In Memoriam Robert Michael Guido

-->

Saturday, November 28, 2015

St. Brendan Catholic Church, Olcott Beach, New York

Good morning and thank you for joining in this celebration of the life of Robert Michael Guido—brother, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, friend, proud denizen of Olcott Beach. Oh, how he loved this community; and, oh, how you all loved him back.

Jesus said: do not hide your light, but let it shine before others. We are gathered here today because we had the good fortune to spend time in the grand, glowing, glorious light that was Bob Guido and that he shared with the world.

And what a light it was: that sly, mischievous smile; that husky, quiet laugh; those big arms and that bigger personality and that even bigger heart that drew you in. There was only one Bob Guido. A skilled fisherman; an avid reader; an artist; a terrific storyteller; a dancer who could swing Sally all around the dance floor; a guy who relished good food and who liked his martinis with about one-hundred olives in them; a man so resilient we had almost come to think of him as indestructible.  

For those of you I have not met, my name is Len Niehoff and I am married to Bob and Sally’s daughter Lisa. I have the honor of sharing a few thoughts with you this morning as we remember and give thanks for Bob’s life. Indeed, I can think of no better time to honor Bob than during this season of thankfulness.

Every life offers its own lessons and I’m sure each of us could come up with a very long list of things that we learned from Bob. But, for today, I want to focus on three lessons that I see as particularly present in Bob’s life. They also happen to resonate strongly with some of the most important messages of the scriptures.

Those lessons are: welcome people in; shepherd your flock; and fight the good fight.

Welcome People In

When I first met Bob, Lisa and I were not yet married. I will confess that I was a little nervous. It seemed unlikely to me that this Italian guy from New York State had long dreamed that his beautiful daughter would fall in love with a middle-aged German guy from Michigan. 

I found Bob on the back deck of their house and he was a bit daunting. Here was this big bear of a man, dressed in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt , wearing sunglasses, smoking a cigarette and pushing a pile of sausages, peppers, and onions around on the grill. He cut an imposing figure.

Lisa introduced me and he smiled and said hello and offered me a drink. And that was that. I was in. I had been welcomed into Bob’s flock.

I suspect that many people in this room had an experience like this. It took only an instant for Bob to move you from being a stranger to being an old friend. It was a gift—a grace—of the first order, one that he shared with his treasured wife, Sally. Throughout their marriage, they welcomed everyone in, always, and never treated a visitor as a burden or an imposition. 

In the thirteenth chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, Paul says “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.” When we were talking about her experience “growing up Guido,” Lisa told me that throughout her life there were almost always visitors at the dinner table: neighbors, friends, relatives, newcomers to the community, members of clubs and organizations, all the childhood friends of Lisa and Gina and Rob and Joe who knew that Bob and Sally were the coolest parents in town, and so on.

Maybe most of those folks did not qualify as angels. But you would never know that from the way Bob and Sally treated them. Bob saw the best in everyone, and, because of the great symmetrical power of love and respect, everyone saw the best in Bob.

Shepherd Your Flock

In the first letter of Peter it says: “Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you, watching over them; and do not do it for your own gain, but out of an eagerness to serve.” I think this is a perfect description of one of the key dimensions of Bob’s life.

Bob was born in 1940 in North Tonawanda, New York. He spent the next seventy-five years bringing people into his flock, watching out for them, and helping them along. He had a wonderful role model in his beloved late mother, Elizabeth Amici Guido Amato, who on November 10 met him on the other side with open arms—and probably with a plate of meatballs—and with whom he is now reunited.

As with his mother, the most important members of Bob’s flock were his family. He cherished his relationship with his siblings, Al, Mike, John, and Teddy. He adored his wife Sally, often doting on her as if they were newlyweds. His affection for his children, grandchildren, and great-grandson was boundless. 

Whenever I would drive Lisa home for a visit, we would find Bob sitting in a folding chair next to the driveway or in the garage with the door open if it was raining. It was as reliable as the law of gravity: Bob would be there—waiting, watching, keeping an eye out for someone he loved. Like all good shepherds, Bob was always on the lookout for all of us, and we were all blessed by it.

