Summary: my father’s passing yesterday evening leaves me contemplating the lessons to be learned from a life lived in full. He was a creature of responsibility, yet possessed of an irreverence for shibboleth, fiercely opposed to political meddling in the arts. He was a fierce defender of civilization, of the art of living inclusively in community. These are just some of the lessons I take from a life lived fully. I shall miss him terribly.
By: Paul S. Marchand
My dad died yesterday evening.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
Of course, we draw lessons from every life lived and completed in its fullness. Though it is normal for children to bury their parents, it is equally normal for the critical parental teaching function to survive. The lessons we take from our parents are those we pass on to future generations. Across time and place we live and learn from our predecessors.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I take from the life lived in full that was my father’s was that of John Donne: "no man is an island." My father was a creature of responsibility who appreciated that we are all interdependent beings, that all of our actions ramify outward, and that in a world of intertwined lives, everything we do has an effect upon others. He taught me to be thoughtful of the way in which my actions would unfold their potential upon others. The very idea of bullying was hateful to him; the Golden Rule was his steady vade mecum for conduct.
But my dad’s ethic of responsible behavior toward self and others never prevented him from taking joy from the world around him. He had a healthy irreverence for shibboleth; his sense of humor regarded nothing as being out of bounds. Bluenoses and the easily offended, with their shibboleths and "buttons," had no place in his worldview.
Moreover, to a man possessed of an irreverence for shibboleth, rules themselves were shibboleths. Foolish rules, unreasonable rules, picayune rules, rules in place "for no other reason than that they had been on the statute book since the time of Henry IV," all of these he held up to critical analysis. To the overused cliché "it is what it is," he always came back with one simple question: "why?"
My dad’s willingness to ask the often stupefying question "why?" served him in good stead when, the better part of half a century ago, he found himself in the brand-new field of administering public support for the fine arts. Serving first with the California and later with the Maryland Arts Commissions, he was never afraid to stand up to politicians looking to turn the arts into a tame, compliant, and obedient wing of government. For him, though public support for the arts is an integral part of civilized society, there could be no such thing as an "official culture," nor was the idea of politicians as curators of what we should see, touch, or hear at all congenial to him. If the idea of politician as curator was uncongenial, the idea of politician as would-be censor roused in him a fighting spirit of opposition to the whole notion of political meddling in the arts, and he brought his steadfast convictions to his lengthy service as member, and later chair, of the Cathedral City Public Arts Commission.
For my father was an unapologetic progressive, unembarrassed to be numbered among liberals and so-called counterculture McGoverniks. At a time when Coachella Valley Democrats were, at best, a threatened --- even endangered --- species, when it was less potentially socially problematic to be gay than to be a Democrat in our Valley, my father was unafraid to be an out, loud, and proud Democrat. In the end, he was vouchsafed enough time to see the 36th Congressional District, the Coachella Valley, and Riverside County go true Democratic blue.
Yet blue was hardly the only color in my dad’s spectrum; it included the whole rainbow, reflecting his commitment to a society made up of every sort and condition of human being, irrespective of the way we live, the way we love, the way we look, the way we work, or the way we worship. For a decade and a half, my father served on the board of the Palm Springs-Desert Communities chapter of PFLAG. Having been "an actor, another goddamn actor," before moving into the administrative side of public arts, my dad was well accustomed to socializing and working professionally with LGBT colleagues in the entertainment industry, a history that served me in good stead when I came out to him half a lifetime ago. Indeed, I used to tease him that he was one of half a dozen straight men in the world who were into show tunes.
For these and so many other life lessons my dad imparted to me in the two score years and eight we had together, I am and always will be profoundly grateful.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
I shall miss him terribly.
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him. May his dwelling this day be with the saints in the Paradise of God.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Riverside County Democratic Party or of any other entity with which he may be associated. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
