Remembrances Spoken at
The Memorial Service of
David Michael Ransom
Saturday, December 13, 2003
In St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church
Washington, D.C.
1) Elizabeth Ransom’s Words
Welcome to all of you. I hope you will forgive me if I laugh a little during this eulogy to my father. He would approve.
If I had been at his 65th birthday party a few weeks ago, I would have teased Dad. Because teasing is a sign of affection in my family, and Dad just loved to tease.
How many of you have been teased by my Dad?
At Dad’s birthday, I would have also said some words of lavish praise – because he would have liked – and expected — that too.
I would have said how proud I was to be his daughter. How grateful I was to have such a loving father. Dad provided unwavering support through my childhood and young adulthood, despite report cards indicating varying levels of academic achievement, despite my rebellious questioning during adolescence, and despite my determination to pursue a career he knew little about. Whatever plan I devised, he liked it.
Last year Dad helped me buy my first place. I did not have to ask him for help with the down payment – he had already thought about — planned for — that for many years. He also helped me move, hang artwork on the walls, plant flowers, decorate my floors with Middle Eastern carpets from his collection. This summer, he came over to help me clean leaves from my drains when I feared a flood. And this was after riding home in a limo from doing a live TV interview with CNN. Being an ambassador did not make him love these humble tasks any less.
At the birthday party, I would have tried to find the right words to express my thanks to and admiration for my father, but it would have been hard. No one could match Dad’s ability to praise other people.
How many of you have gotten effusive compliments from my father?
Dad liked to give advice – and I have gotten a lot over the years: do your homework, don’t fight with your sisters, do write home every week, don’t forget to vote, do go to church every week, stick up for yourself, work hard, and play hard. Don’t make excuses!
How many of you have received advice from my Dad?
Dad was generous with love, support, praise, and advice. He was also personable with everyone he interacted with professionally – whether they were part of his business, working on his house, or trying to improve his health.
At the age of 64, Dad decided to try out wearing contacts lenses. He failed, after many frustrating attempts. But despite his fury that the plastic lenses would not comply, he managed to make a personal connection with his optometrist. The last time I went to this eye doctor, he came around the counter and said: “You know, we really enjoy working with your Dad.” I answered the phone this week, when so many of you called, and it was Dad’s dentist calling. This woman worked hard to convince my Dad to come in for check ups. I have never met this woman, but she told me: “I am going to miss your Dad.”
The doctors now say it turns out that my father had an uncommonly enlarged heart. This was not news to me.
How are we going to cope with his leaving us? To me, the loss feels enormous but I know that it is really huge when I look out at this room full of friends, family, and admirers. One kind friend who called me this week said the only answer is to “let his immortality shine through you.” And I think that is true. Dad will remain with us every time we make a goofy joke, every time we make a generous gesture, every time we say the words that someone in pain or in need of praise needs to hear.
Finally, I would like to share some words that Dad sent me while I was traveling in Asia last month.
He wrote:
“Your mom is planning a great party for me tomorrow — I plan to say that, while I am 65, some inner core of me will always be 15, boarding a wooden sided coach on the Missouri Kansas Texas Bluebonnet Express in Greenville Texas, embarking on a two and a half day journey across half of America, alone, a fatherless boy determined to invent himself boldly. I guess I did that, and I don’t regret any of the last four decades, since some things take time: marrying, staying married to a wonderful woman, building a career and an estate, raising daughters, continuing a good education, praying for forgiveness (that takes a lot of time), and generally enjoying a good life and spreading its benefits to others.
I will miss you, but you are embarked on your own journey, and it is a very good one!
Much love, Daddy”
2) Katherine Ransom-Silliman Words
My father loved Christmas. When we were in Yemen in the 70s, there was not much celebration of Christmas. So, Dad came up with the idea of creating an embassy event of reading the Christmas Carol. You know the story: one of the stingiest men alive is visited by three spirits who show him the suffering that others around him feel because of his meanness, transforming him into a man who spreads happiness and goodwill for the rest of his days.