But Bob’s flock extended well beyond his family. He cared deeply for his friends in the Lion’s Club and for all of the volunteers he worked with on the Olcott Beach Carousel Park and the Rainbow of Help. Through these service organizations, Bob’s generosity of spirit extended to people he did not even know.

Bob’s flock also included the Boy Scout troops he led. After Bob’s passing, the family received a number of messages from men who had been in those troops many years ago. A message from one of these former scouts describes the numerous ways in which being in Bob’s troop had made him a better man, including giving him a model of how to be a great father. 

You might remember some of the qualities a scout is supposed to exhibit: loyalty, friendliness, kindness, and cheerfulness. Bob may have helped those young men cultivate those qualities by what he said. But I suspect that their true lessons came in what Bob did, in how he treated them, and in who he was.

I want to say two more things about being in Bob’s flock. First, it was fun. As just one example, Lisa has described to me how Bob and Sal would take the kids on “mystery adventure caravans”—little trips to undisclosed and entertaining destinations. And, of course, for many of us being in Bob’s flock meant fishing with him, which was a tremendous joy, even though he would consistently out-fish you and he was not above a bit of extravagant gloating when he did.

Second, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that Bob cared so much about his flock did not prevent him from also working to help people he did not know. But I think it is important to emphasize how strong an impulse this was in him. It led him to his military service. And consider this: on one occasion, a number of years ago, Bob rushed from his house to pull two complete strangers from a burning car that had been in an accident—a courageous act that very likely put him in harm’s way. 

Perhaps the word “hero” gets overused. But if Bob Guido is one of your heroes you will get no argument from me.

And that brings me to the third and final lesson from Bob’s life.

Fight the Good Fight

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul says: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race.” As all of you know, Bob struggled with grave physical challenges for more than a decade. He fought the good fight, hanging on as long as he could to the life that he lived with such zeal and the people that he he loved with such depth and gratitude. That fight took unspeakable amounts of courage—on Bob’s part, and also on the part of Sally and their children.

Of course, Bob was human and so could get frustrated with his struggles. And the same God that made Bob a wonderful man also made him wonderfully stubborn—and that could pose its own challenges. So he had his bad days. But it is a testament to Bob’s character that nothing in the last ten years—nothing—kept his spirit down for long. He fought the good fight, and he won many more rounds than he lost.

When a big, warm, welcoming, shepherding, courageous presence leaves this life for the next, the absence is sorely felt. We will all miss Bob, every day. But, every day, we will also feel his presence—when we welcome someone in; when we give someone a hand; when we stoop to help a child; when we deal bravely with the challenges life presents to us.

We did not all have the chance to “grow up Guido.” But we all have the chance to show up and step up like Bob Guido would want us to—for those who come to our doorstep; for our family and friends; for everyone in all the flocks that God puts in our care; for those in need; for strangers who we will not let stay strangers for very long.

And know this: we are all still in Bob’s flock. He’s still watching out for us. When we have finished fighting our good fight he will still be there, waiting like he did in that old folding chair in the driveway, ready to welcome us to the new neighborhood and to show us around.

As I said at the beginning, Bob let his light shine for everyone to see. His light “shines still in the darkness.” It is an inextinguishable presence in our hearts and minds and memories. For all of us who were blessed to know him and to stand in the warmth and comfort of that light, no darkness can ever overcome it. 

Not today. 

Not ever. 

Amen. And amen.

In Memoriam Jim Miner

-->

September 18, 2015

Ann Arbor, Michigan

We gather today to honor and celebrate the life of Dr. Jim Miner.

And what a life it was: a life of accomplishment; a life of dedication; a life of deep intellectual curiosity; a life of commitment to his patients; a life of conversation—and the occasional poker game—with close friends; a life of completely fulfilled partnership with his wife, Deanna; a life of boundless pride in his three children: Kriste, Brett, and Scott.

Sigmund Freud, who Jim revered, said that: “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” And in Jim Miner this prescription was fully realized.

