I’m quite positive that there are grammar mistakes to follow, yet my inability to re-read/edit the eulogy that I wrote at age 28 for my dad persists. Please read on as is.
"I wanted to start by thanking you all for coming from near and far to be with us today. But not only for today, thank you all for accompanying us on this journey for the past 11 months. The visits and phone calls and texts, my friends, Mom’s friends, Dad's college friends arranging to surprise him and secretly arriving from several corners of the country just to watch Bonaventure basketball with Dad for the day, the gifts, the signed Jim Kelly football, everything. It’s all engrained and part of Dad's story now. Between Mom, Dad Jeremy and me, we’ve amassed so many wonderful people in our lives and we’re humbled by how many of you chose to be here today and yesterday. Dad himself was never even aware of just how far his outreach had spread.
I began to write my eulogy from scratch and realized that I had subconsciously and preemptively been writing it all year long in the social media updates I would post, in the stories I would recall with Dad over the past year, and in the manner I would discuss him with those in the hospice. At his bedside, I often felt ineffably helpless, until I began to tell Steve stories to the staff, which we all know could span days and days and days.
I find it somewhat poetic that Dad’s story began in East Aurora, and ended at the Aurora House Hospice. It truly came full circle. His love for East Aurora spanned from childhood into his sixties. We took countless trips to see my Grandma and to shop for knick knacks at Viddlers. He had the fondest memories of growing up in that small town and I have fond ones of visiting for holidays and Toy Fest and for some ‘za at Wallenwiens. Perhaps it’s why he and Mom wanted me to grow up in Spencerport, a town of similar proportions and people.
Dad continued onward from EA and has equally fond memories of college, for what he could remember of his college days. He was proud of his “extra lap,” the second senior year at Saint Bonaventure. I would hear stories of his party days and Second Shay and the Rat Skellar, the time he drove the getaway car as his friends streaked, and I could never keep all of his buddies straight as every single one had a goofy nickname. Dad’s eyes would light up as he proudly recanted tales of the college days. Thank God he attended Bonas and met mom, had the beautiful wedding they would still refer to as the most epic wedding of all time, and started our little family.
My relationship with my dad was one I’ve never seen paralleled. As a friend stated to me months ago “You and your dad are as close as a father/daughter tandem that I’ve ever seen.” There’s no other way to put it. He would do anything for me. Dad would play the Beatles “Birthday song,” every year on April 30th as I was walking down the stairs or leave it on my voicemail when I lived away, even this past year. I can still hear the way he would say “Ash-a-lee” when he answered the phone when I called, usually to talk about nothing in particular.
Dad would pick me up on every single college break, sunshine, rain, sleet or snow in the Sebring. Dad would wait up for me to get home safely no matter if I was 8 or 18 or 28. This past year, exhausted from chemo, if I was home visiting, he would try his best to stay up to ensure I made it home. When all of this began, the nurse at Strong Hospital told me that Dad had been more concerned about mom and me than for himself. Because that’s Steve Ragan. As I rushed up to Rochester to be by his and moms side for his biopsy, he apologized profusely if i was missing “any fun parties or good concerts in Austin." Because that’s Steve Ragan. Dad noticed something was severely wrong hours prior to his poker party at our house in January, but kept it quiet as he didn’t want to cancel or disappoint anyone. Because that’s Steve Ragan. And I am certainly my fathers daughter in that regard. Dad once lost a job, his first post-college-job which was a manager position at Kmart I believe, because when he wasn’t approved for the time off for a mini Bonaventure reunion, he went anyways. Although thats an extreme example, I value that sentiment. Because decades later he wouldn’t have had that Kmart position, but he has the memories and the stories from a great weekend with the boys. And thats invaluable.
I’m proud to say that I helped get Dad out of the northeast over the past few years to places he had never been, with a road trip to Texas, trips to New Orleans with mom and Nashville and Vegas and last year a few flights out to California. We attended the music fest Desert Trip and both had tears as together we watched the Rolling Stones and our fave, Paul McCartney, particularly during Let it Be, Hey Jude, and Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds. At first, Dad had protested attending that festival and suggested we wait and see if Desert Trip 2 would happen in summer 2017, as he was in the midst of dealing with his own mother’s death at the time. For me, that was a big Hellllll no as I gave my usual and expected response of, "No, Dad. We’re going this summer, 2016, because you never know what could happen to either one of us in a year.” By summer 2017 Desert Trip was not held again and Dad was in the midst of a terminal diagnosis. He later thanked me for insisting we went when we did. Also that summer we road tripped to the Cali desert and hiked a mountain and attended a wedding and bore witness to the Bills emerging victorious in L.A. They were new and different experiences from our annual Martha’s Vineyard excursions, a road trip we made every summer for 22 years. On the Vineyard we played the same Boggle and Scrabble and Quiddler board games and climbed the same lighthouse and had the same fish fry and chicken fingers as the sun set, year after year. And it never got old.