Pretty soon, the reading of the Christmas Carol became an annual tradition. Early in the Christmas season each year, Dad would begin mentioning the reading, how great it was, how everyone loved it. And we would moan and groan – “Not AGAIN, Dad!” “Everyone is SICK of it, Dad!” “PLEEAASE, not in front of the whole embassy!” (Lots of teenage drama.) Dad always put up with our protestations with infinite patience. He was a diplomat – he knew he could get anyone to do anything and in the end, he always won. I am sure that many of you had the opportunity (or the obligation) to sit through one of his readings.
So begrudgingly, each year, we would sit and read the Christmas Carol — sometimes for the whole embassy, sometimes just for a few close friends. But every year he loved it. He would laugh at the same jokes, every year. He praised each one of us, every year, for our inspired readings. His eyes would always mist up, every year, when Tiny Tim exclaimed at the end “God Bless Us, Everyone!”
I realize now why my father loved this story so much that he wanted to hear it read year after year. He really believed it was his role in life to change the meanness, the stinginess of others into good. He really was that hokey.
Earlier this year, I mentioned to Dad a minor altercation that I had with a rude sales clerk. I had responded to her rudeness with more rudeness and I told the story to him with indignation. I was sure he would agree – I had been wronged. Instead, my father reacted strongly, telling me I should have thanked her instead, I should have told her how hard it must be to stand behind that counter all day, I should have complimented her. It really pained him that I had been unkind back to this stranger. I was ashamed. It has been a lesson I have been thinking about all year.
You see what Scrooge learned was that by being kind, being generous and being good, he himself was made happy. And this is why my father was the happiest person I know. He loved, so he was loved. He laughed, so others laughed with him. He gave, so he received. He spread as much joy as one man can spread in a lifetime. And so you see this room filled with people with happy stories about him.
So, when you remember my father, think of being kind to someone who is unkind, being patient with someone who has tried your patience a hundred times before, being generous with someone who may never pay you back. You might be surprised to the see the joy this brings. And perhaps you, too, will transform someone. And, in this way, the spirit of David Ransom will live on in us all, continuing to spread his joy.
While I know that I will struggle with his loss for the rest of my life, I believe that his spirit will continue to guide me, much as the spirits served as a guide for Scrooge ever afterward. To paraphrase Dickens: “I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirit of my father shall live within me. I will not shut out the lessons that he taught.”
The Christmas Carol ends with these words, which he loved:
“He was as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city ever knew, or any other good old city, town or borough in the good old world. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well.” May that be truly said of us, and all! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, everyone!”
3) Sarah Ransom’s Words
I feel very fortunate to have had such a loving father. I would come down from New York where I live and soak up his attention, he would want to know about every facet of my life – my apartment, my finances, my friendships, my career, my hobbies, my health, my love life. He always had time for me, no matter how many things he was involved with; he was never too busy or distracted or caught up. And he would give me endless advice, even when I didn’t ask for it, and it was good advice. And when I had good news, I would rush to call him – and he would be so glad to hear it and then he’d have such words of bravo and encouragement and admiration. “We are so proud of you, Sarah!” he would cheer, over and over and over again – he lavished us with praise and affection and he loved doing it.
And he was so creative. He was always dreaming up wonderful fun adventures and vacations. When I was 4, he dreamed up a month long journey to Kenya – we were Threatened by elephants! Teased by monkeys! Amazed by packs of lions! Every weekend we went somewhere and did something special – he’d have us out in the yard three months before Halloween, with cardboard and paint and crayons, constructing the ultimate dragon costume. We camped in the desert, on mountaintops, by the sea and on Canadian lakes in the summertime. One summer he took us back from the Middle East, not through Europe but through Asia, and we stopped in India and went to the place where he proposed marriage to my mother – the Taj Mahal, God bless him, and then we went to Japan where he had good friends from when he lived there at age 8 because his father was in the US military and stationed there and again at age 23 when he served there as a Marine. And he was in close touch with these people and they loved him! I remember coming home one day in Yemen and he’d ordered a Sears Roebuck and Co. jungle gym – not the little one, but the BIG ONE, complete with tree house, swings and bars. And over years of such fun, he taught us, among many things, to swim, to water ski, to scuba dive, to white water canoe, to sail, to ice skate, to ski, to ride bikes, to make a campfire, and to fix all manner of household things. “Sarah, I need some little fingers” he’d say and then give me some task to fix something, he’d give me instructions, and then all the tools and supplies I would need, then he’d leave me to work through it on my own, then again the endless praise and admiration – he set you up to win and he would win too.
