Hello everyone, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Alison (the middle daughter) and I’m here to tell you some stories about my dad.

I have so many of them because he devoted so much time to my sisters and me. I think my earliest memory is sitting in the living room with him while he read me Paddington and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. He taught my sisters and I how to make pancakes and waffles and french toast, he spent hours playing kickball with us in the yard (even though we kept kicking the ball onto the roof), and every year he took us to Engineering Day at the National Building Museum in DC so we could see what he liked to do too.

He did so much for us, but in particular he drove us everywhere we needed to go: soccer practice, softball practice, rock band, pep band, stage crew. He drove us to college whether that was in Alabama, Virginia, or Colorado. He’d drive us to friends’ houses and if our friends needed a ride, he’d give them one too, even if they lived in the opposite direction from where we were going. And every time he dropped us off somewhere he’d say, “remember rule number one, no having fun!”

He did so many little things for us too, things we took for granted. I was just remembering this week how every year on Valentines Day he would get Mom a bouquet of flowers, but he would always pull out three so he could give one to my sisters and I. He did little things like that once we were off at college too. Every semester he’d ask me during my first week of class when my final exams were, and he must have written it down because every semester I would get a good luck text from him the mornings I had an exam.

He always missed us while we were away but he had funny ways of expressing it. He’d send me articles that were vaguely related to my interests or updates on my school’s football team. I remember in my first year of college I showed Lucy a particularly strange text he’d sent me and she said “yeah, Dad gets weirder the longer you’re away from him.” But he always loved it when we came home. He’d give me the biggest hug and a kiss on the head and tell me four or five times that day how happy he was that I was home.

I always loved father-daughter time with him because it usually meant we did something fun outdoors and could just talk. Sometimes it could be very spontaneous. When I was in my sophomore year of college, I got a text from him at 9pm the night before Opening Day (the first day of the Major League Baseball Season) asking if I wanted to go to the Nats game the next day. I was so confused because I was off at college (several hours from DC), didn’t have a car, and had class the next day. And he said “Alison, there are still tickets left for the game, your mom has meetings, so who is going with me to the game tomorrow?” And that’s how the next morning I found myself on the 6am train into DC, met him at the stadium, and just had a wonderful day watching the game and talking to him. That ended up being the season the Nationals won the World Series and Dad would always say “see Alison, aren’t you glad you went to that game with me?” And I was, but not because of anything about the game or that season, but because I’d had such a wonderful day with him.

Usually father-daughter time was a bit less chaotic than that. When I was home from school we’d go for long bike rides in the morning or play frisbee golf. We had some time like that just a few days before he died. I’d recently gotten home for winter break and Mom was at lunch with friends, so Dad and I got lunch together and played frisbee golf and then ran some errands (because if we were out, we might as well make ourselves useful) and the whole time we talked about how my semester had gone and the World Cup. I didn’t know then that it would be our last father-daughter time, but I did know then (as I know now) that I was lucky to have a father that was so supportive and caring and loved me so much. Thank you.

While on an overseas trip with Joe to (name of country), we were hiking around town looking for a good place to eat dinner.  Walking up and down one of the main streets, we wandered past an Indian restaurant that was opening that very day.  While I was hesitant to try a place on its very first day of business and with no other patrons in it, Joe was all in for the adventure.  As we walked in, the proprietor rushed up to welcome us and asked, "How did you hear about us?"  With that mischievous grin on his face, Joe immediately responded, "We heard you were offering free beer on opening day."  "Well, uh... no, I don't think that was what we offered, but...uh... (glancing around nervously) ...  well...  OK," replied the owner.  Sure enough, we had a wonderful meal washed down with that great "free beer."  Of course, Joe made sure that we more than paid for the dinner, the beer, the service, and I think dinner for at least 4 other tables.  "We're on per diem!" he laughed.  

