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<h1 class="post-title">Eulogy for Will Lepeska</h1>
<div class="post-meta"><time datetime="2014-06-05">Friday, November 27, 2015</time></div>
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<p>We are gathered here today to celebrate and remember a truly wonderful man. My brother Mike may have said it best when he said recently that time spent with Dad always had a good chance to be the best part of your day. He was a charismatic teddy bear with a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye. I can't recall the last time he got angry, or lied, or said an unkind word. And everything he did, from cooking pizza to chatting with friends, enjoying a drink, overseeing an important business meeting, or watching a Packer game, he did the right way -- with love and passion and joy, and you wanted to be there to do it with him. You also wanted to watch him, study him, and figure him out, to understand how an ordinary man could have such an extraordinary effect on the people around him. Now I’m not the world expert on understanding what makes Will Lepeska the amazing man that he was but I have known him all my life. And he’s always lived inside me, as I’ve tried to understand and emulate him. And so, after years of study, here’s what I’ve learned.</p>
<p>First and foremost, <b>Love</b>. Love your family, love pig roasts and pizza, love your wife, love your friends, love making businesses, love actively and constantly. Go out of your way to love. Love everyone, even people you don’t know! After Dad’s oncologist, with whom Dad had established an easy friendship, told us that treatment was no longer helpful we went and had a burger at Fred’s in Burlington. On his way out, in his wheelchair, Dad asked me to stop at a nearby table where three older men were sitting enjoying their lunch and a beer. Dad greeted them with his usual easy friendliness and after a short, jolly conversation full of jokes and laughter as if old friends, he wished them well and left. Have you ever approached perfect strangers this way and struck up a conversation for no apparent reason? Dad did it all the time. One way to think of it is that Dad’s circle of people was very big, maybe infinite, and even perfect strangers and oncologists were included in his warm embrace.</p>
<p><b>Have eight kids</b>. To this day, besides being a Dad myself, the greatest thing I am is a member of the Lepeska family. The chaos of our family growing up was a constant source of happiness. And now that we’re older it’s even better. Family get togethers have always been huge sprawling joyful affairs, with Mom and Dad at the center watching it all fly around trying to manage it but also just letting it fly. Dad was especially good at letting it fly.</p>
<p><b>Have fun</b>. Dad loved to tell the stories of younger days and the fun he and his friends had as bachelor playboys in Chicago chasing women and carousing. This always seemed so incongruous with the father I knew, who was so honest and so obviously full of integrity. One story he took particular relish in repeating was the time he and a friend posed as high fashion photographers seeking the next top model in order to make the acquaintance of the prettiest women on Chicago’s lakefront beaches. Dad did not tell these stories sheepishly. He told them with gusto! But then he didn’t just have fun in his youth, he had fun with his eight children, effortlessly being the warm humorous heart of every family party even up to his last days. And with his wife, I’ve never seen a couple who amuse each other so constantly. The gentle joking never stops, the laughter never ends -- Dad and Mom had fun. But Dad’s sense of fun extended beyond his social and family life. Dad enjoyed his work immensely and often expressed simple gratitude to me about his good fortune to be able to do work that he enjoyed so much for so many years.</p>
<p>Fourth, <b>dream the impossible dream</b>. When I was about twelve, Dad told me about a musical that he loved called Man of La Mancha. In a nutshell, the main character is a poor man who goes “mad”, constructing his own reality, jousting with a windmill he imagines to be a four-armed giant, pledging himself to a woman he’s never met, and generally conducting himself as if he were a knight, which could hardly be further from the truth. The windmill beats him senseless and the maiden rejects him in annoyance. Yet this had absolutely no effect on the man of La Mancha who continued jousting with windmills. Now Dad was a pragmatic person -- no mad knight. But he said the important thing is to be good, to be like Jesus, to be honest, generous, positive, and helpful. They may reject you or call you a fool. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is what comes out of you. By all accounts, Dad lived by these words. And he understood that, unlike the experiences of the man of La Mancha, most of the time people respond to good with good of their own. So it works out either way.</p>
