EULOGY FOR JIM WISE – MY FRIEND
St. JEROME’S CATHOLIC CHURCH 2013
It is with great sadness that I stand in front of
you today in this House of Worship to remember the life of my good friend Jim Wise. We spent many,
many hours together. I am happy to see so many of Jim’s, friends, neighbors and
relatives attending. And I know that many of you traveled a
long way to be here, and I truly believe Jim would be incredibly
appreciative to see you. He is
looking down as we speak and... he knows you are here.
Almost nine years ago Jim interviewed me and my late wife Dolly when we applied to live at Country Club Condominiums. A simple one-hour interview turned into many hours of conversations with “the Mayor of Building Three” as he was well known by.
I believe one of the members of the Home Owners Association gave him that nickname after he served almost three terms on the HOA board. He took an active interest in serving and knew just about everything that was going on at the condos.
He always had a word or something to talk about whether at the communal mailbox, or when he was tinkering in his garage. When we had problems in the building, he was there, contributing to the problem solving.
After I lost my wife, almost six years ago, I still made a full pot of coffee every morning as I had done for decades. And it became a ritual to share a cup of “Jo” with JIM and continue our conversations on a daily basis. It was the 9:00 O’ clock coffee break, unofficial but just like the Euro trains, he was always on time.
Why waste good fresh coffee? I had plenty and he liked coffee. He also had a sweet tooth and liked the French Vanilla Bean, two spoons of NesQuick Chocolate and a splash of Irish Mist flavoring. It was his favorite pick-me-up and elixir. Today they bottle it and sell it with a five-hour guarantee. It was Jim’s pick me up, old school.
He was my test bed for cooking, like “Mike-ee” in that commercial, he’d try anything I made. He liked my cooking and we had a lot of fun and a couple laughs together.
With the onset of his Macular Degeneration, he began losing his sight. I could see the importance of our time we spent together, I was keeping him in touch with the world.
His expression, “so what’s the latest news or gossip?” I said, “We better go to the paper, ain’t nothing going on here“. We went through the paper together, talked about everything from football to politics, and we both agreed, college football is better and many politicians are closely related to crooks.
When he didn’t or couldn’t show, I called to see if he was OK. He saw his world dimming but he still wanted to know what was going on. This was his time.
THE MOVIE MADE ME THINK
I must digress for a moment…A movie starring Tom Cruise (played Algren) and Ben Watanabe (played Katsumoto) called
“The Last Samurai” did well at the
box office. It was the story of an American military advisor hired to do away
with the Samurai rebels who were resisting the overtaking of Japan by greedy
Western influence in the late 1800’s.
Our hero was wounded and captured by the rebel Samurai Warlord. After being held for almost a year, and gradually through “Intelligent Conversation” they shared their thoughts and feelings. They got to know and like, respect and be honest with each other. Getting to know his captor’s culture, he embraces the Samurai Code. He had realized the Samurai were the good guys in this story. It started with simple conversation over a cup of tea and they became friends.
Conversation, it is a missing art today. We do not converse, we technically communicate. Our electronic conversation is cold blooded, limited to texting, voice mails, twits and tweets. Some written by those who are real nit-twits and can’t spell and would be better off speaking to each other.
Our position in the world in education, namely Math and Science (education wise) has sunk to new lows. In fact being 17th and 25th, in the world is nothing to brag about. It shows in the communication. Some messages I get are so cryptic, you would think they were done on a WWII German Enigma machine that baffled the famed British code-breakers.
Jim’s Legacy was Intelligent Conversation…he never twitted, tweeted or even got on the computer but he could converse and have an intelligent conversation about what was around him and it grew smaller with his vision loss.
Losing someone you respected is never easy, but when their life is taken away so rapidly, it is that much more difficult. There are many un-filled questions I would throw at him if he were here today. I will miss my friend and I hope that these words will help alleviate some of the grief we are are all feeling today.
If he were here now at this podium, he would tell us to cheer up, smile and remember all of the great memories we can all share with each other, positive thoughts. Even though Jim may be gone, his memory will live on in some of us. I appreciated your friendship, Jim, I appreciated the “Intelligent Conversation”.
Everyone should start their day and share their world with others and a cup of coffee is a really good place to start. He drank out of this cup in my hand for many years. This is Jim’s cup, the one he always used. It says on it “Friends are the flowers of the heart”. It is now for his beloved Geraldine to have it.
Sleep, rest and speak well my friend, I know you are in a good place…and as entertaining as ever… even when God spoke to Moses, he knew he had a good conversation, now it is your turn.