Eulogy by Jonathan Bodine Bonyhard

      I am not a writer, save of the occasional song or bombastic email. But a piece of advice I have heard frequently given to those that are, is “write what you know”. So that is what I have done here. I would not presume to try to encapsulate or define the immeasurable impact that my father’s life had on his family, or the world as a whole. I can only talk here about what I know. So this is likely to be quite short, as the list of things I know is a short one.

     Peter Istvan Bonyhard. Or Bonyhard Peter Istvan, depending on whether you're speaking English or Hungarian. A man of keen intelligence, uncommon gentleness, and an unfathomable courage. This man was a survivor, a truly good and kind man in a world where good, kind men are scarce and unfashionable. A perceptive, deep human being. A philosopher. A scientist. A husband. A father. And a friend.

     My father is the first person I ever remember wanting to be like, the first person I consciously recall needing to like me, to think I was smart, to talk to me. He was so cool, so mellow. His sense of humor was as arid as the Gobi desert in the stories about the Mongols that he read to me, and I loved every minute with him. He told me stories of Alexander the Great, and the battle at Thermopylae, and the history of the Roman empire. He took me on walks, and patiently tolerated my obsession with superheroes even when I took to wearing my underwear on the outside of my clothing and fastening towels to the back of my shirt to serve as terrycloth capes. I remember walking with him to work…trying to keep up as his legs strode quickly up what seemed to me at the time an impossibly big hill. His legs were so strong- he seemed so sure of himself. He was my dad, and nothing could stop him. Not then, and not now.

     My father passed on more than a couple of attitudes, beliefs, and conclusions to me, over the course of his life. I cannot say whether this was always his intention, or even when it was, if I learned the things that he meant to teach. But I treasure my perception of those things regardless…because to me they are all that is left of him now that I can save. My memories of him belong to me, and to me alone. On the day that I die, those memories will die with me. But the lessons and ideas that I got from him might have some effect lasting longer than the life of anyone here, if put to good use. Here are some, which I paraphrase:

     Nothing is more valuable or more important than the life of the mind. If you don’t read a lot of books, and think a lot, then your mind will lead a boring life, and that will suck for you. So read a lot of books about lots of different things, and think a lot. Ask questions if you don’t understand something, how else are you supposed to learn if you don’t ask. The only stupid question a person can ask is a question they already know the answer to. That wastes everyone’s time, and is very annoying.

     Nothing is better than a good meal and good conversation. Especially if you can somehow figure out a way to have both at the same time. That’s the best. This country is one of very few places on the planet where you can complain to your heart’s content about how bad the government is, and you generally don’t disappear. So complain all you like, just don’t forget how lucky you are.

     Your mother and you are often the same kind of crazy. Nazis suck. Don’t trust authority. People who seek power generally are after it for personal gain. There is no old man in the sky that gets angry if you eat pork or don't pray. “Where do we go when we die?” is a semantically silly question.

     It is the last of these lessons that I feel I must address, under the circumstances. I will say this as simply as I can. I asked my father once which religion he would choose if he were forced to choose one, and he said he would choose Buddhism, because of the absence of a personified, vengeful god, and the emphasis on humor and meditation.

     I don’t myself know anything about Buddhism, and I’m not going to pretend to. I will say this. I know that my father did not believe in a life after death, in his heart of hearts. I know he did not use the myth of a personified god as armor against the fear of death. My father was a scientist, and a supremely rational man. Such cowardice would have been unthinkable to him.

     I believe the following: such beauty as there may be in our existence lies in the fact that for a brief time, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. We are almost exclusively carbon and water. Yet for the course of our lives, a spark animates it, gives it a quality difficult to quantify. We are granted both awareness, and self awareness-- or at least the illusion of it. We are born, with that spark burning brightly, we live, and we die when the fire goes out. And the sacredness, the value of life, is in large part connected to the fact that it is temporary, and will not go on forever. Carbon and water we have been, and to carbon and water we must return. On that point, if on no other, the texts this culture considers sacred and I agree.

     So I celebrate my father's life, in all its singularity and uniqueness. As much as it might comfort me to imagine him at some Valhalla-esque banquet table laden with dimsum and chicken with orange peel for eternity, I know that is ridiculous. How do I know?

     Because he taught me. That’s how. So I celebrate the life of my father, Peter Istvan Bonyhard, son of Bela, husband to Ann Bodine, and father also to Karina and David. I am saddened by his life’s end, and the pain in which it ended. But I refuse to allow myself to be comforted by anything but the thought of his life’s accomplishments, and the love and affection he showed me. I will not take refuge in some fantasy of eternity. That is how I show my respect and admiration for the memory of the man who gave me everything.

     Dad, I love you and am honored to have met you and been your son. I will always keep you in my heart. Go in peace, with pain and hardship at an end. I miss you already.