Eulogy for my Dad
Eddie Bramlet Booher was born on July
14, 1938 in Cumberland County, Kentucky, to Ruth McCoy and Eddie Creed Booher.
He was their first child, a small baby who appeared to be stillborn at first.
They wrapped him in a blanket and put him in a shoebox because they thought he
was dead, but then his grandmother noticed that he was moving. No one in the
room would have guessed who that timid baby would become.
The short life sketch captured the
basic facts of his life, but in no way does justice to his hard work,
sacrifice, and friendship. How do you convey the essence of Eddie Booher’s life
in a sketch or even a fifteen-minute eulogy? You do what he would do—use a
metaphor or story to help explain his character, both virtues and faults.
Eddie Booher was a Kentucky summer
thunderstorm. If you’re from Kentucky you’ve experienced one of those afternoon
thundershowers that builds in the morning, crashes down on you in the
afternoon, and refreshes the evening with a cool rain. You hear the thunder,
see the flashes of lightning, and feel the rain on your skin. You smell the
moisture moving through the air. You hear the wind whistling through the trees.
You’re a bit frightened as it approaches, and yet excited at the prospect of
rain to save you from the oppressive humidity and heat that summer can bring.
Eddie Booher was like that summer thunderstorm.
First comes the rolling thunder. It
builds and rumbles until you can feel it shake you. You know the thunder isn’t
going to hurt you, but it alarms you.
Everyone who knew Eddie Booher knew
he was loud like thunder. He boomed at will and no one could ever claim they
didn’t hear him. It was a convenient form of communication in wide-open spaces.
Amory remembers being able to hear him yell over the sound of the tractor while
wearing earplugs. Visiting friends were unable to distinguish a “holler” from a
“yell” and assumed he was angry all the time. Those of you who really knew him recognized
that he struggled with his temper, and like the booming thunder its sudden
onset and teeth-rattling nature surprised you. It took most of us years to get
used to it, but when we did, we could see through the blustering noise like the
child that is no longer afraid of the sound of thunder. We learned to walk
calmly in the storm, and in later years tried not to laugh at his blustering.
One night Chock and Brock came home later than they should have, but at the
time they were both twenty something and had served missions in South America.
Dad came out of the bedroom and began to work up his usual thunder until Chock grinned
at him and said, “Why don’t you go back to bed before we decide to whoop you?” Dad
looked at them both, shook his head, and went back to bed.
Yes Eddie Booher was loud, but that
wasn’t always a negative thing. He was never afraid to take a stance and speak
up about important things. He was loud about his opinion on abortion and stood
up for unborn children and the right to life in 1973 when the Supreme Court
ruled in favor of abortion. He and Mom volunteered at the County Fair and tried
to persuade people that abortion was morally wrong.
He was loud about his opinion on race.
As he matured he recognized that the society around him had it wrong and worked
to liberate himself from that conditioning. Over the years he befriended coworkers and neighbors of color and broke the chain of narrow thinking in his home,
and in his community.
He was loud in his patriotism and
love of country. He often quoted the Van Dyke poem "America for Me"
Oh, it's
home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and
there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!”
He loved
his country and the freedoms it afforded him.
He was also loud about his religious
beliefs bearing his testimony of Christ and the restored gospel to many people
over the years. When his parents told him to renounce his testimony of the
Church or move out, he began to pack the car. His parents relented once they
saw that he was serious about his beliefs. He never backed down from his
testimony.
Yes, like the rolling thunder that
shakes your bones, Eddie Booher was loud.
As the storm approaches and builds,
the sky lights up with bolts of lightning that blind you and make the hair on
your arms stand up with static electricity. Each bolt of lightning is powerful,
bright, and bold. Eddie was often like those bolts of lightning.
He was powerful like a bolt of
lightning in his work ethic. When discussing their father, one trait that all
ten of his children mentioned was his work ethic. He worked because he loved to
work. He worked because he loved Mom. He worked because he loved his kids. Most
poets excel in talking about love. He excelled at talking about work. He showed
us that his work was love and his love was work. When other children might get
to know their father while playing baseball, or during a beach vacation, we all
got to know our father by working beside him, because he was always working on
something. He worked at the factory and came home to work on the farm, and we
all helped. It was sometimes sad to visit him in his later years because he
wasn’t able to work, and working together was all we had ever known.
Like the flash of lightning, Eddie
was bright. I don’t mean to say that he was some sort of genius, but he was a
voracious reader and assimilated information better than most people. Even
better than remembering information, he knew how to put that information to
work. Like those flashes of lightning, he had flashes of genius that made him a
bit of a visionary. As the Production Manager at the local copper tubing
factory, he had a vision of what computers could do to make production more
efficient. He almost singlehandedly implemented that vision and put a system in
place that would enhance the production for many years to come. When they
finally replaced his system just a few years ago, it took a group of
consultants over six months and thousands of dollars to get the job done. The
impact of his flashes of lightning at work caused people to ask, “What would
Eddie Booher do?” long after he had retired.
