A Trio of Eulogies

Grandpa's funeral was on Saturday, December 2, 2017.
He passed from this earth the day before Thanksgiving on November 22.
This is a trio of eulogies.  The first by me, the second by Anna, and the third by Aunt Sandy.
I think you will how much he was loved through these stories.    

1.  Love Through the Black Walnut   Judy Klima 

My father was a unique individual and I am so very proud to be his daughter.  He taught me so many things; the joy of life, a take it like it comes attitude, a devotion to family, a way to use our boundless energy, and of course a deep love of nature.   Especially trees.  
Especially the black walnut tree.  
My father was nuts about the black walnut.  
So, in commemoration of his lifelong love for this tree, and because I know he would be especially proud of me for doing this, I am going to share a bit of information with you about this walnut and what it reveals to me about my father.  So, please bear with me.  I am taking full advantage of this moment and your captive attention.  

The black walnut tree is a large hardwood species of deciduous tree in the walnut family.  

It's scientific name is Juglans Nigra.

It is native to Eastern North America and is prevalent here in Vermont. 

It ranges in height from 70-150 feet and has a diameter of 2-4 feet. 

It has a deep and strong taproot that can be up to 10 feet long.  

The tree takes up to 150 years to mature and can live to 250 years.

A major characteristic of this tree is its deeply-furrowed, black bark.

The tree is prized for its beautiful wood and its tasty nuts.  

Walnut is unquestionably the finest wood in the world.  

Black walnut is primarily a pioneer species similar to red and silver maples and black cherry.

Because of this, black walnut is a common weed tree found along roadsides, fields and forest edges. It will grow in closed forests, but is classified as shade intolerant, which means it requires full sun for optimal growth and nut production.   

Most parts of the tree including leaves, stems, and fruit husks have a very characteristic pungent or spicy odor.  The thick green, corrosive outer husk is called the epicarp- and the stone, or endocarp, inside holds the nutmeat.  The nuts are cultivated for their distinctive and desirable taste.  

The hulls are used to make a natural plant dye and stain, with shades of deep brown, light brown or cream.  They stain anything they come in contact with - especially your hands, and there isn't anything you can do to get the stain off your hands.  Time is the only thing that will wear the pigment off. Fruiting may begin when the tree is 4-6 years old, but large crops take 20 years.  The trees bark, root, leaves and nuts all have medicinal properties.  Some of which are: 
1.  Expels parasites
2.  Promotes healthy skin
3.  Improves cardiovascular health
4.  Holds antifungal and antimicrobial activity
5.  Helps protect against cancer 

Every year, for as long as I can remember, my dad collected black walnuts.
He also planted them.
Every day for as long as I can remember, my dad ate those walnuts.
Before he planted them in his own yard, and before they began to bear fruit, he would scout the roadside for fruiting trees and go collecting.   He often did this alone, but not always.  Many times at least one of his five children - or one of his seven grandchildren, were recruited to help.  We would pick up those big green nuts and throw them into empty boxes, bags, or even into the back seat or trunk of his car.  We would all do this.
It was an act of love.  
When he got home he would count them.   It was important to him to know the exact number.
I have no idea why, but we were always impressed by the total.  
He would then hull and dry them.
Over the years I watched him create and improve elaborate or improvised systems for husking, drying, and cracking them.  He built racks for the nuts to dry on and invented clever tools for holding and breaking the shell.  If you have any experience with this, you know that taking the kernel from the black walnut is not easy.  It's a tough nut to crack.  My personal favorite nut cracking method was to use the vice in my dad's workshop.  It was a cool tool, that old vice, and winding it up until it burst the shell was always so satisfying. 
My siblings and I learned at an early age, that to my dad, these nuts are black gold. 
But we learned so much more.

We learned about persistence, and patience, and passion
and about the value as well as the beauty of nature.
We understood the importance of imagination and invention.
We witnessed the power of faith as we helped plant nuts under the soil that were destined for the sun. We learned that amazing things can happen at the edges of the road-and in my dad's case, on the roads less traveled.
We learned that one person can make a difference in this world.
We understood the cycle of life as decaying husks could sprout again.  

I certainly learned that I could be quiet and hold my tongue - as I listened to my father have not one, but hundreds of conversations with unsuspecting victims about the health benefits of the black walnut.  My dad absolutely believed that the number one reason for his long life, was simply because he ate black walnuts. 