Jim’s life was uncontestably a life of love. To say that he loved Deanna is a masterpiece of understatement. As for his children, well, he loved them almost as much as he loved bragging about them. He loved his coterie of close friends. He loved to listen—which he did with exquisite care and without judging or condemning. He loved to think. He loved his work.

Ernest Jones, one of Freud’s biographers, observed that, in Vienna, Freud’s life “consisted of little besides work” and casual observers may have had the same impression of Jim. Indeed, his passion for his work was conspicuous. That he was privileged to do so much of it at a desk right next to Deanna’s made that blessing all the greater.

His hard work led him to great heights. Born in a small town in Iowa, Jim became a distinguished psychoanalytic therapist who was widely respected within his profession. Early in his career, he served on the faculty of the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry. Jim’s tireless dedication to his work is evidenced by the fact that, at the time of his passing, he was still seeing patients.

But, like all interesting people, Jim was complicated and he was anything but one-dimensional. Indeed, when you consider the breadth and variety of Jim’s gifts and achievements it seems difficult to believe we are talking about only one man.

He was an athlete: a football player from the fourth grade through high school, where he helped his team win a state championship; then an avid runner; then a competitive tennis player. As I understand it, the only sport at which Jim did not excel was sailing catamarans, at which he was apparently somewhat dangerous.

As was characteristic of Jim, he was not just a participant in sport—he was a student of it. Over the years, he brought under his command vast stores of statistics, particularly about football. Of course, the dazzling memory that he enjoyed throughout most of his life helped him retain all of this information, but the exercise was not about accumulating data—it was about achieving a deep familiarity with and understanding of a subject. That is what Jim did, in every dimension and aspect of his life: he sought to understand.

While we are on this theme of sport, we should of course acknowledge Jim’s zeal for Michigan football. Zeal might seem like a strange word for a man who so often presented as elegant, distinguished, thoughtful, perhaps a bit reserved and removed from the crowd. But make no mistake about it: Jim was maize and blue, through and through.

Who but a died-in-the-wool Wolverine fan would move heaven and earth to buy the house that had once been owned by Fielding Yost, Michigan’s football coach in the early part of the twentieth century? If you do not understand why this meant so much to Jim then let me point out—as I think a disciple of sports statistics like Jim would want me to do—that while at Michigan Yost won six national championships and went 165-29-10 and that his famed “point-a-minute squad” outscored their opponents by 2,821 to 42. Those were the days.

But subjects other than work and sports piqued Jim’s interest as well. He was fascinated by ancient history and when he and Deanna traveled to Rome he spent hours wandering in the Forum and the ruins. When I met with Deanna to talk about our service today she brought with her Jim’s latest excursion into the topic: a thick, intimidating looking treatise on ancient history, marked where he had finished his reading the previous day.

We can imagine Jim working his way through that book, asking the questions that intrigued him throughout his life. How do people behave? Why do they do it? What is to be learned from it? In his eighty-first year, Jim’s curiosity about these issues was no less keen than it had been in every prior year.

Jim also had the spirit of a naturalist, perhaps instilled in him during his childhood years attending a summer camp in Minnesota. He knew a great deal about trees and wildflowers and the natural world. But he was particularly fascinated by birds and could identify countless species by their calls and songs. And, of course, because Jim did not just care about everything that interested him, but also cared for everything (and everyone) that interested him, he and Deanna set up twelve feeding stations in their backyard. It is safe to say that no bird that was ever observed and studied by Jim Miner went away from the experience hungry.

I do not mean to suggest by all of this celebration that Jim’s life was without its challenges. His eighty-one years brought him many battles and he came perilously close to losing some of them. He was revived after drowning while swimming; Scott saved him during a critical cardiac incident; the list goes on and on. On a remarkable multitude of occasions, death took Jim by the arm and started to lead him away. And, yet, over and over again Jim managed to slip from its grasp and to stay with us, to have another morning to hear the birds sing, to have another afternoon to watch football, to have another evening to read, and think, and wonder.

Indeed, Jim evaded death so many times that we could not be blamed if we had come to think of him as indestructible. Resilient people do this to us—they persuade us though their tenacity that they will be with us forever. And here’s the thing: it turns out that it’s true.

