Eulogy for Dr. Paul Fernhoff, September 21, 2011

Eulogy for Dr. Paul Fernhoff
given by Shana Cohen 
September 21, 2011

Thank you so much for being here with us today on this most difficult of days.

My father was a modest and often self-effacing person. He never wanted a fuss to be made over him. As his family, we do not even know the extent of the accolades his many achievements have earned him because he often simply didn't feel the need to mention them. At the same time, my dad was a sociable and collegial person through and through, and he genuinely delighted in the company of others, as is evidenced by the sea of faces here. I am positive that he would give one of his trademark ear-to-ear grins to see so many people gathered here from all walks of his rich and varied life. He was driven to help others and he did so with a sense of focus and compassion that was completely out of proportion to his small physical stature. For such a short man, he has left some awfully big shoes to fill, and some enormous gaps in the fabric of our existence that will surely never be filled.

I came to the task of eulogizing my dad with great unease. In part, because he died so suddenly, which makes the thought of recalling his memory seem surreal, almost ludicrous. After all, he was just with us last weekend, seamlessly woven into the mundane details of his and our lives. His day had already begun: his clothes neatly stacked on the dresser, his keys and wallet neatly lined up next to his gym bag, his cell phone already beeping. The speed and force with which he was taken from us took our own breaths away, stopped our own hearts momentarily upon hearing the news. A great void just materialized out of nowhere; the infinite, unknowable, and incomprehensible  reached into our mortal frame of reference and turned ordinary life into a bizarre waking dream.

It takes time and space to absorb such an experience of  life turned upside down, much less to memorialize somebody whose presence we still feel so immediately, whose flesh and blood existence, with all of its shades and nuances, remains too real, too sprawling and complex, to be fixed into memories and anecdotes just yet.

My dad's life was indeed rich in deeds, and his indefatigable personality and tireless sense of mission helped him walk in a multitude of worlds, both privately and professionally. My dad's public role as a physician, expert, and advocate, have left a deep mark on us, and we could not be more proud of him. There could have been no better role model than my dad, a humble, irreverent, lovable, and loyal man who also happened to be at the center of some of the most important medical and ethical issues of our time. 

So many people have already left their thoughts and impressions about my dad as a physician, a colleague,  and community leader.  What has emerged is far from surprising: a picture of a human being, a mensch, who used his considerable expertise and status to improve the lives of countless families.  I can only begin to paint, with very broad stokes, who my dad was in private, in his own family, as a husband, father, grandfather, and son. Very unsurprisingly, the same ethic of responsibility, compassion, and humor animated him in these roles too.

As many of you know, my dad lost his own father at the age of 19. His mother, my grandmother, once told me that the last time my father saw his dad, there had been an argument over something trivial, the car, I believe, one of a series of arguments on this topic. My dad had left for his second year of college before the dispute could be resolved.  It was this immeasurable loss, which I am only now beginning to comprehend, that propelled him through his life with such drive.

Whether the regret he may have carried over this argument influenced his disposition, I can't say for sure. What I do know is that my dad and mom both are the kind of sweet, civil, "no drama" people you'd want at family reunions, board meetings, and as your parents. They didn't fight, they didn't hold grudges, and they didn't sweat the small stuff. They focused on the big picture, whether it was my dad learning the intricacies of investment so that he could provide for our futures, or my mom reminding me to "do what you love and the money will follow."  They handled our childhood quirks and phases with good humor and a light touch.

Beyond the usual turbulence of childhood and adolescence, I can't think of a single moment of being angry with my father. He was always so unassuming, so open to hearing other viewpoints, opinionated but never dogmatic, not a pushover, but so gentle in his disagreements. He told me that he came from a family of great debaters, arguers, lawyers, and others with a flair for the dramatic. And yet, despite his keen intelligence and wit, my dad was really not an arguer. While never being afraid to make a point, he simply did not "do" drama and conflict for their own sake.

My dad was uncommonly polite, and he was ever careful of other people's feelings. Years ago, we were in the parking lot of a restaurant when a domestic argument broke out between the occupants of a neighboring car. The language began to turn extremely colorful, and my dad stuck his head out the window and asked these worked-up, belligerent strangers---who were substantially bigger than he was--- to clean up their language because children were present. "Please." More typically, my dad was gentle with the people he knew. Work called often, and we were used to the sound of his pager or phone ringing at all hours of the night. I never once heard him answer it with irritation in his voice, only concern and a sense of readiness to address whatever problem or situation awaited.