My dad was an unusual man.  A powerful man.  A positive man.
A lifelong learner and a great teacher.  He was steadfast and passionate.
In fact, his passion for this nut was so strong that just weeks ago, at the very end of his life when he could hardly walk, my two sons, Anders and Kuba, and I drove with my dad to a nearby black walnut tree and picked 2 boxes full of walnuts for him...with him sitting there in the car, pointing out the biggest ones for us to grab.  A few days later, when he and my mom were home along, he made his way into his garage, where the black walnuts were, bot down on the floor and attempted to get the husks off.  Mind you- my dad was a large man who was very weak.
He could not get himself off that cement floor.  

This was such an indicator of both his desire for life as it always was, and his awareness that this was impossible.  
The day before he passed away I took a photo of my mother and father holding hands.  When you look closely at that photo  you can see that his thumbmail was still stained a black walnut brown.
What a beautiful photo it is.
What a beautiful life he gave us.  

When I Am Among Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the black walnut, 
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness

I would almost say that they save me, and daily,
I am so distant from the hope of myself, 
in which I have goodness and discernment, 
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often. 
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple,"
they say, "and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, 
to be filled with light, and to shine."

2.  The Numbers of Love  Anna Thelemarck  

One of the things I noticed about Leonard, not long after I was welcomed into the Klima family, was Leonard's use of numbers.  I remember telling Judy..."You know, I don't think your dad says a sentence that doesn't have at least one number in it."  It was as if his world found order with numbers.  It could be dollars and cents, seconds, minutes or hours, pounds and ounces, feet or miles, and through is work, I expect, amps and ohms and volts and watts.  He was forever analyzing the numbers and making calculations.  I just wanted to share some things with you about Leonard and his numbers.  Some of it is data driven, some of it is black walnut driven, because as both Judy and Sandy said, we really can't talk too much about the black walnut, some of it is family lore, and 100% of it is told with love and gratitude for Leonard, who welcomed me into this family 18 years ago with love and acceptance...because for him it seems, family always rises above all else.

So, when it came to dollars and cents, it seemed to me he thought about that daily, perhaps hourly.  There were always calculations about saving money or making money or having wasted money.  In fact, I have been witness to, and may even have taken part in, lying about the actual cost of food or clothing or a vacation rental just to make it seem like an amazing deal.  Because otherwise he would not only be disappointed in you, but may have even questioned your sanity.   

He would compare the cost of hard rolls at Tops Market or at Wegmans, or count the number of empty cans collected and how much money we would get when returned that could be used for gas for the trip home or for a lottery ticket and the hopes of a big win.  He was persistently hopeful that he would win the lottery.  He might also bring up the tile pattern on a ceiling and talk about the inefficient layout and the savings that could have been had with a more efficient design.   

But when it came to dollars and cents, the truth is, the best number to Leonard

was zero...FREE!

Anything free was a gift!

There is family lore about a free carpet he got for the cabin...I think it was removed from a hotel or some company that had a terrible fire.  There were shards of glass throughout the carpet from firefighters breaking through windows to put out the fire.  Leonard removed and rolled up the carpet, took it home, rolled it back out again, and taped off a grid pattern onto the green shag.  Then, each kid had a row to pick through and clean up.  There were the hundred pound bags of flour that had rolled off the back of a truck, or a wagon...How did it go?  I think Leonard collected the bags and brought them to an Amish baker near the cabin and make a trade, they could have the flour to bake bread, but would have to split the loaves.   Then there were the crooked nails that needed to be straightened with hammers for the cabin, and the "free" corn from a field, and the free filet mignon left in a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot, and perhaps you've read about the  "free" sausage in his obituary? 

Yes, Zero - Free was the best number of all.    

Other memories I have about numbers where when we were driving to Buffalo .  There was the usual time check and estimated arrival time, but also the calls to see what mile marker we were at?; How much gas did we have?;  What time should he order the fish fry?; and Could we pick it up as we drove in?  He might also analyze two ways to get home and weigh the distance traveled vs. the number of traffic lights.  When it came to feet and inches and pounds and ounces, I think of him talking about the weight of the copper scraps he stripped and collected in 5 gallon buckets, or the healthy growth of his grand children...how tall they were or how much weight they were gaining as they grew.  

And sometimes he really just counted things.  203 bricks in the walkway, 45 seconds at a traffic light, 54 steps around his apartment, 24 tomato seedlings in his garden, or 8 black walnut trees between our house and Sandy's house.  


