My Dad, Ben Dorscher will always be in my heart
If you are related or knew Ben Dorscher I would love to hear from you.
You can find out more of Ben Dorscher’s life at DorscherGenealogy.com
May 17, 2001
Eulogy To My Dad
By Deborah (Dorscher) Anderson
This was read at the funeral by Debby Anderson
We come today to say goodbye to Dad. We come to pay our respects, share our sorrow and express our love.
Parts of my eulogy will be painful for you and for me. I wish we could avoid it but I feel we must walk this path as a part of the healing process. I will try to end it with an effort, for us all, to find the good, in this time of pain.
My hope today is that we can all leave here with some of the burden lifted from our shoulders.
We come today to mourn the loss our Dad, Grandma your Son, Eddie your Brother, Vianna and Pat your brother-in-law, Troy, JJ, Travis, Ryan, Jessica, Josh your Grandpa, Mike, Jess, Shauna your father-in-law…a cherished member of this family…We grieve for our loss and for our inability to spare each other a pain so deep and so wide that words fail to express its true size.
In putting my thoughts together in this past week, I tried to bring some order from this chaos. To find a simple word or phrase to make it all better and I failed. I failed mainly because what we seek seems unattainable just now. But it is attainable and in time we will each find our own answers.
Dad died in such a terrible way, down deep inside hurting so bad.
In my heart I see Dad standing next to Mom, his Dad, his brothers Ray and Joe, his sister Darlene, his daughter Donna somewhere in heaven. They have just finished giving him a tongue lashing that probably even made God cringe.
Dad was NEVER the type of person to purposely hurt someone. Oh yes I know very well that their were times in which he believed he was right and our feelings got hurt. And I know at least it has happened to all of his children, where we would walk away for awhile to heal our hurt. Be he NEVER did it to intentionally hurt us, it was his strong belief in what he believed in. I believe he is looking down on us right now and now realizes what a stupid and pointless choice he made from which there is no chance for reconsideration and in my heart I KNOW he wishes he could right his wrong. I know he is feeling the pain that we all are feeling right now.
I am sure that each and everyone of you that is standing here today are saying the “If I Orly’s” and the “I Could Have Dones” I know I am. If ...
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My Dad, Ben Dorscher will always be in my heart
If you are related or knew Ben Dorscher I would love to hear from you.
You can find out more of Ben Dorscher’s life at DorscherGenealogy.com
May 17, 2001
Eulogy To My Dad
By Deborah (Dorscher) Anderson
This was read at the funeral by Debby Anderson
We come today to say goodbye to Dad. We come to pay our respects, share our sorrow and express our love.
Parts of my eulogy will be painful for you and for me. I wish we could avoid it but I feel we must walk this path as a part of the healing process. I will try to end it with an effort, for us all, to find the good, in this time of pain.
My hope today is that we can all leave here with some of the burden lifted from our shoulders.
We come today to mourn the loss our Dad, Grandma your Son, Eddie your Brother, Vianna and Pat your brother-in-law, Troy, JJ, Travis, Ryan, Jessica, Josh your Grandpa, Mike, Jess, Shauna your father-in-law…a cherished member of this family…We grieve for our loss and for our inability to spare each other a pain so deep and so wide that words fail to express its true size.
In putting my thoughts together in this past week, I tried to bring some order from this chaos. To find a simple word or phrase to make it all better and I failed. I failed mainly because what we seek seems unattainable just now. But it is attainable and in time we will each find our own answers.
Dad died in such a terrible way, down deep inside hurting so bad.
In my heart I see Dad standing next to Mom, his Dad, his brothers Ray and Joe, his sister Darlene, his daughter Donna somewhere in heaven. They have just finished giving him a tongue lashing that probably even made God cringe.
Dad was NEVER the type of person to purposely hurt someone. Oh yes I know very well that their were times in which he believed he was right and our feelings got hurt. And I know at least it has happened to all of his children, where we would walk away for awhile to heal our hurt. Be he NEVER did it to intentionally hurt us, it was his strong belief in what he believed in. I believe he is looking down on us right now and now realizes what a stupid and pointless choice he made from which there is no chance for reconsideration and in my heart I KNOW he wishes he could right his wrong. I know he is feeling the pain that we all are feeling right now.
I am sure that each and everyone of you that is standing here today are saying the “If I Orly’s” and the “I Could Have Dones” I know I am. If I knew that this was in the future I would of done so many different things. But those “If I Orly’s” and “I Could Have Dones” are nothing more then wastes of our energy, which we have so little to spare.
