"A Eulogy by David Kravecas / Thursday, May 4th, 2017"
To be honest about it, I wasn’t sure I would be speaking before you today.
When I spoke to Pastor Zalinskas on Monday, the day following my father’s passing, he asked me if I would say some words about my father after his service.
At the time I was feeling both emotionally and physically drained. The four weeks prior, during which my Dad had fallen and had worsened an already painful spinal condition, were trying enough. But when I learned that the Prostate cancer he had been battling for over two years had spread to his spine it was crushing. After receiving news of my father’s death early Sunday morning, I was in a state of grief that has persisted to this moment.
So I told the Pastor that I would have something to say if I found ‘inspiration’. Looking back on it, it was a somewhat flippant thing to say. It was a way of not committing to a duty that I wasn’t sure I was capable of fulfilling.
But it dawned on me afterwards that the inspiration I was seeking was right before me. The inspiration is my father, and my father’s life.
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My father was born in Klaipeda, Lithuania on February 23rd, 1927. After the Nazi’s invaded Lithuania during World War II, and his father Abraham was executed by them, my father, his sister Bertha, and their mother Maria fled from Lithuania to Germany. This was only possible because my grandmother’s maiden name was ‘Eschmann’, a proper sounding German name.
After the war ended, as ‘displaced persons’ and with the assistance of the United Nations Refugee Agency, they all found haven in Canada and ended up settling here in Toronto.
My father met and married my dear mother Danguole in 1957, and they both raised a family of two sons … My older brother William and myself. He soon found employment with Canadian National Railways, and remained there until his retirement.
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That part of the abbreviated story is inspirational enough, but it’s not what I admire most about my father. What I came to appreciate most, as I got older myself, was his search, his quest, for meaning and purpose in life.
This quest included involvement with eastern religious philosophies such as Vedanta, and even a foray into learning the international language of Esperanto.
But I think that at end of it all there were two things that truly mattered to him the most.
The first was his passion for the fine arts … Especially paintings and drawings. He was an avid painter himself, and did compile a fairly impressive portfolio of works. And I believe that the act of artistic creation also created a meaning in life that he was so fervently seeking.
But secondly, and more importantly, was finding his Christian faith in later life. With his new found faith and involvement with both the Church of the Redeemer and St. Paul’s Bloor Street Anglican Church congregations, I believe, he finally fulfilled his quest.
I am grateful for two things: That he finally found what he was looking for, and that death relieved him from the suffering he experienced in his last days of life.
Rest in Peace, Dad, and thank you for inspiring me.