And well, speaking of black walnut trees...I was thinking these past few days that just during these 18 years that I have been a part of this family, I would guess that Leonard had planted maybe 200 black walnut trees?   Many at the cabin, some in neighbors yards under cover of darkness, some in our park, some along roads, some in Sandy's condo complex, some in his own yard.  I did some research and found out that a black walnut tree matures at about 150 years and typically lives to be about 250 years old.  Each tree produces about 260 pounds of oxygen per year, times 200 trees is 52,000 pounds of oxygen a year.  I read that two trees produce enough oxygen for a family of four, so that means that 100 families of four will get their oxygen from trees that he planted.  I bet if he could have bottled that oxygen, he would have driven it around delivering it to his  family.  Now I also read that a black walnut tree's cash value is about $20,000.  So, 200 trees times $20,000 is equal to $4 million dollars.  A bushel of freshly collected nuts weights about 48 pounds and contains about 375 nuts, but they don't produce nuts every season, so let's say that together they produced 96,000 pounds of nuts and approximately 750,000 nuts.  After husking, there would be about 36,000 pounds of black walnut meat or 576,000 ounces.  Black walnuts sell for about $14.00 per pound, that's almost half a million dollars in nuts alone.  For his health, Leonard ate maybe an ounce a day. 
He always wanted to win the lottery - but it seems he already had his bounty and it was big.  He even had choices with the black walnut...cash, oxygen, health.  

I want to close now with some final, tender numbers:
Leonard was born on a Wednesday, June 11, 1924 and he died on a Wednesday, November 22, 2017.
He married one woman, Adeline Ciurczak Klima whom he was with for 68 years. 
Together they raised 5 children and adored 7 grandchildren. 
They treasured their great granddaughter, Adalyn, and Leonard caught just the whisper of his great granddaughter Zoe, whom he passed as he was leaving and she was coming to join us here in this world.   
He had a long life of 93 years, 5 months and 12 days to be exact.
Or, 34,133 days, or 2 billion 949 million, 91,200 seconds and this
just one
of so many goodbyes. 


3.  The Life of Leonard     Sandy Klima   

First of all, I want to thank you all for coming.  My family and I appreciate your support at this emotional time.  Please forgive me for the length of speech – but it is a loving memory of my Dad – and needs to be told.  There are many stories to tell, these are just a few. 

My Dad – Leonard Anthony Klima                                                           

·        Born 6-11-24  -- Lived 93 years

·        That’s 14 presidents – from Coolidge through Trump

·        His father came over from Poland through Statue of Liberty port of entry.  He was married twice and had 10 children -- my dad was part of the second set.  

Young Kid

·        As a young boy, my dad was a dare devil and a prankster.  Sledding from driveway to driveway across the street – one time going under a car! He told us stories of Hanging rats on doorknobs, putting delicious hamburgers into his best suit pockets, hanging onto his bed springs to avoid being hit with a pyda, he was always getting into trouble.  He was an altar boy too!

·        His family was poor and he went to work at 16 to support his family.  He started work at a steel mill and his mom made him 6 sandwiches for lunch.  It was hot, filthy and dangerous.  He told us about a time when a molten bucket of steel broke and fell on a co-worker trapping his legs.  My dad could hear his screaming and went to help.  He called security and held the man from the back telling him it would be Ok help was on the way.  The man died in my dad’s arms. 

Army

·        He joined the Army and felt that it was one of the best experiences he ever had. He frequently talked about the end of the war and that bottle of wine, loaf of bread and slab of cheese he ate with a buddy under a tree in France.  It was heaven, nothing better.  

·        We also heard about his expertise of winning at Pinochle!  He and his buddy has a system, no one could guess it.  He was a trickster through and through.

·        He gave spare shoes, toothpaste, rations and clothes to a wedding couple in town and was invited to their wedding.  He go so drunk that he woke up naked with his clothes next to him all folded nicely in a pile with his gun on top. 

·        He was very proud of the fact that he stopped drinking when he got back from the war.  So many of his friends became alcoholics due to the volume of liquor they passed out weekly.  My father always said “You are what you think you are!”  “ You just need to tighten the screw”

·        Towards the end of his life, he was haunted by memories of his army buddies blowing up from bombs.  When we were in the ER one night, he started to cry and when I asked what he was so upset about, he told me about seeing his buddies get blown up during the war.  I had never heard that story before.  He then said that God was great to give you the ability to forget the worst things that happen to you and to be able to live a happy life. 

Klima Electric and Family

·        He received his 2 year degree in electrical Engineering while working for an electrician.  He thought to himself, I can make more money on my own, so soon he started his own company – Klima Electric.  On the front of his truck were the words – “Here Comes Klima”  – on the back “There Goes Klima”

·        He had no idea what he was doing and learned by his mistakes.  He got every bid he submitted and did not realize that it was because he did not charge enough.  He and my mother drove around to find potential work together.  It was an exciting time for the two of them. He once worked 9 months straight. 