As for us, even though at times I yearned for more time with my parents, my dad and my mom always answered the phone when we called, smack in the middle of their busy workdays, no matter how unimportant the issue we were calling about or how many times we did it. Neither my dad nor mom tried to dictate an agenda to us for how we ought to live our own lives. They educated us, nurtured us, placed their trust in us, and gave us the most lasting, often most difficult gift a loved one can give: the freedom to grow into the people we needed to be, at our own pace.  And while they clearly had hopes and aspirations for my brother and myself, they never imposed on us a rigid vision for how we should live our lives.  

It's hard to talk about my dad without also talking about my mom. After 42 years of sharing life with someone, it doesn't make sense to reference them separately.  On the surface, they maintained some longstanding differences. My mom sleeps like a stone, my dad was up on a dime, frequently insomniac. When we were teenagers, he was the one waiting up for us to come home--and occasionally grounding us when we failed to--, while she went to bed, knowing that the only variable under her control was getting a good night's sleep. He was forever supplying my mom with perfectly reasonable requests to get rid of things…and she was forever providing perfectly reasonable answers for why she would do no such thing. Yet for all their banter and exasperation, I never once heard them raise their voices to each other in anger. For all their differences, they functioned as a seamless team and they made their commitment to one another, and to creating a life together, apparent in so many understated ways. Living very independent as well as interdependent lives, they supported each other in fulfilling their life's work, helping people navigate through difficult transitions, be it in a hospital clinic or in a therapists' office. 

My dad loved animals, as anyone who has visited the house over the years can attest. From his beloved childhood cocker spaniel, Flippy, to his latest trio of "boys";  Watson, Crick, and Franklin (naturally); many a pet over the years has had the joy of discovering free room and board at the Fernhoffs.  My dad endured miserable allergies for years simply for the pleasure of dwelling with a succession of animal companions.  For 15 straight years, he loved and cared for a dog that growled at him every time he passed her (it wasn't personal, she growled at every human male except for my brother!) One of his few retirement fantasies involved getting a boxer. Yes, he actually said the R word, although I don't think really meant it.

My dad found so much simple companionship with his pets, and he remained fascinated with wild creatures too, the backyard birds, the animals on the cover of National Geographic, with the important exception of those creatures he called his "arch-nemesis", the squirrels. I can never recall a time when we didn't have a bird feeder, and as he enjoyed reminding me, I could name all of the backyard birds as a toddler, no doubt having learned under his tutelage.  Most recently, he had gotten my daughter a subscription to National Geographic Kids, and loved trying to get her interested in the pictures of wildlife inside…sometimes with success.

My dad was an incredibly organized and deliberate person. He did not make big decisions quickly or lightly, whether investing in a stock or buying a new dishwasher. The field of genetic counseling and medical ethics doubtless benefited from his capacity for deep reflection and deliberation. In his private life, he was no different. He not only began saving and investing early for our future, but made a point of educating me, beginning in adolescence and continuing into adulthood about personal finance and long term saving.  To me, these conversations about dividends and diversification seemed rather spontaneous but in retrospect they were planned.  Even back then I sensed my father's concern that he wouldn't be around forever, and his desire to prepare us for whatever the future might bring.  And they were some of the most enjoyable times I remember spending with my dad. I could ask him any question, however naive, ask for explanation of a concept again and again, and he always had a kind and thoughtful response. I am so grateful for the discipline with which he and my mom saved to provide my brother and I with an education, with a downpayment on our first home, with seed money for our own retirement and even for his granddaughter's education. His thoughtful planning forms the most basic material underpinning of our lives to this day.

In one exceptional area of his life, my dad did take on significant risks to life and limb: in the blood and guts sport that is racquetball. Playing racquetball at Athletic Club Northeast was a positive outlet for my dad's competitive drive, not to mention one more venue in which to kibbutz, and it gave him the chance to befriend a group of people whose lives were a little or perhaps a lot wilder than his own. I know some of you are here today and I want to honor the central ongoing role you played in my dad's life and all the joy it brought him. Despite giving him black eyes, enormous bruises, sprains, and a couple of knocked-out teeth. Not to mention putting ideas into his head about flying in a plane that one of you built yourself!  My dad clearly relished being part of this elite cadre of daredevils. While we never got to know you, my dad always came home with a font of stories about you, and they all started with "So, you know my crazy friend Larry...?"  