After I moved away from the area, I'd always let Joe know I'd be back in town by using "Free Beer!" as the email subject line suggesting a get together.  It never failed to get his attention and, if available, he would show up to swap stories about our families, our early lives as Air Force brats, the South/Gulf coast, work stuff, and (of course) world peace.   ("Hey!  Someone has to wash the dishes!").  

P.S.  A few years after our trip, Joe chuckled when I told him that I actually got his, "I heard you were offering free beer" story to work at yet another Indian restaurant opening - this time in Maryland.  Seriously...

Before I talk about my beloved Joe, I want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who is here today or watching the service on zoom. Thank you to my choir family, to James and Jose for the beautiful music, to Mark for his pastoral care, and to all of you at TPPC contributing to this service. Thank you to everyone who visited to share hugs, laughter, and tears; who provided meals and special treats; who sent cards, books to help navigate the grieving process, plants and flowers, or cute dog pictures; who hosted me for a get-away (or offered to host me – I’m keeping a list and plan to visit you all!); who made memorial contributions or plunged into the cold waters of the Potomac in Joe’s memory; who called, texted, emailed, or posted your remembrances and photos of Joe. I’ve read every one of your messages, and I’m very grateful. And if you didn’t call or write because you couldn’t find the words but kept me and my family in your thoughts – rest assured that we felt all the love and it means the world to us.

I first met Joe in 1981, the summer after my first year of college. My brother Peter was a co-op with the NSA in Maryland and my brother’s then girlfriend, my sister Julie and I drove from Michigan for a visit. Peter and his roommates Joe and Oliver were doing a whitewater rafting trip on the Youghiogheny River so we arranged to meet up with them in Ohiopyle, PA.

My first impression of Joe did not make me think we were destined to be together. Since they had been rafting, they were all somewhat grungy, and he was this scrawny guy, wearing a hat that I learned the guys called an LBHD hat, which stood for “Laid Back Happening Dude.” It was a straw hat but at the front of the brim there was a semicircular section where the straw was cut out and replaced with a green plastic piece to act as a sun visor. I’d never seen anything like it.

Joe was also from the south, and it’s fair to say that I had some preconceptions about southern guys, assuming they were likely to be male chauvinists with equally backward views on other political and social issues. For his part, I don’t think Joe necessarily had a stereotypical picture of stuck-up Yankee females, but I probably would have checked most of the boxes if he had. I’d grown up as the nerdy, debate team/theater kid, alternating between being overly impressed with myself and profoundly insecure, and quick to take offense if I thought someone was disrespecting me. Obviously, no LBHD like Joe would be interested in – or of interest to – a bleeding-heart liberal, strong independent woman (don’t you dare call me girl!) like myself.

A couple of years after this unpromising beginning, though, Joe and Oliver drove up from Auburn to Ann Arbor for my college graduation, and by that time I’d started to notice things about Joe that didn’t line up with my assumptions – his kindness, his warm smile, his readiness to help out a friend or embark on an adventure. And before my graduation party he kissed me (it was not the other way around, whatever he might have later claimed), and that’s what started our romance that lasted nearly forty years.

We had some bumps in the road, especially early on as we were getting to know each other, made more challenging by the fact that he was working in Maryland after he graduated from Auburn, while I was in Michigan and then in Durham. He had a bad habit when I visited him in Maryland of introducing me to people as “Peter’s sister” instead of mentioning any other relevant relationship. And once he asked me something to the effect of “You don’t consider yourself a feminist, do you?” I would normally have considered the mere fact that he asked the question (and didn’t know the answer was a resounding yes) as a major red flag, but by that point it was clear from Joe’s actions that he was not the neanderthal I might have once assumed.

In some ways being so far apart early in our relationship probably helped us not sweat the small stuff – since we would go weeks between visits, our time together was too precious to waste getting upset about minor annoyances. And to make sure we stayed on track, Joe used to ask me every week, “It’s Thursday – do you have any complaints?” He also wrote me a ton of letters (since long distance phone calls were expensive back in those days).

