Eulogy of Benjamin Kearfott Carriel

 

 

Text Box: Our Mother, Margaret Kearfott Carriel We wish to thank all the members of Christ Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr. Hanckel, and all of you who have come from a distance to be here with us today. Our mother received life with ebullient gratitude. The smallest things were cherished with the same welcoming as if they were lavish gifts for a queen. She embraced the giving more than the gift itself. By the time she was done you were thanking her for the privilege of giving her the gift. So great was her enthusiasm of great and small. Her spirit blazed her path in life. She was constantly inquisitive, constantly learning, constantly reading, and constantly traveling. We found her fascinating and interesting because she was always fascinated and always interested. If the subject was you, she gave you her full attention. People love her because as she opened the door to her home she also opened the doors to her heart and her mind. Suspicion and distrust just were not part of her character. We felt her implicit trust. She often preferred to leave the guided tour and set down a path that others warned her against. I never remember her being afraid of people or places or circumstances. Was it faith or zest or independence or blindness that enabled her to venture into the unknown with so little consideration and so much courage? We’ll not ever know. We celebrate her today not because her tired soul rests in peace but because her dynamic energy again freely roams seeking knowledge, seeking adventure, transformed from an elderly lady of weakened body into a diaphanous spirit riding Pegasus across the universe with one hand waving free. Jay, Paul and I were blessed as her sons. We grew up seasoned by her appreciation of civilization, history and culture. The walls of our home were covered with famous paintings: from the prehistoric running bulls in the Lascaux caverns to Michelangelo, Botticelli and Rembrandt and the modern disjointed figures of Picasso, African figurines, Indian, Chinese and Japanese art. Our ears were saturated with music from every country, many styles, many consorts and many concerts. I’ll never forget the forward leaning and remarkably well endowed young dancer shaking her “booty” on the cover of a Cha-Cha record or the international dance festival and the Dave Brubeck Quartet concert at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh in 1963. I listened to the overture to Die Meistersinger hundreds of times on an old 78 record. Mother beamed with approval. One Christmas she gave us recordings of all nine Beethoven Symphonies and a book of miniature scores to follow along. Jay wrote in the margins, “This is hard to follow!” Boy, was he right! But I am a musician today probably because of this one simple gift. She loved the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and many others of Tin Pan Alley. She was especially drawn to theatre, opera and drama. Jay has spent his life involved in musical theatre and I’ve played in many pit orchestras. Paul sketched in ink until he died. Jay is an author. I am a composer. She influenced us without pushing us. She exposed us to the world of man not because she thought it’d be good for us but because it was her passion. Despite moments of adversity and tragedy she saw the world as wonderful. She saw the works of man as representations of the marvels of God. As her sons however, none of the above is nearly as influential as mother’s beneficent touch. Nothing replaces her constant nurturing, her gentle caress, her loving voice, the sweetness from her lips, the light from her eyes and the everlasting certainty of her devotion. We are among those fortunate, beloved children who could lay a worried head upon a mother’s loving breast whose hand would comb out any fear, forgive any sin and bless any enterprise. Even through death her devotion remains. How she continues to do that we don’t know. But we are certain to receive strength from her until we too join her transformed spirit on a joyous ride across the galaxies.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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