And he told great stories. His favorite name was George. And there was an endless fount of George stories, where George wouldn’t slay the dragon but would befriend the beleaguered beast and win protection for his family & village. And he could sit for hours recounting his own life stories while beaming, radiant, full of life – and such a ham, and he exaggerated outrageously – they were so good, you never wanted his stories to end.
And he just overflowed with ideas and inventiveness but not without results. He made his own beer, which was as good as any microbrew. He mail-ordered a beehive and passed out fresh honey and honeycombs to all our neighbors. He used a tall ladder to climb over the fence at the back of our yard, into the Woodley Park Zoo forest, to plant daffodils, 500 more each year, and he’d split all the bulbs from years prior. He built a pond on his farm in West Virginia, and if allowed, he probably would have completely re-landscaped the fields with his tractor. He was insatiable! He never stopped creating wonderful experiences and memories for all of us.
And most importantly, he created it all from scratch. He had no family history. His dad died when he was 14. He was a kid. He had no money. He invented himself.
This last week, here in DC with my family, I realized – amazingly – for the first time, that he was the same creative, generous, inspiring man to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who basked in his praise and fed off of his encouragement, advice and vision. He really took pleasure in touching people’s lives, breeding closeness and pushing people to live life to the fullest. And he did all of this in his personal time – we all know of his great professional accomplishments – I hope you have all read the obituary we put together for him.
You all will have your own memories of him, I will always remember him as the father who ran zig zag all over the lawn when we played tag – so he was never too far away for us to give up, but he was fast enough to keep us screaming in delight chasing after him for as long as we could.
4) Craig Silliman’s Words
David was one of the most extraordinary human beings I’ve ever met and, as most of you know, I was quite open in my admiration and affection for him. Actually, when Katherine and I got engaged, she accused me of wanting to marry her because I was in love with her father. … She was only partially wrong – I loved them both.
From the time I first met Katherine, I was completely enchanted by her family. When I first met the whole Ransom family, it felt like standing outside on a dark night watching a wonderful party going on inside a cozy house, with light streaming out of all the windows. There was so much life and warmth inside, and it was so enticing. You wanted to be inside with them, to be a part of that family. But the amazing thing was that you could be, because the door was wide open.
Sometimes, if you grew up in the Ransom family, or even married into it, I think it was easy to forget how unique and special it was. But I don’t think David ever stopped realizing that, and he never stopped working to make it special. We often talk about the amazing journey of self-invention that David achieved in his professional life: the young boy from rural Texas who became a US Ambassador. And that was impressive. But I think that the family life that he created was even more impressive. David lost his father at a young age, and was raised by his mother along with his much-loved younger brother Cliff. David often pointed out to me that he had never had a big extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins; it was just the three of them. And I think that a big part of David’s life – and, in my opinion, his greatest accomplishment – was to build an enormous family and to hold on to it, never letting someone drift away for lack of time or attention or affection.
I’m not just talking about his “official” relatives, of course, although, god, he loved them tremendously. David embraced so many people into his larger family. You just had to be willing to be a part of it – to join actively in the stories and the events, the laughter and the tears. “The more, the merrier,” David would always say. As my sons grow up and get to know so many of you, they think that they have dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins because we’re so vague on the concept of blood relatives. How could we possibly put people into categories within this rich tapestry of relationships that the Ransom family has built? David didn’t. He made my whole family a part of his, not just me, but also my dad and Bev, my sisters and Bev’s daughters. After starting with just his mother and brother, David accumulated the largest family I’ve ever seen.
For almost 12 years I have basked in the light and the warmth of the Ransom family, and I have felt like the luckiest son-in-law there’s ever been. David was so integral to our lives, from the momentous events like the birth of our sons to the little things like giving his advice on the insulation in our house – over and over and over again.
