EULOGY FOR CLIFFORD H. COCH (1925-1996)
NEW YORK, AUGUST 4, 1996
Well, you all know why you're here.
I hope you realize what you've gotten yourselves into. Cliff and I hope that you understand the full consequences of your actions in coming here today.
Because this is Clifford H. Coch's funeral and there isn't going to be anything conventional, mainstream, or particularly devout about it. Nor do I want you to think about him in any kind of conventional, mainstream, or particularly devout way. While Cliff wasn't conventional, mainstream, or particularly devout, he was an acutely principled man and a truly original, energetic, and highly highly amusing character.
Fortunately, I had to cram for this. I hope to make it be brief and sharp --- like my father. Thank you Frankie and Bob for talking. Cliff would have been pleased to see boyhood and lifetime friends stand up for him. You
probably know that Beattie named Clifford "Cookie," but what you might not know is that she said to him once: "Cliffie you're the kind of boy who sticks his hand down a toilet and comes up with a gold watch." How did she know? How did she know? My father never stopped talking about her cooking, and her baking, and you know my daughter called him Cookie too. Emily, our oldest daughter. Emily and Beattie were born perhaps one hundred years apart, and they both loved my father and they both called him Cookie, and I think that's remarkable. I want you to know that thanks to Cliff's stories and recollections and anecdotes, when someone says Jamaica Estates to me, I think "Hey, that's my hometown, I know the lay of the land, I know the streets, I know how it felt."
While he lays here dead, I want to thank my friends [a baby cries] Hi Kenny! Hi Baby! While he lays here... [more crying] There's a young life! And over here, my friends Steven and Michelle have not only travelled a great distance but are expecting a child in November and I don't know that there could be a finer accent to my father's funeral than to have a pregnant woman here today. [More baby crying] What wonderfully tangible proof of life's perpetual continuance. I have two gorgeous daughters and a beautiful and loving wife and I live in awe of the God who has blessed me with this infinite joy. Come to think of it, Les, we've got the room, we've got the people, we should cancel the funeral, put up a "huppa," and get married once again, because my father would find that to be a more prope use of resources. [Laughter]
You may have seen an art gallery directly across the street and quite coincidentally facing this funeral home are two paintings. One is of a singer holding some Mozart sheet music, and another is of the Place de la Concorde in Paris. How very fitting that Cliff will pass by those two paintings as he leaves here. He was a man to whom moral integrity and solid personal relationships were an absolutely paramount part of his life, and he loved children. He did not suffer fools gladly, although he did suffer them kindly. Here was a man who did not shrink from making painful and judgemental decisions when his sense of decency had been betrayed. He had no problem letting you know where he felt you stood, letting you know where his moral ground was and whether you were on it with him or not. It is a cliche to say that he loved living because -- it's a cliche -- because into his seventy years he squeezed nothing short of an eternity of life. He had a physical and intellectual energy that never faded not even right up until his very last breath. One thing he sought to do was to pass on to his sons a instinctive sense of justice, of right and wrong, of where the moral rectitute ends and where chicanery and deception begins.
My father did not hesitate to express his opinion, and on this day I will uphold and celebrate his spirit of steadfast individualism. Today is Cliff's day and things are going to go exactly his way. Cliff eschewed the
concept of organized religion and so you see no rabbis here. Clifford's wishes are to have his
body cremated -- part of his remains are to be spread over the river Seine in Paris , a city that he loved almost as much as anything in his life, with the balance of his remains to one day many many years from now to rest with my mother. What is religious about today is the casket. It is an orthodox casket. It will be consumed, as my father's body will be, by the flame and it will return to the nothingness from which it sprang. My father deeply disliked graves and graveyards and gravestones. [A good friend walks into the room] He deeply disliked people who arrived late to funerals. [Laughter] If you want a gravemarker for Cliff, you can put one in your heart. So today will we not be making the run to Mount Hebron and while my grandfather Sam Hittner provided space for him, I know that Sam would heartily approve of my father's faithfulness to his own principles. My father would be embarassed and shy at all the attention he's receiving today. I had a dark suit on earlier today, but then I remembered that Cliff and his brother Lester, whom he loved, laid their father to rest in a bright red checked sports jacket he used to wear to the race track. So today in defiance of custom I am in a light suit and one of my father's ties. Clifford, you may remember, did not mind defying custom.
