My father passed away on June 16, 2015 of a heart attack. He was found hunched over a soup bowl at his writing desk in the small apartment where he lived. His legacy is full of heart, complicated, sometimes disappointing and still very present in my life.
My father believed that he was here for a greater purpose, that the words from his writings would live long after he did. Unfortunately he died while still writing his book and the fame that he will be most remembered by is from the posters that were taped to the window in every corner market in our small community. WANTED for bank robbery, Roger Swedlow. Our lives, mine and that of everyone in my family changed on that day, in all of the ways that one might imagine, but in other ways too. We struggled to piece together the story of how this family man and soccer coach, admired by many for his huge heart and his commitment to community… could also use a gun, hold up a bank, plant a bomb and then escape. We, and the police, began to look for clues, for the history, for the answers of the “how” this could happen and the “who” is this man, my father. Today, many years later I still struggle with the complexity of the legacy of my father and the way that I too, am seeded from all that he was.
I wrote and read the short eulogy below at my father’s memorial service, a small windswept gathering in the mountains that he loved.
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In memory of Roger Swedlow
With the embers of love and passion warm in our souls and tears streaming down our cheeks, we celebrate the life of our father, Roger Swedlow, a poet.
A father of six, a husband of two, a grandfather of ten and a true friend of many. A lover of sunrises and breezy walks in the woods, a gatherer of acorns, bedtime stories and struggling souls. A smiling soccer coach, an avid trash collector, a specialist in morning omelets and a voracious devotee of rotisserie chicken .. he found his calling as a grandpa and never looked back.
He was a shameless hunter of hidden beauty, with a pantry full of dented cans from the discount bin and cars that caused us teenagers to duck in shame and pray he would arrive late and long after our friends had left. He would cut up the breakfast fruit in the early morning, so that he could cut out “the bad spots” before we rejected it on sight. His belief in redemption made him a connoisseur of damaged souls, a collector of hitchhikers, a rescuer of anyone in need. Armed with a soft smile and a trunk full of flares and fix-a-flat, there was never a stranded motorist on the highway that dad would pass by. Like all great works of poetry, he lived simplicity and complexity in the same breath , tortured by imperfection and impassioned by the same.
A reader of Walt Whitman, Kahlil Gibran, Dr. Seuss, Bo Lozoff, Edward Cayce and the Bible -for him they were all equals, all lovers of life, perfect representatives of what he believed we all still fail to put together. Dad’s life work and unpublished book might have hundreds of pages but it only has one simple message – we are born from the seed of life’s greatest expression, love – it is our sole life responsibility to nurture and express that love. He believed that recognition of life and love in its purest form would unite religions and end all war, all destruction, all suffering. Roger Swedlow, caretaker of the world.
Our father’s greatest gift was his ability to love with all his heart, every imperfect one of us, to inspire and infect others with the passion, enthusiasm, and the love he had for this world, the things in it, and the lives we lead. We will remember him in the rustle of the leaves and the turning pages of a book, the wind in the trees and the sunrises that bring us each a new opportunity to express our gratitude for all that we’ve been given.
-with love,
Brendon, Christiana, Nicole, Noelle, Erin and Daylan