My Eulogy for My Dad
A "lion of a man," Edwin J. Feiler, Jr. Died Last Week. These Are the Words I Shared at His Funeral
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Welcome to The Nonlinear Life. If you're new around here, check out my opening post.
My father, Edwin J. Feiler, Jr., a fourth-generation Georgia real estate developer, civic activist, and the founder of Leadership Savannah, died last week after a long struggle with Parkinson's. He was 86.
I have been deeply moved by the outpouring of love and memories of what The Savannah Morning News called "a lion of a man." Boy, was he that. If you'd like to learn more, you can read his obituary or this exquisite tribute in our hometown paper.
In today's newsletter, I am including the eulogy I delivered at his graveside yesterday afternoon, on a Savannah-perfect day in the historic Bonaventure Cemetery, surrounded by garlands of Spanish moss and a small number of beloved family and friends. I debated whether sharing these words was a good idea, but when I committed to starting this newsletter I promised I would be my true self —this is as true and raw as I am feeling right now. My dad was a great and good man. And in saying goodbye yesterday, I fluttered the pages that contained these words into the place he will call home forever. I will miss him every day.
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Stand up straight. Plant your feet on the ground. Firm grip. Look them in the eye. Smile. Go get ‘em.
With Ed Feiler, the words were always … Simple. Clear. Straightforward. Heartfelt. Occasionally wicked. Always true.
Stay loose. Off duty. I’m on the team. Let’s discuss.
They were words like these, in which he described his own life:
On 1-2-3-4-5 I was ten years old. I was proud of that fact and loved to share it. I was born on January 23, 1935, in Savannah, Georgia, and my life, in one way or another, has revolved around this city, which I love, and which my family has been a part of for more than a century and a half.
Eight years ago, almost to the week, my father was at a dark place in his life. I began sending him questions every Monday morning.
Dad holding his book of life stories
He answered these questions, one after another, week after week, for the next eight years. And the stories, in many ways, were always the same:
Simple. Clear. Straightforward. Heartfelt. Occasionally wicked. Always true.
Stories about childhood:
My father grew up in World War II. There were few toys. He made model airplanes and strung them in the bedroom he shared with his younger brother, Stanley. When Dad was nine, he began collecting stamps. He ordered a book from the post office and reveled in filling in every space. One day his Uncle Bubba gave him an old deed containing five stamps.
Here, in my father’s words, is what happened next:
I noticed that the stamps bore a likeness of George Washington that had accidentally been inverted by one of the lithographers. I immediately realized the rarity of this particular stamp and shared my excitement with my father, who was very skeptical of my observation. I had obtained some bulk stamps over the years from the H.E. Harris Stamp Company in Boston, so I suggested that my father send these stamps to the company to be evaluated. The company replied by Airmail, which was a big deal in those days. Shortly thereafter, the namesake of the company, Mr. Harris, telephoned my father and offered $650 for each of the five stamps. My father was stunned and accepted the offer instantly.
Soon thereafter, $3,250 was sent via Western Union. (This was 1944, mind you. In today’s dollars, that $68,000!) Bubba let Dad keep $500, made him give $500 to Stanley, and put the rest in a college fund. Someone notified the newspaper, which ran a story.
“Thereafter,” Dad wrote, “I was known as the boy with the stamps.”
Dad in his Eagle Scout days
Stories about adolescence:
When Dad was in the eighth grade, he was assigned to write a book report on a biography. Dad chose Babe Ruth. He read the book, wrote the report, and turned it in. The next day, the teacher called him to her desk. That year, a film had been released called The Babe Ruth Story. The teacher insisted that Dad had not read the book, only seen the movie.
“You Jew boys always do that,” the teacher said.
Dad returned home and told his mother, who promptly marched over to school. “All I know,” Dad wrote, “is that the next day I was in a different class.”