And to clarify what you may have heard, Cliff considered himself Jewish but not a Zionist and so today in accordance with his wishes there will be no Hebrew. Cliff did not offer prayers for the dead nor will he permit any to be made on his behalf. If you find this offensive, he's offended you. I don't want you to think that I am putting words in his mouth. He wasn't kidding. He wasn't kidding about his anti-clericalism. He wasn't kidding about his irreverence towards the modern political nation State of Israel. He wasn't kidding when he said death was for the dead and life was for the living.
And when someone died, my father had nothing more to offer than to tell you that person was dead. Because he did not give it a second thought. That person was gone, and that person could no longer be helped, and my father lived with living people, he did not dwell on dead people, and you are not to dwell on him. You can remember him, but not with any kind of suffering.
My father did not follow organized Judaism, not by laziness but by deliberate avoidance My father understood, respected, and ignored [I laugh] excuse me, ADORED, adored. My father understood, respected and ADORED this magnificent thing we call the cycle of life. We got a baby here, [I point ] we've got one to be born, we've got him sitting there [I motion to the casket], I'm over here, this is just terrific. He understood the cycle of life not with the automatic regurgitated dogma that he found so prevalent among people who merely style themselves religious, but with the profound reflected intellect of a man highly educated in both religious and secular matters.
Cliff had a sense of humor and so today I will may try to make you smile and to find that ability to laugh at life that Cliff simply made a regular part of every day. Cliff never stopped being a child and so today possibly I will bring some of his boyish silliness to you. Cliff refused to fit his life into any kind of mold. He refused to fit his life into any kind of mold. So today so this is pretty much a "freeform funeral." If something he did or was or said offended you during his life, I certainly won't do anything to change that today. [Laughter]
Clifford was a highly musical person and composed many a whimsical tune for my mother, singing and whistling them through the house, as he walked down the street, as he prepared a meal in the kitchen. Now in my opinion love and music are the same and maybe that's something Cliff taught me implicitly. He never came out and said anything like love is music, music is love, it's just something I learned watching him live. Cliff was fond of Mozart, Schubert, Bach and Brahms, and what you heard earlier today was what playing as he died. That was Bach. I am fond of an American style of music called the blues. Now the blues aren't about being sad, or being poor. The blues are about feelings and emotions, happy and sad, expressed through music. The blues are a state of heightened sensitivity to both the rigors and the pleasures of living. And while sensitive, the blues often demonstrate a kind of stark and steely view of mortality that my father would have enjoyed. Blues legend Muddy Waters says "All the medicines I can buy/All the doctors I can find/I got to take sick and die/One of these days." One of these days, I'm going to die. One of these days our children will also be dead. The unasked question in this very simple song is, since death is inevitable and death is coming, how will I spend "these days" until it comes? Will I have integrity? My father did, I will. Will I fall to temptation and greed? He did not, nor will I. Will I stand by my principles and defend them? You'd better believe it.
How will I spend my time until I "take sick and die one of these days?"
You should not think of this as a marriage that you've heard of elsewhere because you've never seen a marriage like this. If you come away with nothing else today understand that Natalie and Cliff -- we could say in cliche fashion that Natalie and Cliff have been completely immersed in each other's love and time and thought side by side all day every day for the last thirty-eight years but that would be ludricrous understatement. For Natalie and Cliff's relationship while you could describe it with all of the above you must know that their caring was based to no small extent on a highly physical relationship practiced with a high degree of frequency in the comfort of their own home, clearing off a desk in the office, elsewhere.. [Laughter] And that's how it was.
He wrote music. He wrote love songs. He also composed a few war songs that we really only have the first lines to.
In the late fifties, we were treated to:
"Off to Korea, that's a metziah?"
Later on, as the conflict expanded and Kennedy and Johnson moved their men in, he wrote:
"Nothing could be finer than to be in Indochina now that war's there."
And, during the Iranian hostage crisis:
"Ayatollah, my pretty little poppy."
[Laughter]I understand that he wrote some songs about the breakup of the Soviet Union, but I was raising a family and did not get to hear everything he did, but there were some songs about Chechnya, and something about Shevardnazze, I'm not exactly sure, but these were frequently accompanied by his piano playing, often after dinner.
