Great Britain than it is as a medical specialty in the U.S. They all treated me like visiting royalty because of my father’s standing professionally with them.
Another time, when I was in college, I was amazed to receive a call in my dorm room from a woman who tracked me down to tell me tearfully that my father had saved her leg.
I was proud of him in those days, but maybe I have been even prouder of my father’s approach to his old age…which was to work, work, work!…until almost 95 for the Social Security Administration’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, and of course, as he wrote his memoir for the last two years.
He also maintained his independence to the end which was so important to him. There were times that it seemed to us that he could use some help, but I am very glad that we respected his wishes and just tried to provide support. Of course, when people told us that we must get him help, I never knew what to say because it was so clear that the last word would always be his.
Speaking of his words, working with him very closely in editing his memoir was a unique opportunity to share his life with him and to help him achieve the goal that was keeping him alive, writing his book. I am sorry that he did not get the chance to go on the talk shows as he wished. They might well have been interested in listening to his views or in just meeting a man who could write a book at such an advanced age.
The book also created a reversal of roles between us as I became his editor. When we were seniors in high school, writing a “theme a week” for our advanced placement English class, every Sunday night, there would inevitably be a scene at our house as Daddy critiqued our writing and taught us to write clearly and tightly. It is not a coincidence that we both became academics who write. What a foundation he gave us, one that proved so valuable in later life, even if at times, we resisted him.
So strangely, I now found myself critiquing his writing as I edited his book. I was worried that he would not receive my feedback well since he had never been very open to criticism in the past; I was afraid that we would be in conflict over the changes I made in his work. However, I misjudged him. Always a highly pragmatic man, he knew I could help him achieve his goal and so he accepted my editing with grace. He did say I was very tough, but it was said with a measure of pride.
In summary, I will miss his exacting, demanding, funny, playful, penetrating, curious, quick, intelligent self. Beth and I decided this year that describing our father as amazing, as so many did, just wasn’t strong enough so we decided that he really was extraordinary.
The Felson Family 