Now, if some members of my family (ahem, my brother) told that story, they would talk about the history of Jews in the South. If others told that story (ahem, my sister), they would talk about the pain of being a Jewish adolescent in the South. If I told that story, I would turn it into an earnest sermon about interfaith relations.
But this is Ed Feiler’s story, and he always had a wicked twist on every tale. The way he finished the story, “I was delighted to learn later that The Babe Ruth Story is widely considered the worst movie ever made.” When I googled that fact, sure enough, the first paragraph of Wikipedia says: “It’s the worst movie ever made.”
Stories about Savannah:
In 1975, Dad was asked by the Chamber of Commerce to start a program for rising stars called Leadership Savannah. Dad agreed on one condition: The program must be balanced, with racial diversity, gender diversity, religious diversity, economic diversity, and ideological diversity. This was the mid-1970s; there weren’t ten people in the state of Georgia who would have made that insistence.
But Ed Feiler did. Why? Because he lived by a set of values and code of conduct that now seem old-fashioned—talk to everyone you meet, reach across borders, find a way to make a connection. Ed Feiler was building bridges across races, among religions, and between genders, decades before that was fashionable and decades after it became unfashionable.
In a polarizing world, he was the least polarizing person I ever met.
Now some of that story about Leadership Savannah has been told publicly, but here’s what’s never been told.
In the third year of the program, my father lived up to his word and hosted a program on the environment that included a wide diversity of voices. One panelist obliquely criticized Savannah’s largest employer, Union Camp—not even by name—for taking millions of gallons of clean water from the public aquifer and dumping millions of gallons of dirty water into the environment.
The next day, Dad was summoned to the Chamber and frog-marched out of his job. They even accompanied him to his office to claim the checkbook, which had a balance of $14.00, because he mostly funded the whole thing out of his pocket. Now almost anybody else would have called the paper, shared the story around town, but not Ed Feiler. He continued to support the organization; my mom later ran it, and in 2015, the mayor of Savannah, who was a Black woman alumna of the program, gave Mom and Dad a proclamation honoring their service to the city.
Ed Feiler kept that story secret for 40 years because, to him, that experience wasn’t about him. It was doing about what was best for Savannah.
My dad meeting President Bill Clinton
Now, it is customary, on occasions like this, to talk about the wisdom of the person in question.
And, oh, my God, was Ed Feiler wise. He advised presidents, senators, governors, mayors, CEOs, rabbis, priests, imams, film directors, book editors, prom dates, playdates. I dare say there have been many toddlers around this town who were told, while still in diapers, Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
He sent me, 20 times in the last 20 months, a list of advice for his grandchildren, which included:
· Do what’s best for the family
· Ask thoughtful questions and listen carefully to the answers
· Try to hear both sides of a story
· Don’t blow out someone else’s candle to make yours look brighter
· Be a team player
And he said to my wife, Linda, every time he saw her in 20 years: Make sure they pay you what you’re worth.
The Feiler family
It is customary, on occasions like this, to talk about the spirit of the person.
And, boy, was Ed Feiler spirited.
He loved games. Board games. Word games. Mind games. Playing Rummikub on Tybee, even as late as August, when he could no longer move the tiles.
He loved travel. Forty countries. Crossing the equator by ship multiple times. Almost choking on a piece of tuna sushi in Japan, which I insisted he down in one bite.
He loved photography, taking hundreds of thousands of photos in his life, putting them in carousels, then showing them around town to anyone who would watch.
He loved good food, good drink, even a good pipe back in the day.
He loved color—from socks to shirts to ties.
It is customary, on occasions like this, to talk about the love of the person.
Ed Feiler had a magnificent heart. He smiled through his eyes and embraced through his handshake. He loved his children. He loved his grandchildren. He loved strangers. He even loved mischief. Ask my sister about April Fool’s and my brother about the squid in Helen, Georgia.
But above all, he loved, loved Jane Abeshouse Feiler.
Now my father was the son of the South. He grew up in a home where love was not spoken openly. For most of his life, he expressed his love largely in deeds, not words.
