All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir(46)
He said out loud that he wished he could share a recent memo about hiring that my father had written his boss, but he couldn’t because “he had named names.” And with that, I sat back a bit in my seat. For the first time all day I felt more relaxed. I was just listening to a story about someone who I could not stop thinking about. This room saw him as I did, fully dimensional. We weren’t there to cover up the dark spots in his life; we were there to celebrate him wholly.
It was now time for people to come up and share any stories they might have about David Carr. I breathed a sigh of relief when the first was Erik Wemple, one of his longtime best friends who knew him as a boss, writer, and ultimately a kind of brother. I watched him, blond and serious and without notes. He is one tough-looking dude who can also pull off a white cable knit sweater. Erik was responsible for clueing us into the beauty that is the Adirondack mountain range. The Wemples had owned a little cabin up there for decades, and when their family grew bigger, they moved to a better spot on the lake. My parents snatched up their old place and went about the business of creating their own memories there.
I closed my eyes as he told a story about our guy in his Washington-era days. My dad had battled necrotizing pancreatitis and was in the hospital when one of his employees, Dave McKenna, was set to have his bachelor party in Atlantic City. Never one to miss a party, my dad checked himself out of the hospital to attend the celebration and then promptly returned to the hospital after the festivities were over. The room erupted in laughter. He had invented fear of missing out, aka FOMO. Erik made sure to add, “He didn’t miss anything in journalism, either.”
His eyes fell for a second, as he steeled himself for what came next: a recounting of his own experience with parental loss. His own dad had died when Erik was thirty-one. “I realized that we as people never lose our need for guidance and for someone to play that role, and that’s what David did for me. And just how David missed nothing, it is our turn to miss him. I will do that.”
Michael Borrelli came next, almost as if my dad had arranged the lineup. I knew what he would say, but I could not wait to hear it. Michael represented another big puzzle piece in his life: striving for recovery. Michael waged his own battle with the disease, a disease many in the room knew intimately. A disease I had, but was trying to forget. I snapped out of my reverie when Michael said my name, recalling the previous week when we were called to the Montclair house to watch the Super Bowl. I came, as always, not for the sport, but to be close to my dad. To ask him questions.
“I don’t know how many of you—well, most of you have probably seen or experienced David dance.” He knew to pause, the big laughs coming loudly from all directions. “If you haven’t, it’s an amazing sight. I can’t tell if he was the worst dancer I have ever seen or the best dancer I have ever seen. But he was the least insecure dancer I had ever seen.”
Michael finished with a vivid punch line when he uttered, “And I was so uncomfortable.” I closed my eyes and saw those dance moves in all their glory.
Ike Reilly was next, a musician whose songs I know by heart. Every word. He did not speak to my dad’s career, because that’s not what he knew. He knew him as a guy, friend, dad, human. “I really don’t like being in this city without him.”
Cousin Tommy walked up to the pulpit next. And then funny man Tom Arnold killed it with his talk of loyalty and ancient shenanigans. Dad and Tom had bonded over their mutual affinity for Minnesota and cocaine.
But something was missing. When would a woman get up and talk? Should I say something? Immediately, my stomach seized into knots. The long-ago-swallowed Xanax was no match for the mere thought of publicly speaking after these guys. I knew the order did not matter, but my dad would fucking lose his shit if I got up there and tumbled. It was time to be strong, insightful, tender. And funny. No pressure.
My Uncle Jim upped the dude quotient by speaking next, and to add insult to injury he opened by calling my dad “Davey,” something he was not fond of. Once a big brother, always a big brother.
I texted my sisters to see if they were up to the job of talking about our dad. Madeline, ever the quiet one, can be a monster with words. Meagan is all heart and always finds the right thing to say. I have what one might call an inconsistent batting average. My sisters didn’t respond. Nick Bilton was at the podium, describing my dad’s last tweet.
And then my aunt Linda, married to my dad’s brother and always a favorite of mine, made her way quietly up to the front. For a second she looked petrified, unsure if she was supposed to be standing there. I heard her laugh nervously as she recalled the family’s confusion when my dad presented his book to them and told them the title was The Night of the Gun. Their father, my grandpa, had suggested the alternative title Nuns Prayed for Me. I grinned; I’d never heard that story. I’d officially learned something I didn’t know about David Carr.
She motioned to her husband, John, whispering, “What was the other story I was supposed to tell?” Then Linda recounted her first meeting with the Carrs in Hopkins, Minnesota, forty-five years ago. It went all right, but she later found out that not ten minutes after she left, my dad was arrested in that very driveway. “Long hair, plaid leisure suit, he was just nuttier than a fruitcake.” She cackled and so did I at the thought of him in a plaid suit.
James Percelay read the room and knew he should speak to the suburban side of my dad. Whether it was mowing the lawn or firing up the snowblower my dad always had a gadget or two to aid in house maintenance. He liked these simple tasks, and he bonded with many a neighbor about #thissurburbanlife.