I recently found and re-read those letters for the first time in decades – and was surprised at how open and heartfelt they were. As our daughters will attest, the middle-aged version of Joe would loudly complain that any kissing in movies was gross and scoff at us for enjoying romantic storylines. Don’t get me wrong, Joe was always affectionate with us, saying, “How’s my beautiful?” or “How’s my sunshine?” but he didn’t go in for more flowery language. The 20-year-old Joe, though, was much more effusive, telling me how much he loved and missed me and that our relationship had radically changed his life. At one point he consulted a thesaurus to determine the most appropriate adjective to describe me and settled on “radiant.” He even sent me an actual Hallmark Valentine’s Day card, for perhaps the only time in our lives.

After surviving four years of separation, we finally got to confirm that we could handle being in the same area and seeing each other on a near-daily basis. And even though I had once been adamant that I couldn’t imagine marrying someone who worked for the NSA, and Joe had expressed serious reservations about marrying someone who wouldn’t change her name, somehow those misgivings yielded to our certainty that what we once referred to as “the big mistake” was inevitable. We married on September 3, 1988 in a ceremony officiated by my dad, following it up with cake in the church basement and then getting together with our wedding guests for a Detroit Tigers game.

Both before and after our wedding we had lots of travel adventures, including my tagging along with Joe, Peter, and Oliver on their European vacation the summer after Joe and I graduated from college and a trip to Nigeria during our engagement (where a woman I met on a bus offered me the opportunity to become her brother’s “senior wife” – I told her I was already engaged, but she said she’d pay Joe’s plane fare back to the U.S. to get him out of the way if I accepted; nevertheless I declined). We visited New Orleans, Boston, London, Montreal, the Pacific Northwest, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Scotland; rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and made yearly trips to Gulf Shores in the summer and to Ohio for Thanksgiving. And of course, there were multiple visits to family in Michigan, Mobile, and South Carolina.

We hiked and camped; sailed, canoed, kayaked, and paddle boarded; cross-country skied and water skied, and played ultimate frisbee, disc golf, foot golf, and most recently, pickleball. We almost always played singles pickleball, just me vs. Joe. I won a majority of our games, and I occasionally wondered if Joe was taking it easy on me – I can definitely be a sore loser, so it’s quite possible that Joe realized the best way to ensure I stayed interested in playing was to let me win most of the time. But if he was holding back, he was also smart enough not to be obvious about it, so I could enjoy my victories without questioning whether they were fully earned.

In every aspect of our lives together, Joe was completely supportive, encouraging me when I had the pre-law school jitters and making countless weekend trips to Durham once I got to Duke; willingly playing my plus-one at law school and law firm social events and rushing to correct anyone who assumed that he was the budding lawyer instead of me. He also always enjoyed it when attendees at lawyer parties told him it was so interesting to meet an engineer – apparently, only folks consistently surrounded by other lawyers find engineers “interesting.”

When I was diagnosed with pesky breast cancer in 2009, Joe was my rock, accompanying me to endless appointments, handling all the insurance paperwork, taking me for post-chemo gelato and indulging my every whim for whatever other comfort food I wanted. If he felt worried or had doubts about whether my treatments would be successful, I never knew it – he was always confident and positive.

When I decided to quit my job at Hogan and go solo, Joe was my biggest cheerleader, expressing admiration that I had the courage to strike out on my own. But more importantly, he was my own personal IT expert! He figured out the best computer equipment for me to buy, installed all my software, set up my website, and configured my systems to have back-up options for everything. I remember during the first month of my fledgling practice something technical went wrong while Joe was at work – he came home, fixed the problem, took me out to lunch at our favorite local Indian place, and went back to his office.

