Mom and Dad in Croatia, 2006.

Dad in1936. He and Mom would have been married seventy-one years on September 21.

Dad and Patrick, 1985.

Dear Ornament Reader,

On August 17 in Croatia, my father Peter Benesh suddenly died at ninety of a massive stroke while he was visiting his family, Simo and Reza Benes and their children Avis and Iris. Dad was accompanied by my mother Kathryn, their youngest child, Eve Benesh, and her husband John Crowley. For a man who had reached a venerable age, his passing was still very sudden to those of us who love him so much. Dad was a man of great spirit, energy and love, still working, and we thought him far too young to be taken from our lives. In our reminiscences of Dad at his funeral, Eve told those assembled that Dad was orphaned at four and how his family and home were torn apart, with Dad kept by his aunt and his sister and brother sent to orphanages. “He spent all his life remaking a home and a family,” she said. His grandson Mark Weiner said Dad was a “Founder. Leader. Partner. Mentor. Advisor. Friend. Protector. Reader. Listener. Gentleman.”

I spoke about the profound lessons I learned from Dad. He taught me that life was about the journeys and voyages we take; about the connections and community we make; about the kinship we are born with; and the kinship we make as we live our lives. Because we humans are all related to each other. Dad taught me that life is about coming home, where the center is, where the heart beats its purest and fullest. It is the heart we are all born with and that can take a lifetime to rediscover.

As much as I knew him, as much as I could understand him, his life was a search into the eternal mysteries, trying to process them, to make them coherent, to fashion them into some kind of reasonable whole that could sustain him. Dad valued life and treated it as a precious jewel. It was a sacred representation of the universe. Its enormity. Its unknowingness. And part of his life was spent exploring the vastness and depth that surrounds us all. What Dad did, in order not to be overwhelmed, was to take the steps that would help him on his journey through life, that would make his life more meaningful. He educated himself. He fell in love with a beautiful and sensitive woman. He created a family of four children: Mary Ann, Peter Eduard, Carolyn, Eve, who were deeply devoted to him, loving and respecting him. He grew a business. He reached into the world to help, to give, to serve; whether it was in education, religion, politics, or community service.

He taught me that to be aware of the passage of time is crucial to our sense of self and to where we are and to where we are going in life. He taught me to love and treasure my experiences, as they gave me happiness or not. Throughout all his difficulties and the pain and the suffering he experienced, he savored the cycles of life and respected the part they played in making him whole. Dad did very, very well. He was a good, kind and noble person. He lived a life of personal and professional integrity, with a sense of positive responsibility to his ideals. He instinctively reached out to the world and did not withdraw within. Or when he did, it did not last for very long.

Dad was a man of great intellect with a reflective nature. It was important to him to consider and contemplate life. He was also a man of great emotions from boundless love and joy to a lightning-strike anger and intemperate behavior. He taught me that to become human we must accept with compassion the full range of human experience.

I asked our son Patrick to read one of Dad’s favorite meditations. Aside from the 23rd Psalm, Dad loved the Desiderata. “You are a child of the universe,” he read, nearing its end. “No less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”

Dad, thank you and farewell.