Eulogy for Larry James Fundell

Good Morning. How are you?

He would be concerned about that.

I am about to use the word vanity and reference my father in the same sentence which feels sacrilegious, but here we go. In his younger days of practice in California, my dad had a vanity plate. ICNCYDU.

I see inside you.

As kids, we indubitably believed in his superpower, X-Ray vision. What we learned as adults was that his superpower was real, and he executed it every day for good. As we surrounded him for his final breaths last Tuesday, a former colleague said that our father always knew more about the condition of the person he was talking to than he let on. You see, a healer has a rare ability to see the positive qualities that lie beneath the surface. He embraced that calling with passion, healing the whole, not just the parts you can see.

Dad’s great thirst for knowledge never allowed for stagnancy in thinking, only growing in understanding. Undoubtedly accomplished in everything he attempted to do, he would consider his greatest accomplishment (if he considered them at all) the genuine love for all people he projected through every endeavor, almost all interactions. An exquisitely elite mind, yet simple in his love. And what an epic love story, in every facet of his life, fraternal, paternal, filial, passionate.

Dad had a very real love/hate relationship with the natural authority associated with his brilliance. He dedicated his entire life to honing his ability to deliver his wisdom through humility and grace at only the most appropriate times, never with any semblance of arrogance and always with compassion.

My dad and I shared a deep natural affinity for words and the creative potential for language. That was a large part of our fun-wordplay, puns, obscure definitions, irony – the deeper wrought in subtlety, the more authentic the accolades. He was my editor-in-chief, a walking dictionary, thesaurus, and historical anecdote specialist in one, a profound mentor for me, my brothers and countless other individuals he opened his door to everyday. Those who were fortunate enough to pass through, walked away holding a little bit more than they had.

An obsessive problem solver, Dad selectively bequeathed his solutions, creating space and time for other’s epiphanies, but never sacrificing the value of the critical thinking process. His unusual creative thinking was always fodder for holiday table entertainment and was usually, several courses later, eventually proven to be abstractedly grounded by some thread of truth he held.

I heard mention multiple times from a variety of sources last night of his infamous tape worm weight loss plan. We cannot begin to tell you how much that “worms” our hearts that he subjected more than just his family to his inspirations, and that he will be the original host for further explorations.

Dad could converse and would converse with anyone on any topic. If he didn’t know it, he listened. If he did know it, he listened and then contributed. There was always a question of his true expertise on the subject, or if there was a vein of BS involved. He wouldn’t let you get too far without letting you in on the joke with a wink or a grin, and again he usually knew much more than he let on.

Music was a magnificent influence in dad’s life. Diverse and eclectic, his liberal taste in music brought seemingly opposite worlds together. He would meet us in any emotional realm through music, and generously gave our tastes an indirect ear when we asked. He would often tell my mom, “Dawn you listen to music for the lyrics, I listen for the music.”

I can speak to the love between my mom and dad only as a witness to one of the greatest heartbreaks that have occurred in this world. I could audibly hear the fissure as my mom’s exhalation of disbelief mixed with her soul’s final breath. Their love was won every day by a mutual battle in its favor. They communicated years of glee, pain, triumph, and peace with a touch and reached for it daily. Sometimes one would have to move a little closer for the other’s hand, but the goal was mutually shared. He was known to have said, “Even on my worst day of worst face, Dawn still found the way to love.”

Dad’s particular lens of humanity and the infinite intricacies of nature captured forever in his art are reveled as some of the most beautiful gifts he could leave us with. Within his craft, he gives us his view of this life. And though we will not have any further acquisitions from his view here, he left us with the clarity and guidance to seek beauty in every encounter we have. He would view today with sorrow in his heart, but he would also want to capture some of the most arresting showcases of the human soul that occur in this life-grief, sorrow, love. I’d like to think that he would have found our celebration and grieving as one of the most beautiful shoots of his life.

Dad always said that great character attracts and begets great character. I do not believe that testament has ever rang as true as it does today. What a legacy of admirable characters he has attracted over the years. He is here in us all. Every exchange he sought was intentional and genuine, and without intending to leave a trace of himself, he consistently did, exponentially paying it forward.