When David died last week, I was devastated because I felt like a huge void had appeared, like that light and warmth had been extinguished. I felt that it was the end of a very special era of my life, and in some ways it was. But as the days have gone on, and I’ve seen so many of you, I’ve felt some hope begin to rekindle. I have spent a lot of time in the past week thinking about our spirits, what they are, and what people mean when they say that, “David’s spirit will live on.” I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know this: David Ransom helped shape who I am, as he did with his daughters, his grandsons, and as he did with many of you here. I am who I am in part because David was who he was. In that sense, who David was – his spirit – has become a fundamental part of me, and will, in turn, become a part of who his grandsons are.
I will miss David more than I can express. But I will keep learning from him for the rest of my life. And the family he built, the relationships he nurtured, the light and warmth he shone on me and on so many of you will keep rippling onward through my life, and through many of yours, forever.
5) Clifford Ransom’s Words [bracketed words not spoken]
My brother taught me many things, and I think I only taught him one.
First, he taught me the value of family. The Ransom family tree, I like to say, is so illustrious that we can trace it almost back to our grandparents before it fades into complete obscurity. Fortunately, David produced another huge branch of the tree. Sequentially, he married into a huge clan, the amalgamated Marilley universe, and then he created his own family. First was his bedrock, Marjorie, followed by three charming, talented, and beautiful girls, and ultimately, Sakina, who, if the truth be known, really runs the entire show. The arrival of grandchildren was the icing on the cake. On the other hand, his experience also taught me the futility of being the only male in a household dominated by five strong women.
Second, he was a bulwark for what was ethical, what was right, what was proper, what one was expected to do when faced with challenges. He never flinched from the course of highest valor, the path that honored everyone involved. He could be tough as nails, but the tapping of the hammer to drive home the point was always gentle. I think that it was this ethical discipline that made him so successful. [How else would the son of the widow of a career Air Force officer become the second, count ‘em, the second college graduate in the Ransom family? How else did he get into Choate, Princeton, and SAIS? How else did he overcome the rigors of Platoon Leader training in the US Marine Corps, which I like to call the “subsidiary service” of the Navy, which was my own military venue? How else did he get into, much less thrive, in the Foreign Service. Heck, how did he and Marjorie manage to serve in concurrent posts, and virtually all in the same region, their beloved Middle East, until the very tail ends of their intertwined but respective careers?]
David was a Solomon, a giver and dispenser of wisdom. He was a (## sp//) mage, a sage, a mentor, a guru, and advisor to family and friends, politicians, diplomats, generals, corporate executives, rulers, and Ghurka guards. Certainly, to me, he dispensed advice, counsel, wisdom, admonition, analysis, caring, everything that makes the texture of our lives complete.
On the other hand, as I thought this past week about how he did all this for me, I realized that I never really asked my brother for advice. He would typically sense when I needed counseling, call me, and start asking questions. [He’d chat for a while about totally inconsequential things, and then, just as I would want to get off the bloody telephone, he’d ask a question.] The first question would be a mild one, but there would come a second question, and a third, and a fourth. They would build, and focus, and begin to hone in on what was relevant, important, current, vital, necessary. Simple questions would segue to leading questions, and you would find yourself talking about all the topics in life that really matter: love, hate, death, marriage, divorce, child-raising, house-buying, business-planning. His technique, perhaps unconscious, was a splendid application of the Socratic method. Suddenly, it would dawn on you that he had lead you to a solution, a plan of action, a bright star by which you could set your course. This quality is what made him such a successful brother, husband, father, employer, and diplomat.
Third, he and Marjorie taught me the value to getting friends and family under one roof for meals and celebrations. [He was always unhappy that I refused, save on two occasions over twenty years, to participate in a massive, annual Christmas event, the family reading of Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol. He had adapted Dickens’s language into an actual script and even had the printed volumes bound in leather. I keep insisting that I only want to play Scrooge in the first half of the story, when he was a curmudgeon and a miser, so that I could leave it to someone else to step in to read the part after Scrooge’s redemption. My nieces tell me I may not get away with that stance in three weeks, but we’ll see.]
