Leaving a Legacy --DeWese

I have written 230 columns for this magazine and some of 'em were actually hard to write. I left some good stuff out of most of them. If I had remembered to add the good stuff, I might have won one of those Pullit Surprises by now.

I wrote a 45,000 word, unpublished novel (so far, for my own entertainment). I'm afraid to send it to a publisher for fear I left something out—like a plot. The novel has been a work-in-progress since October of 1987 and it's hard writing. I want it to be Hemingway perfect.

A long time ago I wrote a 250-page Master's thesis. A very bored professor gave me an A+ and, mercifully, he never mentioned all the information I left out—you know, stuff like footnotes. Talk about hard writing; that paper was a bear to write and a huge bore for me.

But, during the last week of July, in fact on July 21st, I had to write the hardest thing ever: my father-in-law's eulogy. Then on July 25th I had to present his eulogy at his funeral to about 45 family members and 300 friends and business associates.

Of course, when the service was over, I thought of 40 to 50 more things I should have said or could have said better about this man I knew for nearly 45 years. This experience has led me to conclude that there ain't gonna be no eulogy at my funeral. I haven't been so good and I don't want anybody lying about me.

I didn't have to lie or make up stuff about Roy Allen, my father-in-law. He was good to the core, the very essence of goodness.

Every day that he lived as an adult was the equivalent of a Chopin waltz or a Beethoven sonata. He seamlessly composed good deeds for the people in his life—his family, his friends, his co-workers and mere acquaintances.