Stocky’s Eulogy

Good news and bad news, the good news is I kinda did light notes this morning, the bad news is following these last two orators, most of that, I think, is out. Just a couple quick thoughts, I like my father had no… No, I, like all of you had no desire to be here, and even less to be up here. Since Karl was like and older brother to me. Come on, seriously, can we hide this guys? Anytime anybody met the two of us, the first question was, ah, ‘So, which of you is older?’ I would promptly then say ‘No, it’s fine, there’s about six years between us.’, and they then would say ‘And so?’ I always said that when I grew up, I wanted to be like Karl, because in so many ways, Karl was truly the best of all of us. And don’t get me wrong, on Mr. Crankypants, Karl was ornery. (He was the) first and last to admit this. And anybody that knew Karl, had been treated to one of his Tie-raids, I mean that kid had no possessions, but one thing that he did carry, was a well worn soapbox around with him, any injustice he saw, and you could just see him wind up. And you would just park, get another beer, whatever you needed, and just roll through it, because it was, his passion would just pour out of him.

When we were ah, when we snuck into Cuba, we found this wonderful couple that put us up in Havana, and we spent three completely drunk nights, for completely different reasons, discussing politics, ownership, education and health care. In English it’s hard enough (to understand), as everybody in this (country, who) has followed this current debate, and trying to deal with that second language, it was truly the only way we could get through it (was drinking). And as this woman was explaining to Karl about how she had fallen and hurt her leg and had to go to the hospital. It wasn’t enough for Karl just to hear the story, and hear about the system and how it worked and what did and didn’t work. He kept hammering her with questions about how she felt going through it, about how much time she got with a doctor, how much they sat with her, how much, not only did they take care of her leg but took care of her. And to say that Karl was human, in some ways back to the ornery side, it was also his humanity, his sincere humanity that in he in his own way tried to find out (about) absolutely everybody.

I think that one of the greatest testaments is everybody here and the outpouring we’ve got over the last two years fighting (the cancer) that wound up beating his body, but through all this everyone that’s here, everyone that’s helped us it was truly the best in Karl and truly what he wanted out of all of us. And it’s so amazing what through all of this how often he needed, and what he wanted from all of us, was so very simple, it was to be better people it was truly to fix the problems that are in front of us. Yeah, he was Karl (some) days he’d question, but he knew that he could fix this. That like he was going to get the right people, and this was going to get it done. But again..

Sorry, I know that everybody that knows me know I have ramble potential. I’ll cut it short, before they pull the mike. Because I could sit up here and ramble about him forever, he’s my favorite topic.

But truly what I take from all this is knowing that with passion and drive we all can be better, we can all fix the problems that face us. And it isn’t merely enough to wander through and identify them, but to fix them. On every continent, and on every corner here in the States and everywhere, and it was truly saving the world through medicine, on soul at a time. And that’s one of the greatest gift I’ve gotten.