My brother’s grandson, Se\u00c3\u00a1n David Pulskamp, died recently at the age of 19. He was a great kid and left far too soon. My brother spoke at his memorial service and I wanted to share his words with you all. Cherish each other!<\/p>\n
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To all of our friends and family: Good after noon, as good as it can be. And, yes, in spite of our hearts being heavy and filled with sadness, it can still be a good afternoon.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m honored to be able to speak today. For those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know me, my name is John Pulskamp. I am Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paternal grandfather.<\/p>\n
Se\u00c3\u00a1n started out in this life a little early. He was born prematurely and spent, what seemed to us, as an awfully long time in the hospital before he could come home. So, physically, he started out very small and frail. But over time he grew to be big and strong, and to be honest, very remarkably handsome as well.<\/p>\n
Like every family I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever known, Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family had their own sets of difficulty. There were times when his father couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be with him, and eventually his parents parted ways. Judging from the fine young man Se\u00c3\u00a1n grew to be, it appears that he weathered the storm quite well. Fortunately, Se\u00c3\u00a1n was able to continue to spend time with both of his parents. Whatever difficulties there might have been within the family Se\u00c3\u00a1n was always loved, aware of that love, and was able to reciprocate with love as well. In addition to his parents he was blessed with grandparents, many other family members, and a little sister, Jade, whom he cherished.<\/p>\n
I am fortunate that during the past few months I was able to talk with my grandson about several things. He told me he had been thinking of attending Peirce College. We discussed it a bit, and told him that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go with him to help get through all the red tape involved with registration and selecting classes. I also had talked to him about the wonderfully educational experience of traveling, not so much to tourist places, but to places where one would be able to meet and mix with regular people from very different backgrounds. We talked about youth hostels, and even kicked around the idea of maybe taking a little trip here in the U.S. and staying at some hostels. Unfortunately, well . . .<\/p>\n
A quick story about Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name: Backing up a couple of generations . . My father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name was John Joseph, to avoid confusion and since my middle name was Richard, I was always called by the nickname, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dick.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at home. At school and everywhere else I was known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153John\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which eventually created confusion anyway, especially when people would call on the phone and ask for John. My dad would end up with my calls, and I with his. Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father, John Thomas or Tommy, and I ended up with the same sort of ancestral problem. We were each known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153John\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to our friends and co-workers, and just as I was called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dick\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by my parents, Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father has always been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tommy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to us. When Se\u00c3\u00a1n was born, Tommy said he was going to avoid all the confusion with the names, so he and Sharon named their baby \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153John.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Try as they might, though, the confusion, though minimized, was not entirely eliminated. You see, the name \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Se\u00c3\u00a1n,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the Irish, is usually anglicized to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153John,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and there are a number of people who have always called me by that name, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Se\u00c3\u00a1n,\u00e2\u20ac\u009danyway And so, it continues.<\/p>\n
Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother and her family are Jewish; his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family was already one of mixed cultures. Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paternal grandmother is Din\u00c3\u00a9 (pronounced \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dih neh\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) or Navajo. His paternal grandfather, myself, came from a somewhat typical Irish-American Catholic background. Se\u00c3\u00a1n was proud of his Native ancestry and occasionally was able to attend various pow wows around southern California, and on at least one occasion was able to visit the Navajo Reservation, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Rez,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and meet loads of Navajo cousins, aunts, and uncles. According to Din\u00c3\u00a9 tradition one of the four sacred stones should be worn, sort of as a prayer, and as a way for the deities and others in the spirit world to recognize one as Din\u00c3\u00a9. Se\u00c3\u00a1n is being buried wearing a beautiful turquoise necklace.<\/p>\n
With all this mixed cultural background there are quite likely things that could result in questions, or even misunderstandings. The funerary traditions of Jews and Catholics may differ a bit, but the general outlook on death is probably fairly similar. For the very traditional Din\u00c3\u00a9 people, and maybe for Jews, some of the Irish traditions might seem completely irreverent. Today, though, in spite of any cultural differences there might be, we are all one people tied to together by Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, and yes, sadly, by Se\u00c3\u00a1n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death.<\/p>\n
Many, or probably even most of us, upon learning of a loved one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death begin to mentally go through a painful thought process bringing up a litany of things we could have, or should have, done differently. This is natural, but I think not helpful. Each of us has a life to live, and when we are occupied taking care of one thing, there is always something else we could be doing instead. It is fundamentally fruitless to grieve about what we could have, or should have, done with Se\u00c3\u00a1n while he was with us. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine that Se\u00c3\u00a1n, in any way, felt that any one of us even slightly let him down, or disappointed him. If you are having these kinds of feelings or doubts, forgive yourself! What we can do though is to look around, think about the people you know, especially those whom you may have offended in some way, or friends with whom you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lost touch. If one of these, still living, were to die, what would go through your mind as far as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what you could have done, or should have done\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for them or with them? To honor Se\u00c3\u00a1n, do those things! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never too early to avoid being too late. I think Se\u00c3\u00a1n would be pleased to have us honor him in that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My brother’s grandson, Se\u00c3\u00a1n David Pulskamp, died recently at the age of 19. He was a great kid and left far too soon. My brother spoke at his memorial service and I wanted to share his words with you all. Cherish each other! To all of our friends and family: Good after noon, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pulskamp.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}