Jim remains with us in the lessons that his life conveys. Love what you do. Work hard. Think deeply. Set high standards. Be professional in your endeavors. Take time to play. When you become interested in something, learn as much as you can about it. Listen closely. Try to understand people—even those people, especially those people, who no one else understands. Be one with your partner. Help your children achieve—and then tell everyone about it whenever and wherever you can. Do not forget to pay attention to the wildflowers and the birds.

Today we celebrate the remarkable life that Jim Miner made out of his time on earth. But, of course, we also grieve. We do not grieve for him: he passed from this life peacefully, he is at rest, his worries are behind him, his anxieties are extinguished, he fulfilled so much of what he sought to do. Rather, we grieve for ourselves and for those times when we will feel his absence.

But I suspect that in the days, and weeks, and months, and years that come we will more frequently feel his presence. We will continue to experience his influence. We will continue to hear his voice. We will continue to talk to him—not just as if he were beside us, but as if he were inside us, because, of course, he is. He is in our hearts and our minds and our memories, where he had already lived for so long, and where he will stay.

When I met with Deanna on Wednesday I asked her: “Where do you think you will feel Jim’s presence most?” And she said: “Wherever the birds are.” Yes, that’s it, exactly—because the birds are all around us, now, and forever more.

*

I would like to close our service by reading to you from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous definition of success. In the last few days, as I have pondered Jim’s life, it has struck me that this fits perfectly with how he lived, and why everyone here loved and admired him:

“[T]o win the respect of intelligent people
and [the] affection of children;
to appreciate beauty, to find the best
in others; to leave the world a bit
better, whether by a healthy child
a garden patch or a redeemed
social condition; to know even
one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have
succeeded.”

Thank you, Jim, for the respect you earned from your colleagues and friends; for the deep affection you inspired in your wonderful wife and children; for finding the beauty in wildflowers and birds and ancient ruins and the complexities of human behavior; for helping your patients breathe easier; for leaving our world better.  

Your memory is a blessing to us all.

In Memoriam Elizabeth Amato (1915-2015)

-->

A eulogy delivered on Saturday, July 18, 2015 at St. Jude the Apostle Church, North Tonawanda, New York

Good afternoon. For those of you I have not met, my name is Len Niehoff and I have the honor of being married to Bob and Sally Guido’s daughter, Lisa, one of the many grandchildren of our beloved Elizabeth Amici Guido Amato, whose life we celebrate today.

I want to begin by acknowledging Teddy and her family for all that they did to care for Liz, particularly toward the end of her time with us. You were blessed to have her in your life. She was blessed to have you in hers.

Now, with all of these children and grandchildren and long-time friends present, you may wonder why I, of all people, am delivering the eulogy and the truth is that I’m not entirely sure. Many years ago, Liz asked me if I’d do it and of course I agreed although I didn’t quite understand the request. She confirmed it with me later, almost every time she saw me, and so here I am, because, as you know, Liz’s spirit was and remains an irresistible force of nature.

As you also know, Liz had a splendid sense of humor so maybe this was her last great practical joke on me and on all of you. But I hope not and I don’t think so. I think she may have been on to something when she asked me to do this. I’ll return to that possibility later.

Like many of you, I was present just a few months ago when we gathered to celebrate Liz’s one-hundredth birthday. Given the occasion, there was a great deal of talk about the sheer length of her life. This is understandable: one hundred years is a long time for any human being to spend on planet earth.

In fact, one hundred years is so long that it may be hard to grasp except as abstraction. I thought a little hard data might help with that. So here we go.

Liz was born in 1915—as were Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra. When Liz was 18, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was still in his first 100 days as President. Liz’s life spanned seventeen Presidents, more than a third of the total forty-four.

Just about every major upheaval in the twentieth century occurred during Liz’s lifetime: both World Wars, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Great Depression, the Korean War, the Vietnamese War, the wars in the Middle East, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the raising—and the disassembling—of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the terrorist attacks of 911.