For one split second Dad was so blinded by a pain, that he lost sight of all the love around him. I am standing her right now begging each and everyone of you, don’t let that happen to you for we are each loved and desperately needed by others. What I ask, I realize will not be easy. I find myself railing at the power that took him, oh the anger I feel…
For anger is nothing more than a feeling. Neither right nor wrong. It is but one of many demons we must face. We must use our energy to turn this around into something good—something useful to us and to others. I will face the demons of sorrow and grief. They will not defeat me for I will refuse to let them win. Instead I will thank God for the time he allowed Dad to be with me and with you. The only thing sadder than losing Dad would be to have never had him in my life.
I know God has other plans for Dad right now, but I am selfish, and would do anything to have him back. For the last chance to hug him, to let him know how much I really love him, to give him that last kiss on the cheek that I use to give him when saying goodnight as a little girl. The hardest thing for each and everyone of us to say and the hardest thing to accept is he is gone…forever from our lives.
Yet as I stand here I have already begun to heal. And I ask each of you to work with me so that we can help each other. Let us begin to heal by our memorial to Dad in our hearts and our minds. Let us remember the good times. Let us remember the things that made him so special.
It seems like just yesterday we were standing here in the same place saying Good-bye to Mom. But as time has gone by in the least expected places I have felt her presence. At least in this past hurtful week I have felt her standing next to me trying to comfort me.
I know that the physical form of Dad is gone but I revel in the knowledge that his spirit will always and forever be with me. I will wait until he feels the time is right and he lets me feel him near. And in that moment I will soar with such happiness. As most of you know here Dad and I still have things to hash out and we will get that done, on our own time, and between Dad and I! But most of all I want to tell him how much I really love him.
Right now I would like to share with you some of my memories of Dad …
Grandma first I want to thank you for bringing him into this world. You have given all of us here such a very special person.
Linda you were so blessed to be the one that was called “Daddy’s little girl”, sometimes I got so jealous of that. I was the first girl and you ended up being Daddy’s little girl. Through the years I have learned that only one person can fill those shoes and you filled them for him. And I want to thank you for filling that spot in his life. You have made Dad laugh so many times, I remember one so well with you standing in front of the fireplace when you were little singing with those sunglasses “Germinah Was A Bull Frog” to Dad. Thank you for that memory…
Jeff, Sam, John and Tom…What can I say you guys made a lot of troubles through the years, but they were all so good memories right now.
Remember the time in Hales Corners when the newspaper was suppose to be taken up to Dad in the house and he yelled through the speaker thing to bring his paper up to him. Well we all thought he wasn’t listening and saying some things he wasn’t suppose to hear, GUESS WHAT, we all know he was listening…
How about the time in the same house, Mom and Dad were throwing some kind of party and all of us kids were upstairs, well Dad was coming upstairs to tell us to stop whatever we were doing and someone at that point and time threw a plastic cowboy or Indian and hit Dad right in the head. Then all of us went hiding, but he found us all.
Sam you made him so proud through your baseball years. His son a great pitcher. Thank you for giving him that happiness in his life at that point in time.
The tenderness that he sowed when our pets got hurt. Fritz when he broke his leg how Dad made up his own splint and helped Fritz through it, or the Pigeon that got caught in the drill press and Dad was so heart broken when he had to tell us that their was just no way to help that one. I even remember the goldfish I had one time when I was younger and Dad gave it a funeral over the toilet. And how can we not all remember Darby, I think that was Dad’s best friend at the time.
How about the evening prayers when we all stood in front of the cross at night and Dad lead the prayers with the “Our Fathers” and the “Hail Marys.”
Now that I have shared some of my memories of Dad with you, if you would like to, and I would love to hear them, join me and share with all of us your favorite memory of Dad. If not today, some other day. If not with us, share it with someone else. Do what feels right for you. For opening your heart in such a way is what will allow you to begin to heal.
When we are done today it is my hope that we will have shifted from this period of pain and sorrow and start to understand, forgive and a love for life…both past and future.
Dad was exceptional in so many ways. He was bright, creative, intelligent, caring…I am and will always be so very proud that God gave me the chance to be his daughter.
I know that he had enjoyed each and everyone of you in his life. And we all know Dad, he may not have always agreed with you and he sure would do his best to change your opinion. Oh, he could be stubborn. And one thing that I did inherit from Dad was his stubbornness. And I do want to thank him for that, because in my life time so far that stubbornness has helped me through a lot of things.
So for me, I will frame this time in my life as it being Dad and Mom who had to go away. I will wait until I can join both of them and then we will have the reunion I so desperately want, the day that I can say “I am finally home.”
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