·        My mom packed his lunch every day and when he would sit down to eat he ate things from the top down.  At the bottom of the lunch bag was a wrapped up pickle.  My dad said “Now she gives me the pickle!”  That saying has been a stable for many a joke in our family.  You can use that phrase anywhere. 

·        Growing up during the depression you have to be very frugal.  My dad never forgot that.  He would lock up his breaks on the road to pick up a pop bottle.  He also enjoyed crackers and warm milk, said it brought back memories of his youth.  Another favorite saying was “You are what you save!”   

·        He met my mom in May of 1948 and thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world.  My mom was not so sure about him and waited a month before deciding to go out with him. 

·        They were married in 1949 and lived with my dad’s parents for at least 7 years on Metcalf Street in Buffalo, NY My brother Paul and I were born on Metcalf St.

·        They eventually moved out of Metcalf into their own home on 330 mill road.  This was the start of the Queen of Heaven Catholic Church and elementary school phase.   Mark, Judy and Tim were born on Mill road.  Then a series of First Communions, confirmations and graduations. 

o   My dad was proud of being Polish, but did not want to teach us polish, he wanted us to be Americans.

o   Paid for his first car in CASH!

o   He made up bedtime stories of Felix and Blooper – We named one of our dogs Blooper.

o   Built a big swing set – everyone in the neighborhood came over

o   First above ground pool in the neighborhood

o   Built show piles to slide down in the winter

o   He taught us how to do the 9 multiplications – 9x2 (2-1=1+8=18) – 9x3 (3-1=2+7=27), etc. 

·        When I was in 8^th Grade, my family moved to 287 Angle Road where we lived roughly 45 years.

o   Built make shift fireplaces for cook outs in the backyard with friends

o   Brought rye bread, mustard, hot dogs and sponge candy to family just because

o   Fiercely protective of his family – Mark and Johnny with the knife guy at the creek

o   Pinochle at the cabin with the boys  – He was always willing to share his pinochle logic  

o   Always to one to invite everyone over to our house to visit – to the annoyance of my mom – clean the house, provide food and drink… he never thought about that – he just wanted to visit and share with family and friends.

·        When life through curve balls my dad’s way, he took it with a grain of salt and said “Take it as it comes!”  We all say that now when life gets tough.  

·        He bought property in Randolph, NY and spent his time building a cabin and making it something special for the family.  He loved that cabin and the work involved in building it.  It was his outlet for creativity and relaxation.

·        My Dad got diabetes in his 40’s and that changed everything food wise.  We all had to take vitamins and eat salad daily.  The pills were all lined up on the counter and salad was ready with dinner.  “Salad First!” “You are what you eat!”  -- Oh how my mom got sick of making salads every day for dinner. 

·      He had a complicated relationship with my Mom.  He did not share her finer tastes for music, art, crafts, and decorations.  He made fun of her for this which caused much friction and arguments over money spent or clutter around the house.  But no matter how bad it got, when they were separated, they pined for each other.  Once he took a train from Buffalo to Plattsburg just because he missed my Mom when she was visiting me.  They loved each other at the very base level and always came back to that in hard times.  If you really want to know what they thought of each other, you just need to read the cards they sent to each other on holidays or birthdays – My girlfriend, your lover, my sweetheart, and your lover boy.  

·        He was not the perfect father.  Who is?  Human beings are complicated and have complicated relationships.  We would all have appreciated a gentler and accepting Leonard, especially when it came to our mother, or a more involved dad in our youth.  He was busy providing for his family the best he could.   He was an honorable man!

·        In his last days, I asked my dad to think of something that would make him happy – he said to put his arm around my mom and to sleep together again in the same bed. 

What I will remember most about my dad is his LOVE for us.  He LOVED us with all of his heart.  You could see it in the twinkle of his eye and the corners of his mouth.  He would drop everything to help us, he gave us the food off his plate and the shirt off his back.  He sacrificed so that we could be happy.  

I love you dad so much and believe that you are now in heaven.  Yes heaven – even prankster boys go to heaven.  I can imagine you telling everyone about black walnuts, about how proud you are of all of your kids and most of all about how much you loved your wife Adeline.  She was the red haired beauty you fell in love with, built this strong family with and was right by your side when you were dying.  You led a full life and you will be remembered.     

Dad, now its time to turn off all the switches and relax in heaven.  Look down at us and marvel at what we will achieve.   I want to believe that Zoe and your spirit passed in the night and that she will carry your energy and wisdom into the future. 

I love you dad – in this case it is especially hard to take it as it comes ...