The Eulogy (Partial) Transcript
Written by my mom (Amanda Florence Goodenough)
Read by The Florence Girls (my mom & aunts)

Our dad was many things, but what sticks with us the most is how we knew him as a tireless provider- tireless – since he always worked 3-5 jobs at any given time. 

So when our mom died 13 years ago, I wanted to build a closer relationship with our dad, especially since we all worried about him and I was the only daughter in state… So, in an effort to connect with our dad and understand him better, I learned to speak another language… called football…. Just so I would have something to talk with him about when I called every Sunday. 

In doing that, I learned how private he was, and so strong. I learned that he didn’t like to owe anybody or inconvenience anyone. He loved opening gifts, even though he’d tell us to stop buying him things and despite the fact that he rarely used said gifts. In this context, he loved the element of surprise. I found him to be organized and an adoring father of the four-legged women of the house. 

In fact, Lulu must have been the best dressed chihuahua in town!

He didn’t like to be late, he cared deeply about work ethic, he could hold a grudge like no one else, and he was skilled to take things apart and patient enough to put them back together. I discovered a very sensitive soul beneath a hard exterior, and recognized that, even in retirement, that man never rested. 

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he’d say. 

I learned to speak football to understand our dad better, and it worked. I didn’t have him all figured out, but I got to know him enough because when I caught him on the phone that February morning I knew in my gut that something was terribly wrong, even though he tried to convince me otherwise, and so I dropped everything to be by his side and then called my sisters to get there too.  

Imagine being “well” enough to drive yourself 40 minutes to the emergency room in a stick shift vehicle and then coming home 2 weeks later on hospice. And then surviving only two more weeks at home before slipping away into whatever comes after the physical world…     

That’s what happened to our dad. 

He was crushed. We were devastated. 

And the only thing harder than saying goodbye to our Dad on March 21st was having to watch him leave. 

Because there we were, thrust into a hospital room with no warning, sitting with an unfair diagnosis, and crying together for the first time.

I spent 4 decades looking for tears to drop from that man’s eyes, just to confirm his humanity. 

We suffered devastating losses over those years… from having to put our faithful dog Biscuit to sleep, to surviving the untimely death of our mom/his wife, to grieving my recurrent miscarriages. 

While I shared my sadness generously each time, he kept his emotions completely private. 

So when his tears finally came in that somber Intensive Care Unit, it almost killed me. 

“I won’t get to see my babies grow up,” he said. 

I just hugged him. Because no words could dry those tears.  

“I wasn’t done yet,” he said. 

And we don’t know what he wanted to still accomplish… from secretly buying his first car at 12 years old to….owning a successful business… to learning about how many people loved him so deeply… we’re not sure what he didn’t get done.

“I did all the right things, he said.

He did. He did everything he was supposed to do… went to every doctor appt, got all the preventative screenings. This wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this cancer. 

He also didn’t deserve to lose his wife so young. He didn’t deserve the racial discimintation he faced in Mukwonago. He didn’t deserve to fight for an interracial marriage. He didn’t deserve whatever he experienced in Vietnam. He didn’t deserve to grow up without a dad. His entire life wasn’t fair. 

But he’s always kept pushing and fighting to the very end. 

I asked him if he was scared to die. 

“No,” he said. “It is what it is.” “I’ve had a good life” 

We asked, how do we help you move through this, Dad?

He said, “I don’t know, I never died before.” But as he laid there in pain, he said “All I know is dying is not for sissies. I don’t know how your mother did it. She was much stronger than me.”

But he was strong too. Even in his shortest fight. He pushed through because our dad always said, 

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

And before we were ready, his breathing slowed, so we sang his exit song and watched him slip into the night.

He finally gets to rest easy with Nana. 

Time of death: 9:26 p.m. 74 years young. 

Sleep, dad. Sleep.