This is the eulogy I gave at my dad’s rosary Oct 24. His obituary can be found here Obituary | Carmen Alfonso (Al) Hernandez, Jr. | ANGELUS FUNERAL HOME (theangelusfuneralhome.com):
My dad was a lot of things to a lot of people over a few generations:
He was a gleam in the eye, a son, a brother, a chuey, a primo, a tio, a cunado, a husband, a son-in-law, a father, a father-in-law, and a grandfather.
Outside the family, he was a student, a soldier, an employee, a student again, an expert in his field, a reliable friend, a bowling buddy, a pool player, a dart player and a penny ante poker player.
At St Thomas More, he was a parent, a volunteer, and a CYO coach in many sports: basketball, flag football, track, and especially baseball. One year, he helped coach a team that went 12-0. He set the example for some of us to follow teaching our own kids and our friends’ kids, or coaching our own kids’ teams.
Most of you know that he poured a basketball “half court” in our backyard. It wasn’t really legal size, but good enough to teach two generations how to play basketball. Those of you here who played in our backyard will remember, it had a wooden backboard, and a hoop that was just a little bit tilted to one side, so you had to really know our court to shoot well. When my brothers got older, faster and more skilled, he taught himself how to throw a left hand sky hook; it was the only shot they couldn’t block.
He was a Spurs fan, an Astros fan, and a Cowboys fan. He always seemed to know lots of details and history of the players.
He loved to fish! But I didn’t know until recently that he didn’t learn to fish until after he was married. Early on, apparently, he and his fishing partners set up the tent at low tide, and woke up later to a tent filled with water. But he learned, and then he fished with everyone: just his immediate family, his brothers, his nephews, his sibling in-laws, his parent-in-laws, his grandkids, and our friends’ kids. He studied how to properly pilot a boat safely, and finally came to own a boat of his own, first a little one for fresh water that we tried to ski behind, and eventually one for the coast.
Instead of giving a fish to eat for a day, he firmly believed and demonstrated that in teaching how to fish, you will eat for life. He was a jack of all trades, a general tinkerer, and taught us that things can be fixed. He taught us how to work on cars, change the oil and do tune-ups. He taught us how to use a hammer and saw, a shovel and a talache, and a whole host of tools that accumulated in the shed. He loved to make things out of wood, from tables to see-saws, green houses, and benches for the van. He fixed all sorts of things around the house, which inspired us to do that same when we grew up and got our own homes.
He also loved to record things. When we were growing up, he had a 8mm silent film camera for making home movies, and we spent many nights watching these old films in the living room. But he also loved to record music and videos. At one point in my house, we had a reel-to-reel tape player/recorder, an 8-track tape player/recorder, a cassette tape player/recorder, and a VCR. Before I moved to Michigan, my dad located a reel-to-reel tape player for me that I bought, and I still have and use it.
He loved to play the accordion.
He loved to cook, and loved to do BBQ cookouts at home and at the lake, traditions carried on by me and my brothers. He loved to introduce us to old movies and comedy teams, like Abbott and Costello, something we’ve done with our own kids.
He supported us as we grew up, not just financially, but with advice through good times and tough times. He helped us pay for college, and drove up with me from Texas to Michigan so I could start my career, and along the way, taught me that you could indeed replace a water pump in a parking lot hundreds of miles from home.
He loved to tell stories about growing up on the west side of San Antonio, the old days. Family was very important to him, and it seemed to me that we were always visiting the south and west side of town just about every other weekend, staying in touch with all our relatives, which built deep memories and connections for us as kids. And he also kept in touch with close friends that he met in the Army and elsewhere, especially poker nights, listening to oldies but goodies while us kids played hide and seek, or green ghost.
Whenever we traveled, whether short trips to the coast or long trips to Big Bend or Idaho, he was the master of fitting all the luggage, tents, sleeping bags, cots, coolers, fishing rods, and so on into whatever vehicle we had, from the station wagon to the van, a skill that my brothers and I were all too eager to watch and learn from. I don’t think he ever played Tetris, but I bet he would be good at it.
He loved to dance, and I remember watching how well he danced not just with my mom, but with my tias. He was a talented gardener, a proverbial green thumb, with plants in the yard that lasted probably decades until the hard Texas freeze a year or so ago.
He avidly supported activities that me and my brothers and his grandchildren participated in, school related or not. He attended countless pop warner, middle and high school football games, band concerts and marching band contests, soccer games and BMX racing heats, baseball and softball games, and track events. He attended all our playoffs and championships. He was a dedicated and consistently present father and grandfather. He was present for not only for me and my brothers, not only for our kids, but also for our cousins and their kids, and even our friends’ kids.
As a father, he was strict, but fair, something that is far easier to reconcile as adults today than we could as smart aleck teenagers back then, chomping at the bit for independence. But not only was he a great father to me and by brothers, I am told by some of my cousins that my dad was a great father figure to them. After we finally grew up and grew out, it was easy to transition our relationship from just dad, to also friend and advisor, being able to talk about grown up things and have grown up conversations. We were proud to call you dad, and even more proud to be your sons.
As I’m sure you all will remember, he had a great sense of humor, and knew lots of jokes, and lots of funny stories. Later in life, when he was having trouble walking, he was forced to use a cane at first, but hated it. When he did mundane things, like walk to the bathroom down the hall, we kept telling him, “Dad, use the cane, please, so you don’t fall!” at which point, he would lift the cane in the air and wave it around like a magic wand as he walked, saying “See? I am using it”.
And…he was a husband of 57 years, practically inseparable from my mom. No eulogy can be long enough to describe how devoted he was, and how many things they did together as a couple, from fishing to dancing to gardening, visiting and entertaining friends and relatives, all the things I’ve already mentioned, and a thousand other things I’ve missed, not to mention making each other laugh. None of us are perfect, and I know he frustrated mom, but in the general scheme of life, it was always smaller things, like not always using turn signals, right mom? Despite these petty frustrations, their marriage was stable and secure, rock solid. Together, they set many examples for us all.
And now, he will be a memory. A memory of all those things he was, all the things he did, all the things he said, all the things he shared, all the people he loved. I’d like to end with excerpts from a poem by Linda Ellis called The Dash
I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
From the beginning…to the end
For that dash represents all the time
That they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
Know what that little line is worth
So, when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash…
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent YOUR dash?
I think dad would be proud, and we will all miss what he did with his dash.