Her life included many things we take for granted now but that must have seemed miraculous then: the first motion picture, the first Disney cartoon, the first television show, the first Elvis and Beatles concerts, the first computers, the birth of the Internet, Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, and the recent missions to mars.

She witnessed lots of change for the better: the passage of child labor laws and the civil rights laws, Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in major league baseball, the development of vaccines for tuberculosis and polio, the discovery of penicillin, and the constitutional amendment that gave Liz the right to vote. It is a good thing that got worked out because if they hadn’t given her the right I’m quite sure she would have taken it.

But if none of that gets your attention, then try this. If we think of our country as becoming a sovereign nation in 1787 with the ratification of the Constitution, then the life of Elizabeth Amici Guido Amato encompassed almost 44% of the history of the United States of America. Let me say that again: Liz’s life encompassed roughly 44% of our nation’s entire history.

That is a long life, indeed. And Liz was fortunate to share much of that life with her beloved sisters. There was Lucy, who Liz adored and who passed from this life to the next in her late seventies. There was Susie, who, like Liz, left us at age 100. And of course there is Gerry, who we are honored and delighted to have with us here today. I’d invite you to pause for a second to notice something that few, if any, other families could say: from these four women of this single generation, you have been blessed with more than 370 collective years of love, affection, care, and memory. It is a remarkable and singular gift you have all been given.

 When I was thinking about Liz’s life in preparation for today I remembered a sermon that Dr. King delivered in 1960. It is one of his most famous sermons, and it is called “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.” I think it offers some insight into why Liz’s life was so rich and complete, why she has been and will continue to be such a powerful influence on all of us, and why although she may have passed from our midst she will never pass from our hearts and minds.

In that sermon, Dr. King said that a complete and fulfilled life has three dimensions: length, breadth, and height.

Now, Dr. King did not mean length in the same way I’ve been using it. In his view, the length of life was not measured by its duration. Rather, he thought the length of life was measured by how well you developed yourself as a human being in the time you had and despite the obstacles you faced. Liz had a very long life in this sense as well.

Let’s talk for a moment about all of the challenges that might have prevented Liz from having a happy and fulfilled life. It is a daunting list. Indeed, it makes me feel pretty wimpy in comparison.

As I noted, Liz was born into a world in which women did not even have the vote—and where the idea that a woman might have a career was almost unthinkable. But circumstances pressed Liz to seek out opportunities and she secured a real estate license and became a successful broker. She must have been incredibly gifted at this—I suspect she could sell just about anyone just about anything—and I’m confident that if I had know her during this period she would have committed me to buying a bungalow in North Tonawanda instead of delivering this eulogy.

Along the way, Liz faced more than her share of troubles and concerns. In the early going, finances were tight. Over the years, she had bouts with life-threatening illnesses. Liz faced those problems bravely and never allowed them to define her.  

But Liz did not just face challenges—she faced tragedy. While Liz was still a child, her mother and infant brother perished during a flue epidemic. She watched her husbands Michael Guido and Jim Amato slip through her fingers and pass from this life to the next. She lost her beloved son, Michael, and treasured grandchild, Karen, long before anyone would have expected their time to come.

I suspect that psychologists would say that the most traumatizing experiences you can have in life are to lose a parent while you a still a child, to lose a spouse, to lose a son or daughter, and to lose a grandchild. If, as a result of all of these tragedies, Liz had become inconsolable, withdrawn, and bitter who among us would not understand?

But through all of this Liz sustained an indomitable spirit, a relentless passion for life, a dazzling resilience, and a restless intellectual curiosity. She and Jim Amato traveled the world, bringing back treats and tchotchkes for her grandchildren. Lisa tells me she has a distinct memory of purses made from coconuts that came back from Mexico. She hosted every family holiday party—and, as far as I can tell, fed just about everyone who ever showed up at her doorstep.

She learned American Sign Language because someone she loved knew it. She bowled and golfed. I am told that she played bingo in a way that seemed more intent on extending the game and giving her more time with her pals than it was on victory. At her birthday party one of the men who hosted the events she attended told me “I would go over to her and look at her card and say 'Liz you have a bingo!' And she wouldn’t care.”