What's funny is that he didn't realize it but he was writing the blues. And one of his most well received blues tunes was a number he wrote shortly after being married. It is called My Wife Is A Jew, and it goes like this:
My Wife is a Jew
And she loves to screw
And I love to, too.
Boo boop bee doo
[Laughter]
Now, if you think about this, and you think about music and love and jazz and blues, you'll understand how that last line, Boo Boop Bee Doo, is the whole thing. It's all there [Laughter]. It emphasizes, reiterates, and completes the very simple and very powerful message of love and respect that my father sang to his wife for 38 years. Boo Boop Bee Doo. Now this is what's childish and silly about Cliff. He never hesitated to talk like a four year old in front of you. He never considered himself to be more than about 25 years old at any time in his life. Because at the end, the only men his age that he spoke to were family and old friends. He had a number of friends who are in their thirties and forties and fifties, because those were the kind of men he saw as his peers.
38 years of marriage? You know, 38, is it really 38? I think it's more.
38 years as husband and wife
38 years as lovers
38 years as friends
33 years as my parents
28 years as Robert's parents
06 years as Leslie's parents-in-law
03 years as Emily's grandparents -- although she would insist and say three AND A HALF
10 months as Charlotte's grandparents
10 years as Llewelyn's parents
38 years as business partnersSo without exaggeration, Ma, 232 years, 10 months. Which is without question the longest marriage I have heard of and I think a record for this chapel.
What's really funny is that Claudette Colbert is following Cliff tomorrow. I don't why it's funny. He would enjoy it. I think he thought she had class.
If you want to know how he felt about death during his life, understand that my father was a huge fan of the macabre, of Charles Addams cartoons, of vampire and Frankenstein and werewolf movies, and I know that he might enjoy a few words about this at his funeral. If you find this in bad taste, well, it comes from over here [I motion to the casket. Laughter] Three days before he died my mother -- who had been giving him injections during the last week of his life -- drew a tiny bit of blood.
To which Cliff said, in character, [I do my best Bela Lugosi impression, which my father taught me] "Ah, fresh NEW blood." Probably the only place in the world to which he felt a need to travel but did not was Transylvania, and I'm not kidding. He and I and Robert had often spoken of visiting Cluj , the capital of Transylvania and half a day's drive from Count Dracula's Castle. We'd figured out this expedition. And we figured what kind of precautions to pack with us: Wolfbane, a cross, a wooden stake, garlic, the sign of the pentagram, some silver bullets, what have you. Because he never knew exactly what kind of peril he'd find in the Transylvanian Alps 'round the Bacau Pass: it could be Dracula, in which case the cross, stake, and the garlic will take care of things, it could be a werewolf, in which case you shoot off some silver bullets, you could run into Frankenstein's monster, in which case his prescription was a group of villagers holding raised pitchforks and burning stakes, or better still he could have run into gypsy woman Madame Maria Ouspenskaya, one of his all-time heroes.
I'm not certain what you say about a man who loved horror movies ---- but I can assure you that as Robert and I toured the casket showroom facility upstairs --- that we were in absolute hysterics thinking about what Cliff would say and how much humor he would find in looking at the different varieties and pricing and stylings, and noting the features and, uh, various other sales points. [Laughter, mostly mine]
There are a million Cliffisms and sayings, and I can't remember all of them, but I'll give you a few:
It was his understanding that cold pasta had to be eaten standing up over the sink in the morning. We do not know why.
He believed that Elvis Presley looked like a plate of vomit. I wonder where he ever saw a plate of vomit and how he made the connection between that and Elvis Presley. [Laughter]
Like his father before him Cliff called a toilet a terlet, and
Like his father before him Cliff called a refrigerator an icebox.
Cliff used to say that he always needed to see the end of the next chapter. We stand here at the end of one chapter for us. But it is the beginning of a new chapter for Cliff. Clifford will now live on as energetically and vivaciously as ever in our hearts, in our minds, and on our lips. Now Clifford will be reunited with his parents and his beloved puppy Llewellyn. Well hopefully with the dog at least.
Cliff used to walk down the street reading a newspaper holding it like this [I lift my notes over my face] so that his line of vision was blocked. And often he would bump into friends -- quite literally.
