A Eulogy for a Difficult Man

Good afternoon. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Wilhelmina, Lazlo's niece. I should say at the outset that I've been asked to keep this short, a request my uncle would have found hilarious, given that he never kept anything short in his life, least of all a complaint.

We all know what Uncle Lazlo was like, so I'm not going to stand here and pretend that he was a gentle, easygoing man whom everybody adored. He wasn't, and if I tried to tell you otherwise, he would probably sit up and correct me, the way he corrected waiters, bus drivers and the weather forecaster on the radio. On one memorable occasion, he even corrected the priest who is sitting in the front row this afternoon. Father, thank you for agreeing so kindly not to hold it against him.

He was, to put it mildly, difficult. He wrote letters of complaint the way other people write birthday cards: regularly, by hand, and with genuine feeling. He once returned a toaster to the same shop three times because it browned the bread unevenly, and on the third visit he brought the toast with him as evidence. He refused to own a cell phone on the grounds that anyone who needed him urgently could come by the house, and, remarkably, a great many people did.

And yet. It was Lazlo, the man who argued with everyone, who drove two hundred miles through a snowstorm when my car broke down the winter I turned nineteen. He lectured me the entire way home about tire pressure, without once asking why I'd been driving to a boy's house at midnight. It was Lazlo who sat with my mother every evening during the last month of her illness, doing the crossword aloud and getting most of the answers wrong on purpose, so that she would have the pleasure of putting him right.

Difficult people, I've come to think, are very often simply people who refuse to pretend. Lazlo never told me a dress suited me if it didn't, never praised a cake he hadn't enjoyed, and never, as far as I'm aware, said "I love you" to anyone in this room. He didn't need to. He showed up, which, when you think about it, is a good deal harder.

There is one last flaw of his that I ought to mention, because it would be dishonest to leave it out. He could never, ever let anyone else have the last word. It drove the whole family to distraction, and I spent years promising myself that, whatever else I inherited from him, it wouldn't be that. Which is why I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I asked to speak last today, after everyone else, and that I refused, quite firmly, when it was suggested that we finish with a hymn instead.

It seems I inherited it after all. So, for once in your life, Uncle Lazlo, the last word isn't yours. It's mine, and it's this: thank you.