She had a glorious—and sometimes randy—sense of humor and, well, enjoyed reading slightly racy novels. I remember when I first met Liz. She was in her eighties. Lisa had told me about her grandmother’s fondness for steamy romance books. I didn’t believe it until I saw a large stack of bodice-rippers occupying a corner of her TV room.

But, of course, Liz would tell you that her greatest source of joy and pride and delight was her family. And what a family it is. Look around you and do the math with me. Five children, fourteen grandchildren, twenty-three great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren. The numbers are so vast that I understand the family had a little difficulty figuring out whether they were correct, so I apologize if I’ve missed a half-dozen people here or there.

In any event, we know that Liz never lost track of any of you. Each and every one of you has a special place in her heart—and I do mean “has,” not “had.” A heart as big as hers may be forced to relocate, but it doesn’t leave. And it will never leave you. Not. Ever.

I suspect that this may be the reason Liz asked me to do the eulogy—precisely because I am not one of the vast numbers of children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on. As a bit of an outsider, I had the opportunity to hear Liz talk about all of you and (always) brag about all of you.

According to Liz, you’re quite an amazing bunch: brilliant, handsome, beautiful, successful, resourceful, kind, and so on. This is how she saw all of you, with all your gifts but also in your humanness and, let’s be candid, your imperfections. She adored you, and adores you still, and (even if indirectly) that's what she told me, and I think it’s what she wanted me to tell you.

Well, in that sermon Dr. King said that we measure the breadth of our life by reference to our concern for the welfare of others. Liz certainly led a full and complete life by this measure, too. Indeed, her generosity toward her family is not just famous—it is notorious. I suspect that any of us who ever brought a child to Liz’s home later discovered that Liz had stuffed cash into one of his or her pockets when no one was looking.

I remember—as I’m sure many of you do—sitting at the table and watching Jim Amato shake his head and say: “If I didn’t stop her she’d give it all away and we’d be penniless.” More than once I remember Liz flashing her beaming smile, shrugging, and admitting that it was probably true.

But I’ve always thought that the best indicator of her generosity and care for others were the phrases you heard her say over and over again when you were in her home. “Can I get you something?” “What would you like?” “What do you need?” “What do you need?” It did not take me long to figure out that the answer “Oh, nothing, thank you” was not acceptable and would not terminate the chain of inquiry. You see, Liz had a special insight. She understood that, actually, you did need something. You needed one person—at least one person in your life—who would always be asking you what you needed, even when you said you didn’t need a thing.

And that brings us to the final dimension of the fulfilled and complete life that Dr. King described—height. A complete life, he maintained, needs to reach skyward. It needs to stretch up toward that great and divine mystery that brought Liz into this world and that now holds her in its everlasting arms. A complete life, Dr. King argued, needs to include a relationship with God and to be an expression of God.

In this respect, Liz’s life had height enough to touch the heavens. The great theologian Martin Buber said: “One eats in holiness, tastes the taste of food in holiness, and the table becomes an altar.” Liz got this. Liz understood that when she welcomed us into her house, when she gathered us around her table, when she fed us and gave us wine, when she talked with us and joked with us and asked us what we needed, when she filled us with that abundance that came out of her kitchen and wrapped us in that abundance that came out of her generosity of spirit, this, this, was a sacred and a holy act.

And heaven only knows—and I mean that literally—how many times she did it. The gospels tell us that Jesus fed thousands. I wonder whether, when Liz met Him on Sunday, she asked if they could compare numbers.

Now, Liz had only one request of me with respect to this eulogy: she said “Len, please, don’t just talk about my meatballs.” And I’ve kept that promise. I’ve talked about lots of other things instead.

But … but I will close by saying this. I believe in a loving and gracious God. I believe the circle is, and will be, unbroken. I believe that Liz is here, living within us. I believe that Liz is there, reunited with those she has lost and waiting for each of us when our time comes to join her. I believe in heaven. And I believe that heaven cannot possibly be heaven unless all of us can have at least one more plate of meatballs with Elizabeth Amici Guido Amato.

         Will you please say “amen” with me? Amen.