Before Sam Kinison thought of this, Cliff used to wonder aloud why people in Banglasdesh and Ethiopia did not move somewhere most hospitable. Couldn't figure it out. They kept getting hit. Why don't they pack up their bags, get on a train, and leave?
Cliff used to call me Sonny Boy.
Cliff and I talked about everything as you can well imagine. To give you an idea of what it was like growing up for us, Natalie and Cliff would come home from work around six or so and Cliff would head straight for the kitchen, usually cooking in shirt and tie. We talked a lot in the kitchen and at the dinner table. Meals at the Coch house were always gourmet cuisine and intellectual conversation. We talked about history, about politics, about religion. We talked about news, about the family, about art, we talked about whatever was going on. But mostly we laughed and tried to out-joke one another, see who could make the other laugh harder or come up with the more clever line or the more sublime pun. We spent a lot of time perfecting this humor.
I could give you a bunch of cliches. I could say that even though my father is dead he's accessible to me. I could say that even though he's not here I can hold a conversation with him. I could say that even though I can't find him anywhere he is everywhere. But I will leave those kind of hackneyed expressions for the next party in this room -- Claudette, no doubt. [Laughter]
At the moment, I'd like to recite some lines by a favorite artist of mine, Van Morrison , who said it better than I could when he said the following about another man named Cliff, Van said this. He said:
"Whenever Cliff
Shines his light on me
He lifts me up so I can see
When I am lonely lonely lonely
In darkest night
I know that Cliff
Will shine his light."Isn't that a wonderful line? "I know that Cliff will shine his light." In life he did shine and in death -- to continue the popular music theme -- he will not fade away, not fade away, not fade away.
I'd like to talk about his birth and death.
For inexplicable reasons of vanity or cruelty, Clifford's mother went on a grapefruit diet for her entire pregnancy. This is not recommended. [I motion to our pregnant guest] Clifford was born with rickets and broken ankles. But he got stronger. And he never lost that strength. Maybe having been born so weak made him so strong. Clifford's death was more dignified than his birth. Rather than starving him with nothing but grapefruit, at the very very end --- possibly ten days ago --- Natalie finally learned a little bit about cooking and actually steamed --- a chicken. [Laughter]
He really only had four bad days. Four. Not more than that. And they weren't all that bad. They were worse than the first seventy years, but the four days -- they were four days. I'm not a doctor but I've been assured that it is a smashing success for a lung cancer patient to die at home. My father did not waste away. While he travelled many continents, he never became incontinent. He never lost his cogency although during his life he'd sometimes lose his patience. Clifford died at home in peace with all the grace, style, and that classy low profile which were the hallmarks of his life. Five hours before passing on, even though he was already truly, truly dying, five hours before passing on --- he put a move on his wife.
Five hours later, he sat up, barely able to breathe. My mother kissed him. He puckered his lips to kiss her. A moment later he died in my brother's arms with his wife at his side and he knew they were there with him. He was conscious until his last breath. He had no pain. He died sitting up on his own, with his eyes open, with his mind intact, without regrets. Knowing full well a brick wall lay in front of him my father stayed at the switch with the lights on and the throttle wide open until the very end. God had shown him the hard way out and he was not afraid. My father, not God. [Laughter]
When the funeral parlor came to pick up his body -- and I must tell you that in Manhattan funeral parlors show up faster than Chinese food. Remarkable. Of course, you don't need to call them as often. When the funeral parlor came to pick up his body, he left the building the same way he had for the last thirty years: down the passenger elevator, through the lobby, past the doormen -- who greeted him. He did not tip them, as usual --- out under the canopy and into the street. As my brother and I watched, to our great delight Clifford disrupted the flow of pedestrians on the sidewalk, frightened a few children going to camp, and then blocked traffic on East End Avenue. As if to say, "Step aside, Clifford Coch is coming through." Now Dad, I am going to step aside and I am going to let you go. You should all do the same.
But first, Cliffie, let's go play in traffic one last time.
[We took him out of the chapel, into the street and put him in the hearse. Myself, my brother, Elementary School PS 131 mafiosi Frank Shaeffer and Robert Burger, two nephews and two of his lunch buddies were pallbearers.]