<p>In his work Dad also believed in dreaming the impossible dream. How else do you start twelve companies in fields as diverse as pizza making and nuclear medicine? Dad told me recently that he never had a savings account, never had a 401K, never invested in a mutual fund. That if he had a bit of money, he’d start a company. Whatever he made from one company, he’d pour into the next. And remember this man had grown up poor and had eight mouths to feed. It’s not like he didn’t want to be wealthy or need money! I always think of him when I hear the parable of the talents. He did not bury his money, resources, or prodigious talents in the ground in the hopes of preserving them for some unknown need that may arise later. He immediately and completely threw his talents into his next endeavor with a new sense of optimism and faith.</p>
<p>And things didn’t always work out. In the late 80s, he lost a lot of money and had to seriously downsize. Mom and him moved out of a glorious house on Lake Mary and into an apartment in town. On my first visit to that apartment, I was struck by one thing -- Dad was the same happy, jovial big-hearted man as ever. Life had humbled him but it didn’t seem to have any impact on his spirit whatsoever. Dreaming the impossible dream is an act of faith in something unseen, something bigger than concrete results. Dad’s faith allowed him to succeed and fail with equal grace.</p>
<p>Fifth, <b>be a Republican</b>. I’ve never understood how a man who was so generous and caring and loving of those in need could be a Republican, but he most definitely was. Beyond policy differences, of which there were many, Dad didn’t like the way Democratic politicians can seem to talk down to people. Dad never talked down to anyone that I know of. And he resented being spoken to that way -- it was one of the few things that really seemed to piss him off. However, he recently admitted that Barack Obama had done a pretty good job so I suspect if he’d lived a bit longer, and Democrats had figured out how to speak a bit more plainly, he’d have come around. Sorry Dad -- had to squeeze that in there.</p>
<p>Sixth, <b>have children who are Democrats and are willing to sing your praises</b>. When my Dad asked me to give this eulogy before he died, he pretty much asked me to not make a big deal out of him. But if there is one thing to be happy about his passing, it’s that he’s not here to suppress the giant feelings we have about him. The feeling that he was a uniquely grand person. That he was a man worthy of the highest praise and love. Dad believed in God and the goodness of God’s creation. He had faith in Jesus Christ and in humbly following in his footsteps. I believe this faith is at the root not only of Dad’s goodness but also how he was able to live so fully and richly and with so much love. Soren Kierkegaard, a religious philosopher from long ago, conceived of the “knight of faith” as an ordinary man whose faith in the infinite God’s goodness allowed him to be fully engaged in the moment on earth unencumbered by self-doubt and fear, making him truly extraordinary. For Kierkegaard, the knight of faith embraces life most gracefully. In my opinion, Dad was such a knight.</p>
<p>And he died as gracefully as he lived. With each passing month, as his body failed him more and more, Dad lost another pleasure. He lost his ability to drink his 5 o’clock cocktail. But he joked and laughed as if he had the same buzz. Then he lost his ability to enjoy his many favorite meals. But he’d still give us advice on how to tweak the marinara as we cooked it for him. Then he lost his ability to walk but that didn’t stop him from making new friends from his wheelchair. Eventually he lost even his ability to read -- he couldn’t remember what had happened in the previous chapters of his books anymore. Even his beloved Packers failed him -- losing to Denver, Carolina, and finally even the lowly Detroit Lions. And for many he would have lost his dignity as well. But changing his pants and his shirt while he sat on the bed just a few weeks ago and kneeling down in front of him I remember looking up and seeing those same kind, loving eyes with that same twinkle in them. He looked so proud of me and happy. It was like he was saying I’m really glad I got to see you do this. To take care of me, to love me, to not be worried about the little things. I’m glad to see you are starting to figure it out, Peter. His face was nothing if not dignified.</p>
<p>But let’s not be sad. Dad lived a magnificent life. According to Mom, the love of his life, his best friend and confidant, he did everything he ever wanted to do. He loved and was loved deeply. He was successful in every facet of life and had a blast doing it. If ever there was a funeral where we should celebrate as we mourn, this is it. Let’s let ourselves take pleasure in remembering him today and follow his example. Let’s have fun, let’s dream and take risks, let’s be honest and good and enjoy and help each other, let’s laugh and eat and root for the Packers. And the greatest of these, of course, Dad’s favorite commandment, let’s love.</p>
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