I’ve seen and delivered my fair share of eulogies over the years and if I’ve learned anything from the experience, it’s that any eulogy that speaks of the dead as if he had no flaws is a phony one. And a bad one, really. We want eulogies to help us remember the departed, and if they speak of a perfect person -- and I don’t think any of us has ever met a perfect person -- they fail in their most important task.
As Drew noted over the weekend, Jose Lima has died. C.J. Nitkowski was a teammate of Lima’s on multiple occasions and today writes a wonderful, wonderful eulogy of the man who will forever be known as “Lima Time.” It’s wonderful because, while never failing to communicate the obvious affection Nitkowski had for Lima, it does a pretty good job in explaining how he could, well, be kind of a pain from time to time. A funny and endearing one to be sure, but a pain all the same.
Would that we all have touched people in our lives to deserve such a warm remembrance.