Eulogy for my Grandfather, Stasys Salkauskas

My grandfather died on Wednesday, and I thought I'd share this eulogy that my sister Nida and I wrote:

Our grandfather, Senelis, was the second youngest of 8 children. His strong will and determination were apparent early in life. At the age of three or four, he badgered his mother to let him go to school along with his older brother Olius and sister Ole, and when she couldn’t stand listening to his complaining any more, she told him—just go. So he went, walking by himself for a couple kilometers to the school. Teta Ole (our great-aunt) remembers that day, when the school door opened, but no one could see who or what had opened it. When Senelis finally appeared and demanded to be taught, the teacher offered him a seat, and from then on he began his studies.

He relished learning and knowledge his whole life—he continuously challenged himself and others by engaging them with ongoing debates and discussions about politics, current events and world affairs. He was the only one in our family who actively encouraged Nida to discuss my work with him. And, unlike everyone else, his eyes never glazed over when Nida launched into details about international rule of law initiatives or governance models. He had strong opinions on almost every subject and was eager to discuss almost anything. Yet, the point of these conversations was not necessarily to convince me or others of his point of view, but rather to test the accuracy of his principles to make sure that his arguments were based on accurate information and that they reflected the truth. These principles and convictions were what kept him so deeply rooted, despite the many upheavals in his early life.

Senelis was younger than I am now when he fled Lithuania after the war. I wonder if I would have known how to deal with such a big decision. There was a story he sometimes told about when he was teaching in Giedraiciai. He and his colleagues would gather in the teacher’s lounge to discuss and debate politics, and he often made jokes about Stalin. One day, the phone in the lounge rang—it was a colleague from the high school across the street, calling to warn them that if he could hear their conversation from the telephone, then so could the authorities, and they might not be so amused by his jokes. Senelis needed to live life without fear and in line with his beliefs.

Throughout the decade that followed, in refugee camps and resettling in the United States, Senelis found solace and even joy in the beauty of daily life and in his interactions with the people around him. He learned several languages during his travels, and used them to good end—in Germany, he and his brother talked some German soldiers into giving them a couple old Army accordions that were on top of a big pile of loot. One of the accordions made it all the way to the States, and knowing of my love of music, he gave me the accordion a few years ago. I learned to play it (sortof), and love its old-fashioned, out-of-tune sound. Last Christmas, I brought the accordion back to play for him, since he and I had enjoyed singing together on previous visits. He would sing a few bars of a song, and I would pick it out on the accordion. The old songs brought back so many memories for him, mostly of happier, more carefree times when he was a young man. He sang well and remembered many lyrics, including alternative lyrics to popular and classical songs that he learned during his military training.

He was creative in many ways—through music, his clever turns of phrase and jokes, sometimes injecting poems into his conversations, growing beautiful vegetables in his garden in Pittsburg, making his own wine in the basement. He was a master of using his resources to their best purpose, and spared no energy or time to leave a job well done. “Ka darai, daryk gerai” —whatever you do, do it well —was a common aphorism he would relentlessly repeat to us as children. He would also tell us “nepasiduok” —don’t give up—whether it was learning how to sew from Teta Ole (hopeless in my case), or finding my way through my career. He and Teta Ole would send us care packages when we went away to college—lasiniuociai and cookies from Teta Ole, and an encouraging “Nepasiduok” in a card from Senelis.

There is no single grand narrative that would do justice to the life he lived. In his last years, we often contemplated the many twists and turns together. From one perspective, we would be astounded at all the pain that people can cause one another. At another moment he would proudly boast about his daughter’s PhD or that our sister Lile’s children speak perfect Lithuanian, even with such a tenuous connection to his homeland. He respected our brother Tadas for the long hours of hard work he has put into pursuing his goals. He had strong opinions, but in the end he was humble about insisting on his way, as he himself knew that it is better to reserve judgment, that the right answer is elusive, that all the careful plans that we make can be swiftly and easily undone, leaving us to use our remaining resources to rebuild. His love of life and family have taught us all to cherish every moment, each individual task, of this precious and short life.

He loved poetry a much as music, and he found meaning in this one by Marcelijus Martinaitis, which speaks of the ambiguity of life:


Is trumpo gyvenimo
mokaus ilgai gyventi.
Juokiuos - vargdamas,
Verkiu per svente.

Toli gyvenu,
arti vaziuoju
ir nemoku dainos,
kuria dainuoju.

Rough - very rough - translation:

From this short life
I learned to live long
I laugh - while suffering
Cry through a holiday

I live far away
I travel close
And I don't know the song
Which I am singing