This issue of [entertainment,] hospitality, abundance of giving, brings all sorts of vivid memories. Just on Tuesday night, my son, my own anchor of warmth in this tragic season, said to me, “I will never forget coming up the front steps of Uncle David’s and Aunt Marjorie’s Cathedral Street house. You’d ring the bell, and David would burst forth, with this arms outspread and issue that huge, explosive welcome of his. It was like a giant gush of warmth and accommodation. Then, he would invariably smile broadly and say something derogatory about your beat-up, old car.”
[Just consider what a haven, a sanctuary; David and Marjorie made that Cathedral Avenue house be for so many of us, family and friends. Look, it’s no palace, but it feels like one. Sure, it needs constant attention; after all, the building is over 100 years old. But it’s full of treasures: Marjorie’s art and silver, Sakina’s cooking, the grandkid’s toys, David’s carpets. Oh, those carpets. He helped me fill my house with purchases made wisely over the past twenty years. A typical shopping expedition would run like this. We’d wander into some rug merchant’s shop on a back street in Aleppo, and he would spy a carpet hanging on the wall behind the owner’s desk. He would turn to me and whisper, “You’re going to wind up buying that carpet, but let’s not make it obvious.” Now, this is where diplomacy eludes me. I learned to haggle at an early age in Latin America, but the ballet, the ritual; the minuet of buying in the Middle East is based on 5,000 years of mercantile experience. In one carpet-buying expedition, we spent two whole DAYS in the shop, and we started talking about the final purchase–the one he had identified on his first entry into the shop–only after 36 hours of pleasantries and endless unrolling of darned near every rug in the merchant’s inventory. I would be so full of hot tea that I thought I would pop, but I have never regretted one single purchase. Now, my carpets represent not just “things;” they are not just material possessions that are ephemeral at best. The glory for me is that, every day, I get to remember that David had a hand in the acquisition of just about every item of beauty in my little house. I will see him in every one, every day, for the rest of my life, and my son will draw warmth from David’s influence for his entire life.]
Only the younger brother can, however, remind you that David did, actually, have all kinds of major flaws. (Smile broadly.) Look, let’s be direct. You are going to hear today about a lot of his achievements. Many of them are true. I say that many of them are true because, when we make a dish for a captive crowd, as you stir together a mélange of Swiss-Irish Marilleys and loquacious Ransoms and add a dollop of Silliman, a certain amount of exaggeration will take place. So, let me tell you about some of his failings.
First, he was a genuine car nut. I am pleased to say that he inherited all of the automobile testosterone in our family, since I could not care less about things automotive. He hated that I drive a 16-year-old car, but I just view it as a fully amortized piece of transportation equipment. I refused, as only a perverse younger brother can dare, to even drive his silly Corvette. How many of you know that he was, I believe, the only seated Ambassador in the history of the United States Department of State whose personal car on post was a Corvette? I once asked him about the wisdom of driving a flashy car in politically tumultuous times. He looked at me with that raised-eyebrow, head-cocked way of his and asked, “Cliff, just answer this: who is going to catch me, if I am driving the fastest car on the planet?” [On the other hand, he was inexorable in his drive to get me to buy new wheels. After the storm surge and flooding of Hurricane Isobel this September, which pretty well whacked both my house and my neighborhood, he traveled from his house in Washington, D. C., to console me in Baltimore. As we sat on my front steps, from which the waters had just receded, he looked at my car, parked at the curb, and said, “Too bad you moved that heap before the flood hit.” Ever the sympathetic soul.]
Second, he was avaricious about land. I don’t mean his DC real estate. I don’t even mean the Burnham-Ransom plantation in West Virginia. I refer to his on-going physical land grab of Federal Property. Please don’t tell the Department of the Interior, but he has been extending his “back yard” for three decades further and further into the National Zoo’s clearly fenced domain. It started with what he called, “a little thinning,” the removal of some underbrush in the wilderness behind his house. It graduated to using gigantic shears to cut down small saplings. [The roar of a chain saw was eventually heard, usually during thunder bursts and snowstorms, when the noise would be muffled.] Then, the transforming began. Again, it started small, with a few bulbs to brighten the early spring forest floor. It wound up with the planting of what, girls, tens of thousands of bulbs? The final indignity was his planting of new trees, exotic species, things that would flower. I kept waiting for the knock of the gendarmes on the door, but he kept them at bay. Those of us who remain will forever be reminded of him as those trees grow, and bloom, and have leaves that turn scarlet. Those plantings will be a reminder and on-going reminder of his legacy. [Who says the Egyptians did not have it right on the cycle of life?]
