Eulogy for Andy Robert Chauvin, Beloved Father, Son, Brother, Husband and Friend

 August 18^th 1967 – May 3^rd, 2020

First of all I want to thank everybody who’s here today. Seeing all those who want to pay respects to my dad and seeing them brave a McAllen thunderstorm and the dangers of COVID-19 is truly a blessing. So everybody who’s here has my deepest gratitude.

It’s strange being here right now. Today is without exaggeration the hardest day of my life. We are here today to mourn the loss of my dad, Andrew Robert Chauvin, a remarkable father, husband, brother, son, cousin, nephew, friend, and it doesn’t feel real. Seeing the overcast sky today makes me realize that unfortunately this is not a terrible dream that I’ll soon wake up from, because it seems like even mother earth is mourning the loss of one of her favorite sons today.

Andrew Robert Chauvin. That’s my dad’s name. As he would’ve wanted it pronounced. Named after both of his grandfathers, Andrew Samuel and Robert Kremer. It’s a strong name with deep connection to two patriarchs of our family. Very fitting. But I find it funny because I think a lot of us knew him by different names. He was almost universally known by his friends and family as Andy, not Andrew, but he was also known by many other names, like Pops, Big Andy, Buzzy, Bob, Boy, Flossy, Guero, and Papa Chauvin. When I visited him in the hospital near the end I came into the room and saw his wife Bobbie standing over him with a priest. I made it just in time to join in the prayer of “Our Father”. When the priest was finished, he turned to Bobbie and me and said “So tell me. What kind of man is Andy?” Our answers today feel extraordinarily inadequate for the man that my dad is and was, so I’m going to take some time on this day to answer that question thoroughly.  

            My dad was a fun man. Anybody who spent any amount of time with him knew he was a man who loved to laugh. He was a jokester, he loved to tease. One of his famous phrases that he loved to say to us and has now become adopted as a Chauvin family motto is “I tease because I love”.  One day a few months after his diagnosis he unfortunately was being prepared to be taken by ambulance to another one of his many hospital stays. The EMT’s were busy checking my dad’s vitals to prepare to move him out of my mom’s house, and my mom Ida and I were standing in the living room somberly, defeated and worried that pops was having to make yet another trip back to the hospital. The EMT gets done asking my dad his questions, he’s tediously removing all of his equipment from my dad, the whole room is dead quiet and tense, and my dad goes “So do you guys want a cocktail or anything?” The whole room busted out laughing. The two EMT’s, my mom, me, all of us, and my Pops just sat there with a sly smile like “I still got it.”

My dad was a happy man. He was truly the life of the party. He had an inexhaustible thirst for joy. He loved having a good time, especially with his family. He loved listening to music and having dance parties with his brother Gary, where the infamous “Inflate” dance was born. He loved holidays in McAllen when his brother Robert would tell one of his highly entertaining and hilariously performed stories of his travels, and he and his sister Rainie would be doubled over in pained laughter. He loved getting into ridiculous arguments with his sister Julie, such as the infamous “Is an athlete born or taught?” argument and making his poor mother Karen lose her mind at how insane her children actually were. He loved joking with his brother-in-law Manuel and his sister-in-law Jenn, giggling in the corner at birthday parties or holidays at my grandmother Mary Lou’s house like they were kids back in high school. Similar was the lifelong companionship he had with his cousin James, when at family reunions you could always expect the two of them to be huddled together somewhere drinking and telling stories and laughing as loudly as anyone I’ve ever heard. He exuded pure joy when he was with his family and the friends that he loved. He loved going to live music shows with Bobbie and his friends Jason and Christie, or watching his friend Paul play in his band The Mad Cowboys. It was never a dull time with him. He once dressed up as SpongeBob SquarePants for Halloween. And I don’t mean a store-bought costume. He and my mom stayed up for days making a costume out of a cardboard box and getting the Squarepants attire completely right. He had the long tube socks, the brown shorts, and in classic Andy fashion he had the voice down pat. Needless to say he was a terrific hit at our Halloween party that year, and in another classic Andy move he easily and effortlessly upstaged all the rest of us.

He was man who loved to play games. He loved to compete. When he was young, he was a great athlete. He played wide-receiver for Memorial High’s varsity football team and also played tennis. He lettered in football and had enough talent to get offered to play for Sul Ross State University. As an adult, he was always playing sports. He and I would spend hours catching passes, him drawing out routes on my chest and then telling me to execute them like it was the last 2 minutes of the Super Bowl. If you asked me then, I would’ve said those moments catching passes in our front lawn were the Super Bowl. It was never a choice for me that I would grow up to love the game of football, and basketball, and be a devout Kansas City Chiefs fan, just like him, because from my earliest memories it was him, the man he was, that had me hooked. When I got older he bought us a basketball court that we would spend all night playing on. He was a lifelong San Antonio Spurs fan. He loved Tim Duncan and had an automatic Bankshot just like him. At one point my uncles and he all formed a flag football team with each other called the “Southwest Slackers”. He coached two of my YMCA basketball teams and three of my sister Lia’s little league soccer teams. He was heavily involved in my brother Tony’s cross country meets, a constant support for him on the trail.  He was always our absolute biggest fan. I remember he got ejected from one of Lia’s high school soccer games because he was arguing with the ref for a blatantly bad no-call foul on my sister. Pretty sure he called the ref a memorable name not appropriate for a funeral. He was truly alive when he would compete. Races, one-on-one pickup games, wrestling, board games. When we played board games, you could absolutely expect to get no mercy from him. He wanted to win. Even at 52 he was still wrestling with me and, at times, I will admit, getting the best of me. I remember at his fiftieth birthday party Julie and he wrestled on her front lawn and, unfortunately for Julie, he got the better of her too. My mom has video proof. Even as a young boy, he loved competing with his big sister. They were almost like twins. I know that Julie, a spectacular athlete who is enshrined in the St. Edwards University Hall of Fame, was always one of his biggest heroes. He looked up to her because she always challenged him to be better, in sports and in life.