But then, like many men of his generation, the floodgates opened, and for the last years of his life, he was a veritable font of sonnet-worthy songs and Ovid-worthy orations. All about the woman he called “my dearest love Jane.”
Mom and Dad in their younger years
And now I have a surprise. The final words of the 65,000-word memoir my father completed just this summer. Words, until this moment, known only to him. And to me. And I quote:
Above all, no single person enhanced my life more than Jane Carol Abeshouse Feiler. We shared our lives, and were rarely apart, for a span of nearly seven decades. And for all the accolades I have showered on her, none can truly capture the range of her creativity and originality. I feel honored to have held a ringside seat to marvel at her many gifts and accomplishments, from teaching to civil rights, to political activism; from designing, to painting, to decorating; from cooking, to hosting, to speaking; from parenting, to grandparenting, to doctoring. She possessed so many outstanding characteristics, like making solid friendships and maintaining an upbeat attitude in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. And above all, she was a wonderful companion, conversationalist, and co-conspirator. For all these reasons and so many more, this book is dedicated to her. I have always loved you, and always will.
Mom and Dad
But believe it or not, of all these customary things, none captures the single idea I’d like to leave you with today.
Because if you want to understand one thing about my dad, you need to know that: Ed Feiler loved…DIRT.
He loved soil and ground and gravel. He loved clay—from the red clays hills of Georgia to those balls of black clay that were pumped onto Tybee Island during renourishments.
And speaking of Tybee, he loved the dunes and watching them grow; he loved the soft sand; he loved the hard sand—walking up and down greeting everyone on the beach; playing Bocce; spitting watermelon seeds; jogging—into the wind on the way out, wind at your back on the way home.
He loved concrete and cement (and knew the difference); he loved bricks and mortar. In our childhood, we never drove past a building under construction. As we hopped out of the car, he would say, his favorite phrase, “Let’s check the dirt!”
He loved walking a particular route through the squares of downtown Savannah. He loved running around Forsyth Park during azalea season. He loved stopping people in the street. “I’m Ed Feiler. From Savannah. Are you lost? Can I give you directions?” Half of them would come to dinner.
He loved the deserts of Arabia, the stones of Jerusalem, the Great Wall of China, the markets, monuments, and cobblestones of Paris, Johannesburg, and Bangkok.
Dad enjoying his travels with Mom
He loved dirt so much that when any of his children or his grandchildren ever took a tumble while playing outside, he said, with a wink, “Did you hurt the ground?”
Ed Feiler loved dirt because he loved what was solid. What you could touch and feel. What you could mold and build to make the world a more caring place. He loved to shelter. He loved to connect. He loved to welcome.
I have known abundant people in my life whom many around them would describe as great. But few would describe as good. I have known abundant people in my life whom many around them would describe as good. But few would describe as great.
Dad, you were great. And you were good. You were great and good, which I now know, after all these years, is the rarest combination of all.
And what’s more, you made everyone around you a little bit greater and a little bit gooder.
And so, I stand here today, in the spirit of one the most famous lines in the Hebrew Bible. God, we are told, made humans out of dirt. From dirt we came, and to dirt we shall return. And in your case, it’s returning home.
You are made from this place, Dad. You made this place better. And now to this place we bring you home forevermore.
But you will not stay here forever, Dad. We will take you wherever we go. We will try to remember a fraction of what you taught us. We will strive to make the world a little bit greater and a little bit gooder.
We will fail, of course, but we will do what you always wanted us to do: We will pick ourselves up, brush the dirt off our clothes, and try again. And we will have you always what you always were: our biggest fan and our truest star.
We will stand up straight. Plant our feet in the ground. Firm grip. Look them in the eye. Smile. And go get ‘em.
Stay loose, Dad. I will miss you forever.
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You might enjoy reading these posts:
The Three Most Important Words to Say to Someone in a Life Crisis
Or these books: Life Is in the Transitions, The Secrets of Happy Families, and Council of Dads.
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