Eulogy For My Father

June 3, 2007

May 25, 1984, the end of life for Melvin Carter Torian, a man, a husband, a father, a son, a naval officer, a government worker, a brother, a relative, a believer, who in the next few paragraphs, I will eulogize for all of these attributes and as my Father.

His life started in a South ravaged by defeat to a superior force, a region destined to be poor and, consequently, most of its families also being poor, including his.  A poor region met a poor education for its children and his was no exception.  In spite of it, he persisted.  He went on to complete two years of college and to obtain high recognition for the many technical naval courses he completed as a reserve and a career naval officer.

Entering the adolescence of his youth, the world was marred by the insanity of war. What frightening effects might this have had on a growing boy, on his father, on the family – the uncertainty of it all?  In spite of it, he persisted.  He guided his mother and younger brothers, as the head of the household, after the times proved too much for his father who turned to drink and away from his family.

At the prime of my Father’s young manhood, when ambition and desire so much wants success and prosperity, the nation was racked by an economic disaster, one beyond the control of all good men, a disaster that created so many hardships, so much worry.  A disaster that would, forever, control his values, his sense of security, his striving for finance.  In spite of it, he persisted.  After running the family store during the first subsequent years following his father’s departure, he obtained a worthy position, during a period of intense competition, as an engineering draftsman, for the government’s aeronautical agency, a new agency responsible for furthering the potential of flight.

Coming out of such a calamity as the depression, one could hardly believe that just behind it was another such onerous event, a second great war of the world.  After embarking upon his first career as a government technologist, this second destructive war was to only too suddenly involve his country and him and to terminate his first career and cause a second career as a naval officer.  In spite of this, he persisted.  During the 30s, when the program was in its infancy, he joined the US Navy’s reserve officer training program.  With this as preparation, he, at the start of the 2nd World War, began active duty in the Navy and was to continue on active duty until his final retirement in 1961, rising to the rank of Captain.

In spite of it all, he persisted.  He was not deterred from the many adversities that beset his family, his region, and his country.  In site of it all, he persisted.

My Father was a devoted husband. Married nearly fifty years, he was faithful and strived all his life to provide security for his wife, succeeding both during his lifetime and for the time that she had remaining.  My Father, the father of two boys, no doubt loved his two sons, although as they grew older and as he grew older, it was, for a not clear reason, difficult for him to express his love, to show it, to communicate it.  He enjoyed their dependency; he could not handle well their independence.  He forever thought of them as they were as boys, as they were when so much of his love was showered upon them.  He little noticed them as adults.

My Father was a devoted son, a frequent visitor to see his mother, right up to her death.  He cared for her.  My Father was a relative’s man.  A man of the old school where brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, parents, uncles, aunts were to be visited on Sunday afternoons, to be a source of information, a recipient of news, a society which was important.  His two brothers, who although younger than he, preceded him to death, were visited frequently until they were estranged by distance and by age.  My father was a believer.  A life-long Southern Baptist, he attended whenever he could and where the preacher suited him.

A quiet, at times, lonely man, my Father no doubt developed such a personality from his very independent and self-reliant nature and from years of struggle and persistence.  A conservative, he conserved.  He believed in saving, never spending as much as he made, investing the difference so that he could remain, could be independent, self-reliant to his and to his wife’s end.  He succeeded.  He was not afraid of work.  He revolved around it.

I cared for my Father.  I loved him and after writing this eulogy I love him even more for now I can better see and understand the value that I now know made him a successful man.  I’m proud of my Father.  God bless him, peace be with him, and may his family and I never forget him.