My dad was a well-loved man. I’ve never seen somebody so universally liked. I remember my grandma Karen saying the only reason he passed from grade to grade in school was because the teachers liked him so much. Was it because of his, as Gary put it, “devastatingly handsome” face? Maybe. When he was young, he did look like Frank Sinatra and Joe Montana had a son. Was it because of his gorgeous blue eyes that would turn green with an indiscernible whim? Could be. If I had a nickel for every time one of my then girlfriends would ask me “why don’t you have pretty blue eyes like your dad?”, well, I wouldn’t be a rich man per say because I don’t have that many ex-girlfriends, but let’s just say I’d most definitely be about 25-30 cents richer. And that says something. Was it because he could make anybody laugh with his whip-quick sense of humor? That didn’t hurt. But in my opinion, what made him so loveable was his smile. It was a smile that immediately made you feel seen, and present, and alive. It was a warm smile that could make you feel so special, and make you want to reach out and grab life the way he did. And do it with him, because he was the kind of person that you could count on to be right there with you, through thick and thin, because for my dad the journey was just as enjoyable as the destination. Fun took the long way around for my dad. He made you feel like there were no restrictions and no limitations on the things you could do together, like going to San Francisco and looking out at the beautiful blue waters of the Pacific for your honeymoon, or having your childhood dream come true and watching your favorite football team play 6 states away, or fly to New York City and act in an episode of Judge Mills Lane. With Andy, my dad, there was never any limit on the fun you could have with him. That’s probably why he attracted so many weirdoes.

This might be a lesser known fact, but my dad was a very creative man. He had one of the most creative souls I’ve ever seen. He loved art. He had a strong affinity for Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin and Diego Rivera paintings. In his house in Marion, he had paintings from both of his cousins, Charlie and James, hanging in his house. He was very proud to count his two cousins as artists. He wasn’t just a fan of art but also practiced himself. He loved to draw and doodle images anywhere he could. He would spend hours with my siblings doing this, or coloring, or painting. He became an avid painter later in his life. I have three of his paintings hanging in my apartment. When he got his diagnosis and came to live in my mother’s home, he took up his hobby of painting again and the sight of him on the couch bent over a new project of his became a familiar sight.

He loved books. He was an avid reader of Charles Bukowski and Christopher Moore novels. I think he had a kinship with many of their characters, many of whom are rapscallions and mischievous rogues that he saw some of himself in, as he was a bit of a rapscallion himself. He also often wrote poetry. He did this so much he could claim the honor of being a published poet, as one of his poems was accepted into a compilation book of poetry entitled "Idyllic Thoughts". 

He loved photography. He had in him a desire to capture everything in still-life moments, because that’s truly the way he lived his life: in the moment. Never camera-shy, he was always the first to want to memorialize a moment with his Nikon that he used for years.

Another one: he had a passion for the culinary arts. He was a chef for the Marriot International hotel in San Antonio for many years and is coincidentally where he met my mother. No surprise that a love of cooking and food was something they bonded over and was something they both aspired to give to me and my siblings.

Another one: he was a lover of movies. You probably didn’t have to know my dad very well to have been lucky enough to hear his pitch-perfect impression of Jeff Bridges’ “The Dude” from “the Big Lebowski”. Watching him and Gary, or him and Jason rail off on lines from that movie, or others like “In Bruges” or “There Will Be Blood”, was always a movie in and of itself. It was commonplace for him to routinely quote lines from films like “Cool Hand Luke” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in conversation or in passing, sometimes even when you didn’t remember the line and couldn’t catch the reference. He wouldn’t care.

Out of all the creative endeavors he ventured on and did, there was nothing he truly loved more than music. His passion for music was limitless, it seemed to me.  He liked everything, from Bob Dylan to the Gypsy Kings, Ryan Bingham to Thelonius Monk, Paul Simon to the Roots, Lucinda Williams to Rush, Bob Schneider to the Police. He played percussion in high school, and later attempted to learn the guitar with me. But I think instruments were too small a mode of expression for him. He was and always wanted to be a lead singer of a rock and roll band, like Rod Stewart. On road trips, or at home, you could always count on my dad belting out a killer tune, like Shattered by the Stones, or You Can Call Me Al, or Canary in a Coalmine, and having my mom beg him to turn it down, while all the while my siblings and I would be singing our hearts out with him and loving the show our rock star dad was putting on. He would have us clap in unison at a breakdown of a song, or take turns calling out one of us to sing the next verse as if he really were on stage. Anytime a guitar was around, we’d have a sing-along, and sometimes we could expect my siblings to join in, or my mom, or some of my friends. But the one who was constantly there was him. He never let me sing a song by myself. He was always there. I can say without exaggeration, that he was the sole inspiration for my wanting to play music. And his encouragement of my dream was something that I’ll never lose. He believed in me, he was the very first one.

