My dad, Klaus Heinrich Engelhardt, died on October 22nd, 2024. Here he is as a young professor mid career in the linguistics department at Lewis and Clark College:
Cute, right? See that forehead vein, eye bags, that button nose, and that laugh in his smile? I got them all. How lucky am I? I also got his sense of mischief, his love of language, and a penchant for the romantic. Your birth is a lottery day, and I hit it big with him. Thanks, universe.
The darkest funny joke I tell is that right before I saw him I got a covid AND flu shot so I wouldn’t…kill him. Turns out you can do everything right and death still comes a callin! People argue about the definition of ironic and that’s academic and boring. I think it’s a feeling. And that felt very ironic.
When I got to his bedside he was tired and weak and he looked like a baby again. Unable to do anything for himself. Needing care. And the moment you have to parent your parent again is a gift handed to you. My wish is everyone has the privilege. To be there as the caretaker, to close the loop. You were there for the third act. That’s a long game you’re lucky to play.
A few things I think are interesting about his life.
He grew up in WAR. Maybe that’s why he was so good at building a home wherever he went. World War 2 belongs to his story, and he had to leave his home as a kid in the middle of the night with bombs dropping. Bombs he (and no one) asked for. He survived it but he never forgot it. What’s the point of surviving if you forget, right?
He went to the same high school as Einstein, although, as he always brought up, the difference was that my father actually graduated (Einstein dropped out, what a dummy).
He met a french woman in Transylvannia. He married her.
He moved to Oregon to teach French. Never left.
He raised his kids tri-lingual and bored us with the meaning of EVERYTHING. I’d love for him to bore me one more time.
He taught a class on the book Tristan and Isolde and medieval romance and courtly love (I rest my case on him being a romantic).
A colleague once asked him “You always get good evaluations, the students seem to like you, what’s your secret?” and he replied “It’s simple, I like them back”. That tells you almost all you need to know about the person he was.
He made me feel like I was perfect.
He loved James Bond movies. And had a crush on Sally Field.
He once stole a bell off a cow when he was hiking in the alps and he would ring on only two occasions: Dinnertime, and when Bayern Munich scored a goal.
When I was tired on the couch from watching tv, he used to get on all fours and put me on his back and take me to bed as though he were my horse. He even made horse sounds.
After I lost my (one and only) beauty pageant at age 7, he refused to let me do any more. He told my mom “She’s too intellectual, she’s better than things like that”.
He loved the mountains. We hiked all over Oregon together, and he’d pack a lunch of slices of green peppers, butter and cheese sandwiches, and a bottle of beer to share.
He told what were honestly some of the worst puns I have ever heard. He was a top tier DAD JOKE dad.
He was my hero. I miss him. I’ll end with one of his all star dad jokes…
What do you call a cow with TWO legs?
Lean beef.
What do you call a cow with NO legs?
Ground beef.
One of the last things he whispered was “Mamma Mia” and I’ll never know why but I think there must have been a dad joke in there somewhere.
Goodnight, dad.
Such a beautiful tribute to your precious Dad. I got teary. I can tell he was a special person and so loved by you. I know you'll miss him- sending love