[Third, he may have taught me to become an accomplished white water river runner, but he could not tell north from south. He and I began canoeing and rafting together in the wilds of West Virginia in the 1950s, and he, Tex Harris, and Arthur Houghton, and I were paired frequently in braving rushing streams. What he could not do, for the life of him, was figure out how to get some cars to the top of the river to drop off the canoes and then have other cars left at the bottom of the river to accomplish the portage back upstream to collect the upstream vehicles before returning to DC at the end of the day. This task just plumb escaped him, but his little brother had enough sense of operations research to handle those logistical matters.]
[Fourth, if the truth be known, he was not always, well, let’s use the word, “scrupulous,” about giving credit where credit was due. Never on big issues, just on little ones. I can offer one example. My immediate family and friends have now spend twenty years traveling to the Middle East to mooch off my brother and his family on absolutely fabulous visits, to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras Al Khaima, Syria, Turkey, and Egypt, just to cite an incomplete list. We would pile into cars and vans and buses and trek all over, following a detailed, typed itinerary while David provided the constant voice-over commentary. “This caravan route was the terminus of the Great Silk Road.” “Look at, but don’t photograph, those missile sites.” “Seleucid generals founded this city upon their retreat westward after the death of Alexander.” “Akhenaton tried to change the whole basis of the polytheistic Egyptian religion.” “You can tell from the stone carving methods that this fortress was pre-Alexandrine.” “This mosque has stood here for centuries, withstanding a tectonically active geological environment.” It was something out of a National Geographic documentary. About a decade into these journeys, however, I realized that they were all the work of Marjorie! She would arrange transport, hotels, picnic lunches, and the like, and then she would type up the itineraries for David and the driver to follow. David was just there to provide local color! I shudda known.]
[Fifth] …Third and finally, he simply could not leave a proper voice mail. He was not exactly a savant when it came to technology, but he was atrocious about calling up and rambling on, filling the air waves with stuff that no one, at least not a Investment Master of the Universe younger brother, could possibly care about. And he wound up ending them in his best sententious Department of State baritone, “Best regards, David.” I mean, who puts a dictated closing on a voice mail!? [He would be infuriated if I did not return his calls, but I told him that I would return no calls that did not have his name, a return telephone number, and succinct comment.]
Now, the sad irony is that I still have on my cell phone a recorded voice mail that he left for me the day he died. I will eventually wipe the computer’s memory, but listening to his disembodied voice helps me now. He was on the train, traveling to New York City with Marjorie to have dinner with daughter Sarah and her boyfriend, Paul, to see a play that was written, to favorable reviews, by a friend. If any of you, in our shared sadness of his death, think he left this earthly plain in anything but a happy mood, I can assure you that he did not. [How horrendous for Marjorie, for Sarah, to have to deal with his death, particularly so far from home. Ironically, I was on my way to NYC on a business trip when he died, and I will forever be grateful for the serendipitous quirk of fate that permitted my son and me to be with Marjorie, Sarah, and Paul within hours of David’s death. But] we can all take solace in the metaphor of that trip, and his voice mail, as the culmination of a lifetime of achievement: he was with his loving wife Marjorie, going to see one of his loving daughters [who had both just started a new job and a new phase to her relationship with her boyfriend, Paul], to celebrate with another of the illustrious friends that he and Marjorie had collected over four decades together.
(Pause.) In addition, he finally left me a voice mail that included his name, his telephone number, and a relatively brief message. I don’t know whether to laugh or weep that it took me until the day he died to train him to leave a proper voice mail.
