Friday, December 28, 2018
Keith Perkins loved tennis and jazz and World War II movies. ("Don't spoil the ending!" he'd laugh.) He was a formidable writer, and wrote entire books in long-hand on legal pads. He managed to complete entire New York Times crossword puzzles week after week for decades until he decided the Times was "too liberal," and stopped having it delivered.
If he thought you were joshing him, he'd cut you off and tell you so with a blunt, "That's bullshit," and he'd correct the TV weather reporter's English out loud. His favorite grandchild was my cat, Benny. (The other grandkids know this and are cool with it.)
When I was little, his favorite annual event was the father-daughter Girl Scouts square dance, even though he hated all music besides jazz, equating rock to music as comic books are to literature. On my birthday, he'd bring home a dozen pink carnations and I reveled in it, even after I was old enough to figure out that his secretary probably bought them on Park Avenue and handed them to him on his way out the door every January 8th. To this day, my favorite flower is the carnation.
When he called, he never left a message, leaving me wondering, mid-conference call, if there was an emergency or he just wanted to tell me that he thought his grandson's newest painting was "superb," or that he had some cameras from the 1980s he wanted to give me, because the guy at the camera shop didn't offer enough money for them.
He was immensely proud of his children and his grandchildren, (and not just the furry kind) and he told us so. He was the world's only WASP male Jewish grandmother, worrying whether we needed a sweater or could use some soup. He owned eight white turtlenecks and thought everything costs too much, but he'd throw money our way now and then as an expression of both love and concern.
My mother said goodbye to him yesterday afternoon and went home. It was too much for her to bear seeing him die. I held his hand and told him we love him and that we know he loves us, but it's time to go. He died seven hours later to the sound of his two children making each other laugh.
We should all be so fortunate.
As per his wishes there will be no funeral, no services of any kind, leaving this world in the most Keith Perkins way he could think of. Instead, he expects his family to go to dinner in his honor. Somehow, he will find a way to pick up the tab.
Rest in peace, Dad. May there be nothing but jazz playing where you are.