When you would meet him, you would love him. There was no other way. Dad was our childhood soccer coach who was ambivalent about winning but who instilled fairness and exemplified honesty and insisted on team ice cream trips. Dad would tell, and laugh at, his own Dad jokes. Dad was a great husband and he and mom attended so many shows together, their concert tickets line up for several feet on our cork board at home. He drove 6 hours to see me when I was a college sophomore and experiencing my first real heartbreak. He continued to make that same drive annually to UCONN and Boston just to treat me and my friends to dinner for my birthday, turn around and drive home, arrive back in Spencerport at 3 a.m., rise and go to work in the morning. Dad had flown to Austin to meet my friends several times, and happily bar hopped with us in 105 degree weather, never a complaint uttered from the man who much prefers blizzards to even mild heat. Dad tried to help me for an hour months ago from 1,600 miles away when I locked my keys in my trunk in Texas. He wrote meaningful thank you notes to those who attended my brother's funeral. Dad was an phenomenal father to Jeremy and his special needs. They took trips to the farm and the zoo and to Wegmans, Dad and his little buddy. His heart broke and never healed after Jer passed. We hope they’re up there together, walking and talking, rid of the plights that riddled them on earth.
Dad would write me letters throughout the years when we were apart. I’m lucky to have a father who supplemented our phone calls and texts with something tangible. These letters were written about everything. My breakups and how I would be okay, planning fun vacas, his pride when I delivered my brothers eulogy, excitement over upcoming holidays. Each one is signed, "love always, Dad." In an eerie section that is applicable today, dad wrote “I know how far you have come and I am very proud of you. There will be tough days- maybe for a long time to come. But keep looking to the future and it will always get better.”
When Dad was on his last leg and enveloped in his final months, never-did-I-ever heard an utterance of, "I should have spent more time at work," or "Man, am I glad I saved some cash by skipping that concert/wedding/party." It's the exact opposite. It's, "I wish I had made it to Red Rocks Amphitheater like I always wanted to," I wish I had made it to see the Beatles beginnings in Liverpool and, "I regret not doing that/going there/seeing them before all of this started."
I probed for advice he would give others as I conducted a final interview of sorts. “Tell everyone don’t waste time. Don’t ever waste time.” I continue to hear of friends implementing what happened to Dad into their own lives with concerts and travel and family time. And that’s literally all I can ask for. And to love what you love, with no interference from others, the way he did. The way he loved and rooted on those Bills, unequivocally and unapologetically.
Dad passed at halftime of the game two Sundays ago, when we were suffering an embarrassing loss to the Chargers, and in a bit of comic relief, we've noted that he just couldn't stick around and see the horrific outcome of his beloved team. We're grateful he saw some impressive games in the beginning of the season. But for this one, he checked out early, normally against his steadfast conviction of never leaving a game before completion. "It's not over til it's over" he would lament.
Dad stood fiercely by so many convictions. When his fave spaghetti sauce re-homed their headquarters and cost several Rochestarians their jobs, he never had a taste of Ragu again. And for decades, he would ask me to exit the kitchen as he added the "secret ingredient" into the apple cider to transform it into witches brew as we carved pumpkins. The cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving had to be from a can, and stand on its own with creases or else it wasn't worthy of a Ragan holiday. He refused to use a riding lawnmower or a snowblower, as he genuinely enjoyed mowing and shoveling and would never allow my mom or me or neighbors make it easier on him. Dad never took a single, solitary sick day in his entire life. He would go out of his way to pick up a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and even a penny, insert them into the “found money puck,” save up for the year, and use it on a Super Bowl Feast. Dad refused to spend money on “senseless things,” which to him included bottled water and parking. He would literally dehydrate himself or walk a mile to a sporting event before stubborn Steve would purchase water or parking. I think Mr. Stewart stopped driving with Dad to Knightkawks lacrosse games due to the insanity of having to traipse for miles into the game. Dad created a penalty box out of a laundry basket and a Stanley cup out of foil to showcase his love of the sabres. Before OJ Simpson was a felon, Dad would have me bow down to him on the TV screen. He would leave snacks for me and my friends with a note signed "the phantom" and then deny he was said phantom. Steve Ragan was certainty brimming with quirks and steadfast convictions. And one conviction was simply to be positive and to be nice and to be kind. to everyone. No questions asked. I was recently told of the times when Dad ensured that a quieter, shier Lottery coworker was always included and invited to office lunch plans.