My final words are to my brother, whom I know is listening. You are part of my fabric, my soul. You live on in your daughters, your grandchildren, your nephew. The entire Ransom gene pool was changed by your example, and only your corporeal presence has died, not your legacy of influence and caring.
As my real final words, since a Ransom always has at least two sets of final words, I offer [one observation and] one piece of homework for each of you in attendance today.
[The observation is that today is the 13th of the month. Many cultures consider 13 to be an unlucky number, but our Mother taught us that it was the Ransom Family LUCKY number. I have always reveled in being cheery on each Friday the 13th, as friends cowered in terror over impending doom. So, how appropriate it is that we come together to celebrate my brother’s life on the 13th of this final month of December in 2003, just weeks after his 65th birthday.]
All of which leads me to the homework. Memorial services are appropriately for the dead; we are here out of love, respect, affection, admiration. We do so in remembrance of him, knowing that we need to move to both catharsis and healing. When we all walk out that church door today, however, this service shifts to the living! Each of us, his widow, his daughters, his grandchildren, his plethora of friends, yea, even his not-so-little brother, has to accept the task of contributing to a celebration of his life and his accomplishments. Sure, the pain is not going to dissipate rapidly, but we have to channel that sadness into fond memories and great stories. He was a born raconteur, a story-teller par excellence, so it’s time for us, when this service ends, to go across the street to the Hilton and tell each other tales that include David’s exploits, accomplishments, foibles, humor, dedication. And don’t any of you dare think that your story telling gets to end today. Even more important than spinning yarns on this single 13th of December, you have to tell these stories to one another and to the family in six weeks, six months, and six years. That’s your homework, boys and girls, and I hope to join you in the task.
6) Marjorie’s Words
You have to forgive us for all wanting to speak, but that is part of David’s legacy. He was so great with what we affectionately called “the blah blahs.” He always had the appropriate word for the moment. He always knew how to praise. He always knew how to push a little to nudge us towards loftier goals, more worthwhile deeds.
We gather here today to celebrate the life of David Ransom. He would have loved to see each and every one of you, as family and friends were what mattered most to him. He loved a party. Also high on his agenda, of course, was the challenge of explaining America’s policy towards the Middle East and putting the best possible face on it. He gave what he thought was an important interview to a Middle East TV station the day before he died.
David died in the prime of his life. He was very, very happy and said so many times over the past few weeks. He felt blessed to have reached his 65th birthday, for his father died at age 39 – also from a massive heart attack.
Over the past few weeks we had many special occasions with family and friends. Our daughter Katherine and son-in-law Craig did Thanksgiving dinner this year at their new house in Falls Church and it was a magnificent affair. David just beamed with pride. Our daughter Sarah was down from New York and we threw a party on Friday for our friends Andrew and Laura from San Francisco and a few other dear friends. I gave a birthday party for him to celebrate his 65th birthday on November 22nd and he could not have been more pleased. By a miracle, our daughter Elizabeth was just back from a three-week trip to India and Burma and had a rollicking, fun dinner with him the night before he died.
Also very important to David was his spiritual life. We have been part of St. Margaret’s since 1988 and before that belonged to St. Stephen’s and the Incarnation on 16th Street. David studied and read about moral issues and drew inspirations from the sermons and wonderful people here in this fabulous place.
YCLIOTT. What ever could that strange sounding acronym mean? YCLIOTT. Well, it was a motto that David Ransom made up for his life and followed. YCLIOTT means “You Cannot Lay It On Too Thick!”
David felt that the world needed more words of praise and thanks and appreciation and recognition. He applied this in many different ways. He applied it to us, his family. He applied it to everyone he had contact with, from the highest official to the simplest worker. When he and I walked in our neighborhood mornings he would take it upon himself to greet every pedestrian and predicted that he would transform the city of Washington from a city of strangers to one of happy, smiling people who would in turn greet their fellow men and women with great cheer. He was struck down in the midst of this noble challenge. He has left it to us to bring cheer to those around us and to inspire.
We are a yacky family. Thus, you have heard from all of us today. We will continue to be, God willing. We start today by inviting you all to lunch after the service today at the nearby Hilton Hotel. We will continue the YCLIOTT!