He was especially bright when he
married, and listened to, Jeanetta his wife. They got married when he was
seventeen and she was sixteen, and as you would expect it was tough. They grew
up together as they started their family. You can only imagine the difficulties
they faced as the bills piled up and the hardships of raising a large family
began to pile on top of them like an avalanche of toil and trouble. Where he
was loud, she was quiet, but over the years he learned to take inspiration from
her like energy from flashes of lightning.
He loved to quote a variety of
inspirational (and sometimes humorous) sayings he picked up over the years.
“Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won’t.” “If you fail to plan, you plan
to fail.” “They told me, ‘Cheer up things could get worse.’ So I cheered up and
sure enough things got worse.” “Proper prior planning prevents poor
performance.” “I was doing okay but I got over it.” “When the time for action
has arrived, the time for preparation has passed.” “Put your shoulder to the
wheel, nose to the grindstone, butt in the wind, and try to get some work done
in that position.” And of course his favorite, “Make hay while the sun shines.”
Like those flashes of lightning he had a good quip for a variety of situations.
Eddie Booher, like those flashes of
lightning, had moments of energy, inspiration, and bold genius.
After the booming thunder and the violent
lightning, the rain begins to fall. The sound of rain falling on a tin roof
soothes your nerves. The smell of moisture in the air puts a smile on your
face. The raindrops bring life-giving moisture. Eddie could storm, but he
always brought the rain.
After yelling at you and maybe even
punishing you for misbehaving, Dad would always offer love in the form of a hug
and or a kiss on the cheek. He never stayed mad or upset at you for very long,
and apologized when he was wrong. Like the passing storm, his wrath passed
quickly. After the wrath came the nourishing and life-giving rain of love.
Rain meant that the crops would grow,
and his favorite crop was alfalfa hay. The expression, “Make hay while the sun
shines,” could be considered his life’s motto. He loved working in the hay more
than almost everything else. He told stories of working in the hay with his
father. All of us worked in the hay—mowing it, raking it, baling it, and
hauling it. More than once we found ourselves racing against a coming
thunderstorm to get the hay into the barn. Sometimes we lost, but when we won
it was the best feeling in the world to be walking back from the barn as the
rain began to fall. Amory recalls how one time Dad was so giddy to get the hay
into the barn before the rain came that he stayed outside in the rain and
tossed a rubber ball onto the tin roof of the house laughing like a kid as he
got soaking wet. The rain made the hay grow, and making hay was the cycle of
his life. Truly the chatter of a sickle bar mower, the scraping teeth of the
rake, and the rhythmic pounding of the square baler were the soundtrack of
Eddie Booher’s life.
The rain had a big impact on his
childhood. He grew up on the banks of the Cumberland River before they had dams
along the river to control flooding. He spoke of getting rescued from the
second story of his Brownwood home in a rowboat when the swollen river
threatened to swallow up his childhood home. He told us stories about going
around the square in Burkesville in a motorboat. One time he drove a Volkswagen
Beetle to get across a swollen creek by getting a running start and floating
across the last few feet before his tires touched pavement again. Those traumatic
events left an indelible impression that always made him leery of heavy rain
and flooding.
Eddie Booher could be loud, but he
was also very tender, like a great big teddy bear. He could shower love down on
you at the most unexpected time and in a measure unexpected by a man so focused
on keeping a household of ten children in line. As a disciplinarian he was
quick to mete out justice followed promptly by mercy and love. Brock remembers
most the whipping he didn’t get when he almost burned down the barn. He could
never stay mad at you, and after the thunder and lightning of his displeasure
quickly passed, he would shower you with the rain of his affection.
He also showered others with
generosity when he had nothing to give, particularly in his later years. He
would give money to help a child or grandchild in need. He would offer money or
resources to a friend in a tough spot. He was liberal with his monetary reward
to anyone that worked for him and made sure they were well compensated.
A man of deep feelings of compassion
he had a knack of consoling during a time of grief or loss. Cameo remembers how
Dad laid down beside her on the bed and hugged her when she was inconsolable
with grief after Mom’s miscarriage. Then later in life he offered the same love
and support at the loss of a baby. He would shower you with love and empathy as
he stepped into the gap and took care of whatever needed to be done while you
coped with the loss and grief.
His life was full of rain. He showered
his life with work. He showered his friends with service. He showered his
family with affection.
Yes, Eddie Booher entered this world
a timid and almost lifeless baby. But he lived his life like a Kentucky
afternoon thunderstorm with booming thunder, flashes of bold lightning, and the
life-giving rain of love and affection. Remember him because he was loud.
Remember him because he was inspired. Remember him because he loved and cared
for so many of us. The next time you hear the rolling thunder, see the flashes
of lightning, and feel the rain on your skin, think of our Dad, Eddie Booher,
and be grateful that you knew the loud, bold, and compassionate man that he
was.
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