Staff at the hospice seemed to be astonished at his selflessness even in his final and finite time, until I told them about when he ran out of gas and walked a half mile to a gas station as to not disturb anyones plans. Even though she’d known him for a week, a nurse smiled and said, “Yep, that’s Steve.”
We’re all well aware of his passion for the Bills and the Beatles but that same passion carried over for his alma matter. Dad went so far as to inform me for decades that I could date an individual of any race or sexual orientation… as long as they didn’t attend his rival school, Syracuse. As fate would have it, two weeks prior to his diagnosis, I had to say “Sorry Dad, he’s a ‘Cuse grad.” (Luckily, Dad gave Corey a fair shot but made sure he wore St. Bona' attire at the introductory dinner).
Dad is the singlehanded last person who would ever want any of you to be sad on his behalf. If he were here, he would likely go around and apologize to everyone who has cried tears over his untimely passing. Throughout this awful disease, he would continuously check on me and mom to make sure we were doing okay, even on his worst days. He loved being a husband and father. And he would want us all to carry on. 18 hours after he passed, I went to a concert in Pittsburgh. The Dad who had his first seizure back in January indicating something was severely wrong who continued to host a poker party for friends that night raised the daughter who lost her favorite person and continued on to a show she’d been looking forward to with friends the next night.
10 months and 4 days he lived with this diagnosis, but I knew time was growing short when he ultimately shared with me the secret ingredient to the witches brew very recently. It was a heartwarming moment but we all knew the end was near. I promised to sprinkle cinnamon into my cider forever and to always walk around the block to admire the Christmas lights as we always did. I said I would return to Liverpool and do all of the Beatles things he has always dreamed of. Mom and I promised to go to a Grateful Dead and Co. show in his honor, we’re actually going next week. I promised to try to write professionally, which dad, a former sports writer with his own column, always wanted to see me put my mind to. Most importantly, mom and I promised that we would be okay.
East Aurorians, Bonaventure Alumni, Spencerportarians, relatives, New York Lotto coworkers, UCONN and Cosgrove friends, poker buddies, mom, we’re in the midst of a tragedy. We collectively lost a friend, a husband, a proud Rochesterian, a coworker, a do-gooder. I lost my dad. So what can we do? Well, we can do better. We can live better and we can be better. We can donate to hospice and the Aurora house, they were angels on earth during his final time. We can pick up a found penny. We can aspire to better our friendships as opposed to bettering our career placement. We can hand write thank you notes. We can ensure the quieter coworker is always invited. We can be positive as Dad was rarely, if ever, negative. There’s so much that we can learn and implement into our lives. Never count on next year. When your dad asks you to walk around the block and admire the Christmas lights, go, because I wish that I could have that privilege this year. We can put our phones down and look at old photos with family members and play Scrabble or Boggle. We can passoniately love simplicity the way that he loved Spencerport, the way he loved his job, the way that he loved bowling, the way that he loved a garbage plate, the way that he loved his family. We can all try to live a little more like Steve.
I'm 28 years old and I've stood here and eulogized too many family members. The difference is that before, both Mom and Dad were always sitting next to me to when I returned to my seat. It’s not fair and I feel cheated out of so many milestones, but at the same time grateful for we lived largely in the small time we had together.
Dad, you didn't quite make it to the hundred years that you promised me. We had so, so much to do still. But the impact you've created is eternal. I'll miss you and there will be a hole in my heart impossible to fill for the rest of my life. But I'm overwhelmingly grateful for the person and parent you were to me and Jeremy, the husband you were to mom, and the friend you were to so, so many. Your legacy will never flounder. Bills and Beatles and St. Bonas, me and Mom and Jer, spaghetti and Spencerport, friends and fairness and simplicity and honesty. That’s a hell of a legacy you’ve created if I do say so myself.
Dad would always marvel at the power of airplanes. He would say, "it fascinates me that in the morning you can be one place and in the afternoon a completely different place." Well Dad, it devastates me that last Sunday afternoon you were in Spencerport and by last Sunday evening you were in a completely different place. But I hope that place is beautiful and angelic and radiant and you're surrounded by those we've lost. I hope that where you are is truly tremendous, your favorite descriptive word embodying your positivity. And I hope that just like Lucy, you're in the sky with diamonds.”