And Joe was every bit as involved and supportive a parent as he was a spouse. He was an active partner in navigating the stressful infant and toddler years, and covered a lot of miles carrying a backpack with one of the girls loaded in. He treasured each of our daughters, helped out with all their activities, attended as many of their sporting events as he could, and went to plays, math competitions, academic presentations, and awards ceremonies. And even if he might still have hesitated to identify himself as a feminist, the way he raised our children made clear that’s exactly what he was. He showed it by example – he did all our laundry, a good share of the grocery shopping and cooking, and cleaned up the kitchen if I cooked. And he never tried to steer Lucy, Alison, and Hope towards interests based on traditional gender roles – he made sure they learned to use tools, do basic auto maintenance, and mow the lawn, and of course he enthusiastically encouraged any inclination they showed towards geeky math and computer science subjects. And so I, the English major/lawyer, ended up in a family where there was a serious mealtime debate once on this critical question: which is better, radians or degrees?

By the time our daughters were successfully launched into adulthood and our nest was empty, Joe had retired from the NSA and was working a part-time schedule at MIT Lincoln Lab. That allowed him the flexibility to do little things for me like drive me to any appointments or meetings I had – just because he knew it would be easier for me if I didn’t have to be stressed about arriving in enough time to find parking. He was also the designated driver if we wanted to order takeout, and he did all the advance planning for our vacations, like the trip we took to Colorado last September to see Hope. He continued to be the go-to guy for anyone in my family who needed a computer or something else repaired and kept up his volunteer work for the community, including fixing an IT crisis at the CHEER organization, making sure our church zoom services went smoothly, and performing any odd job that needed doing at our neighborhood pool. And he never wanted recognition for any of it. If someone requested his assistance, instead of the natural response most of us might have – isn’t there something else I would rather be doing with my time? – Joe instead seems to have considered primarily whether he had the skills and time to do the task and whether his contribution would make others’ lives easier.

Don’t get me wrong, Joe wasn’t a saint, and we didn’t have a perfect marriage. Joe could definitely be impatient and downright cantankerous. We learned long ago that for the sake of marital harmony we shouldn’t bake or cook things together unless one of us was clearly acknowledged as being in charge. He was forever making me late for our aqua spinning exercise class (and a lot of other appointments). And there was the time not too long ago when he was looking over my shoulder while I did the Wordle; I had figured out four of the letters and he blurted out the final letter, not once but TWICE, because I didn’t hear him the first time he said it.

But as you can tell, I didn’t have much to complain about – I might not have always been thrilled when he was gone for hours at a time fixing this or that somewhere, but I knew that if there was something important to me, he would make time for it. And it’s a comfort to know with certainty that he loved me completely and that he knew I felt exactly the same way about him.

And even though it will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I’m going to keep on having adventures – I’m fully intending to get to most, if not all, of the places that were on our list but we hadn’t made it to, including Hawaii and Greece, maybe even the Galapagos Islands. And a lot of what Joe did for me, I can certainly do for myself: I do know where to find the washer and dryer, whatever Joe might have said to the contrary, so I can do my own laundry; I can drive myself to my appointments, and it turns out that I’m perfectly capable of being late for water aerobics class all on my own. I’m trying to take time while I’m doing one of the tasks Joe always handled for me to remember what a fabulous husband Joe was instead of lapsing into self-pity. And for other jobs I can’t handle (anything involving Styrofoam packaging, for example, or managing my own IT matters), I know I can call on my family, friends, and community for support.

And I hope you’ll all continue to share with me your stories and recollections about Joe and how much he meant to you – even though they might bring me to tears, remembering Joe is always going to be a joy to me.

The women in my family have a strict rule when it comes to finding love: if the person doesn’t treat you like a goddess you have to forget them. Needless to say, Joe was never at risk of failing this test. He adored me, encouraged me, and supported me throughout our life together. And when our daughters arrived on the scene, he treated them like goddesses as well, making sure they knew how much he loved and valued them. As a result, none of us will ever forget him.