Eulogy by Carl A. Westman

Remembrance of Carl J. Westman
By Carl A. Westman
Nov. 23, 2004

It is often said that death is a part of life. In my view, this is only partly true. The deaths of others are parts of our lives, and now the death of my grandfather is part of mine.

I need to be brief, as his life touched so many. First let me say that I count myself lucky that he was my grandfather. Aside from the association with his name, life, and work, I know that had he been my father, there would have been issues of his exercising parental authority and my resisting it. That probably would have kept our closeness from developing, or at least, for a time. He once wrote to me that:

"The dilemma most parents face is like unto a nut and bolt - tighten it too much and you strip the threads; make it too loose, [and] it falls off."

This multi-generational difference allowed us to approach each other freely, more as friends than as relatives. Our friendship was not cemented with gifts, visits, and phone calls, but by a 20-year conversation through letters and email. We discussed the state of the world, matters of faith and science, our lives' events and turning points, and of course, baseball. Aside from my wife, he was my best friend and I already miss him terribly. Had he lived another month, he would have loved to have seen the Red Sox win the World Series, but even this joy would have been largely quashed by the results of the presidential election. Perhaps it would have reminded him of a Shakespearean tragedy.

However, he ultimately maintained a hopeful outlook for the human venture. The best example I can think of comes again from baseball, because even with the hard-luck Red Sox he observed,

"Hey, any team can have a bad century."

He had a fine sense of humor. About 12 years ago, as he approached his 81st birthday, he wrote me that:

"Because of clean living, serial monogamy, two ounces of scotch every late afternoon and a feeling of angst about the world in general, I don't feel a day over ninety."

Despite his sense of humor and hopeful outlook, he did not view life as infused with exogenous meaning, nor did he hold a specific creed.

For example, in 1993 he wrote, quoting Albert Camus:

"I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has meaning, and that is Man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one. This world has at least the truth of Man, and our task is to provide its justification against fate itself."

Carl commented: "I do not believe in creeds, and do not hold one; but if I had to choose one, Camus' paragraph above would fit my belief and understanding."

In 1997, he wrote this to me:

Theological assumptions are for human comfort, guilts, hopes, queries - they arise out of our human condition, not out of assumed revelations or unassailable logic. If this sounds gloomy, I don't intend it, for I am even more sure than ever that life on THIS planet is a wonder-full life and I rejoice that I have had so many years on it. The "why" of it all I don't expect to be answered, now or in the future, if there [even] is a "why."

Finally, in September 2001, he wrote:

I think we all have our myths.... I believe if I put my thinking cap on, I could come up with the myths of an atheist or an agnostic. But for the moment, let me say, I'm in church every Sunday. When I ask myself, "Why"--the answer [down to (its) essentials] is that meeting friends, doing some hugging, looking into the faces of fine persons is an experience which means a lot to me.

Also, the older I get, the more poetry rather than theology expresses the human condition. The concluding lines of Tennyson's "Ulysses" would be high on the list for a Credo if I was searching for one.

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.