Hello
everyone. My name is Fred Carroll.
Emmett
Morgan was many good things, but he was also a member of the “Daisies.” The
Daisies came together some years ago as four couples whose wives were either on
staff or program leaders for Landmark Education. Our commitment as their
husbands was to further their effectiveness as Landmark leaders by relieving
them of what might normally be considered their domestic responsibilities. (I
created a whole new relationship with dirt.)
To
be a Daisy was to be like Morgan Freeman in the movie “Driving Miss Daisy”, to
always be a “Yes” when “our Miss Daisy” needed something done. In turn our Miss
Daisies would hold a celebration for us on Valentine’s Day, everyone would have
their birthday acknowledged and observed, and sometimes we’d just go have some
fun.
I
will never forget visiting Candace shortly after Emmett’s death and seeing all
the Daisy women gathered there. Maureen, Micki and Doris had stayed with her
constantly in those first few days after her loss. Such compassion is not
easily created, but when it is there it is there like steel.
And
there, too, like steel was Emmett’s remarkable family.
I
am a Daisy. So are Jon Charles and Joseph Scott. Our affection for Candace must
now expand to become something greater in the face of our loss of Emmett, and I
have no doubt it will, even though I may not yet know how.
But
I do know this. Emmett was a dear and loving husband. I know this because he was a great friend and a great Daisy.
And
as is true for me and of most other English teachers I know, certain phrases
evoke certain things from literature. I can see Emmett all over the curriculum,
but in particular in this excerpt from David Whyte’s poem “Letting Go”:
At the end
Things pass away
Into a hard won perspective.
The sepia photographs
Of childhood
Like twilight encounters
With eternity
And the youthful
Laughter peeling
Across a mountainside.
Standing closer together
We make our vows
In front of others
Knowing
With a backward
Kind of courage
That everything
Passes
Away no matter
How precious
The memory.
And that
Even in this
We recognize
The flourish
And the firm
Signature of love.
That was Emmett.
Love writ large all over my life, your life, the Daises, and his family.
I can
think of no better monument to a life. Amen
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The above eulogy was delivered by Fred Carroll at Emmett's Memorial Celebration on August 27, 2011.
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- The Miss Daisies
The Missing Daisy Formation by Micki Carroll ©2011