My dad was always the guy acting slightly ridiculous at family functions, putting a birthday hat over his nose like a beak, doing a "papa Paul dance" for my daughter whenever we came over (I won't attempt to replicate it.) His zany, silly sense of humor was perhaps best expressed by the humor columnist Dave Barry, and rivaled only by his unusual fashion sense.  A striped pastel shirt, camouflage khaki shorts, and shiny bowling-style shoes with no socks was just regular Sunday attire for my dad. I never much thought about the origin of his unique sensibilities, but I think it must have put people at ease and made him even more accessible. For all his accomplishments, my dad was by no means opposed to self-mockery and good-natured ribbing, and he could give as good as he got.

You might think silliness unbecoming to a grown man, especially to someone of my dad's expertise and stature. But far from being just a bit of a clown, my dad's playfulness touched everything he did and made him a warm and nurturing person to be around. It was one of the dominant traits I sought, and found, in my own spouse. He and my mom, by virtue of their personalities, created an atmosphere of humor and informality that touched everyone who entered the home, made holidays into huge, much-looked-forward to celebrations, and helped our daily relationships with our parents remain lighthearted and fun.

My dad's work ethic is legendary, as was his health-conscious attitude and commitment to fitness. The biggest lesson we took away is that the best and most lasting kind of self-discipline and achievement arise when you take on something that you love doing. My dad's passion was for helping children with genetic disorders and their families to live as full and informed a life as possible, but the same moral applied to whatever task we decided to pursue.  Work and play could be synonymous for them because they both truly love and enjoy what they do.

As for fitness, many of you know that my dad always remained highly conscious of having lost his own father to a heart attack when his dad was just 44 years old. He always aimed to live to see his children grow up and so much of his commitment to healthy lifestyle was grounded in that awareness. And as much as I wish he had not been ripped away from us so soon, I am so grateful that those extra 18 years of life--his own, hard-won "chai"--- were granted to him so that he could live to see milestones his dad never did; to watch both of his children graduate college and graduate school, to see me get married and to get to know my husband David and his parents as true extended family, to witness the birth of his granddaughter Talia and to spend the past year really getting to know her on a day to day basis. They had a real camaraderie and because of this extra 20 years, she may well remember him. She will be one more person whose life he touched and who can hold onto a direct piece of his memory and his legacy.

When David and I got married, my dad gave a beautiful toast. Reflecting back on my childhood love of birds, he compared David and me to two young birds getting ready to leave our parents' nest and make our own. But he took pains to leave the door open, so we would know that the first nest would always be there to welcome us back home. Last year we took him up on the offer and moved back to Atlanta, primarily so that Talia could live within a short drive of all four of her grandparents.

Of course, how we wish that my dad could have lived to watch her grow and flourish, perhaps even leave the nest herself one day.  But the short time he did have with her was so meaningful, and he remained healthy and agile enough to keep up with her throughout. He taught her the names of trees at Calloway gardens. He drove us down to Jacksonville Beach and let her bury him in the sand. He came up to Chattanooga and played with her at the aquarium. He sat across from her almost every Friday night and asked about her week in preschool.

His last weekend alive was, in my mother's words, "so normal, it was perfect." One of my final memories of him will be of watching him from the window as he sat with my daughter in the backyard. He was engaged in something so simple and yet so profound: helping her dislodge some play dough from a toy, while diligently trying to keep the mosquitoes off her young skin.  As always, I felt an immense sense of confidence and safety, knowing that he was there looking out for her; and joy too, as we looked ahead to all the simchahs I imagined we would be sharing together.

While the regret feels futile, I wish we could have been with my dad in his final moments. I wish we could have somehow given him that same sense of reassurance that he gave to so many families as he made his own transition. As it was, he departed from this life before we could reach him. In the end, all I could do was sit with him in silence, my hand in his, and remind his spirit of all the people who would soon be holding him in their hearts and prayers.

My dad always wanted to trace his own genealogy, and for a while we collaborated in an online search for long-lost relatives and the long-forgotten names of the ships that brought his ancestors to America. We have missed our chance to resume that work, to piece together all the many lives to whom he owed his birth and which have in uncounted ways helped to shape his choices and his destiny. Genetics is the study of the legacy that parents bestow upon their children, about the mysterious and wondrous ways that one person can live on through many. But, as my dad was keenly aware, there are so many ways to shape the future. He spent his life helping others make complex personal and ethical choices on behalf of their children, surely a calling that speaks to the transcendence of the human spirit over mere biology. And at the same time, he chose to live the years given to him in a deeply humane way, imparting his core values to his own children, showing us by daily example the importance of making a difference, pursuing a passion, living with discipline and integrity, planning for the future, and never taking yourself too seriously. He leaves us all with a tremendous legacy that goes well beyond our genes.