My dad was a romantic man. I don’t necessarily mean romantic in the sense of romantic love, although he was that. It was always subtle, done in intimate ways, but I remember seeing his affectionate touches or kisses shared with my mother on Christmas Eve or Mother’s day, and later with Bobbie, with his loving pet names for her and quiet inside jokes that they shared that only they were party to. But I mean more in the classical sense. My dad lived his life in an idealized way, always seeking the brighter parts of life. Bukowski himself couldn’t write a character as captivating as Andy Robert Chauvin. He never stopped trying to grow, be better, to live life as fully as possible. Even after his diagnosis, he still talked about opening a food truck, and taking up glassblowing, and possibly even substitute teaching. We were discussing taking a trip to Amsterdam with Gary and Jason, and then going to Bruges, Belgium, one of his dream destinations, for my birthday. I have no doubt he would’ve accomplished every one. 

When my parents divorced, he sat me down and told me “you’re the man of the house now. I need you to take care of your brother and sisters, and your mom.” Just like that. At the time I was frightened, not ready for that responsibility. But I didn’t want to let him down. So I tried my best. I hope I made him proud. I realize now that, even though it was a hard task, he was teaching me, preparing me for an ever harder moment: this one. What he taught me is that you can’t choose to live your life a certain way in one single moment, you have to live it every single day of your life. The way he did. You can’t choose to always seek the joy in life like he did, you have to live it. Like he did. You can’t choose to see life with bright eyes like he did, you have to live it. Like he did. And you can’t choose to be devoted to your family like he was, you have to live it. Like he did. And that’s what he did every day of his life.

That brings me to my final point. My dad was utterly devoted to his family. All of them. He had no greater joy. I never saw him happier than when he was surrounded by his family. The hours in the car driving down to South Padre Island for a family reunion, where he’d see all of his cousins and nieces and nephews, or up to Austin to visit his Aunt Rainie and Uncle Francis, who he loved, or down here to McAllen to see his mom and dad, were the moments where he was truly at peace, because he was spending his time with the people who made him the happiest.

He was the best father. Period. I could never in my wildest dreams have ever asked for a better dad than him. He was everything my siblings and I needed when we were children. As adults, he became more than we could’ve ever asked for. Our north star in life, our constant support, our source of laughter and endless affection. I remember when I was young every morning he’d make the commute from San Antonio to Austin to go to work at Leather Menders, and every morning when it was still dark outside he would come into my room and kiss my forehead to tell me goodbye. Most of the time I would be asleep, but the few instances I wasn’t I would pretend to be asleep. I realize now that I think I did that because I was catching my dad in a quiet little moment where everything was exposed, like I was finding out a secret about him. And that secret was that he loved me and my siblings with every fiber of his being. There was nothing more true and more real and more immediate than my dad’s love. When I would see him embrace my brother in a bear-hug with his strong leathery hands, or watch him use those same hands to gently stroke my sisters hair when they would cry, I was seeing pure love, unvarnished and real, take form and play out right before my eyes. His love for us was endless. Now that we are saying goodbye to him, there is an endless void in all of us.

His passing is tragic. Its devastating. It’s unexpected and unanticipated and inconceivable. Its truly unfair. But I wanted to talk about his life so that we could all think about who he was, and how he lived. That’s what he would’ve wanted. So when you feel the tears well up in your eyes, let them flow. But let them be tears of joy at having recalled a memory with him, or a story he told you, or a time that he made you smile. When you feel the pain overflow in your heart, and it will happen – a loss like this, profound and deep, is one that will reverberate in all of our lives for a long time. I know for me personally, I’ll be feeling the loss of him for the rest of my days, until we get the happy chance to reunite – but when you feel this pain in your chest, let it turn into gratitude at the chance of having been lucky enough to know him. And when you think about his passing, and think about how you can possibly continue on in a world that’s so much more lonely and sad without him, just remember that in this world the brightest flames live on forever, and although he was too bright to shine on in this world, it’s his memory, miraculous and magical and magnified all the more by his physical loss, that will burn on in our hearts forever. He was a one of a kind person, truly irreplaceable, never again to be seen. His legacy is in our full smiles, and our pure laughter, and in the moments when we reach out and touch a loved one with the thought of him in mind. Because that’s what he did all of his life. That’s who he was. Andrew Robert Chauvin. Andy Robert Chauvin. Who was he? He was my role model, my teacher, my quarterback, my captain, my joy, and my hero. Andy Robert Chauvin. He was my dad, and he was beloved.