We held a powwow at our dining room table, which was covered in a simple silk tablecloth. I ran my fingertips against the threaded leaves embroidered on the silk.
“Should we look through his iPad for contacts?” I threw out.
Madeline was sitting opposite from me. Her curly blond hair fell down against her shoulders. Her eyes were cast downward, and all I could see were her eyelashes. She looked up, her eyes misty.
“No,” she said firmly. I tried to explain to her I was not looking to steal emails but to plan this last party for our dad. She didn’t explain herself but shook her head again. I fell silent and listened as I heard a car pull into the driveway. I automatically looked to the door, expecting him to walk through it.
I searched “Brian Stelter” in my own emails and found a mass email from my dad asking for some Twitter love about being on set of the AMC show Better Call Saul. I copied and pasted the addresses into a new email with the subject line “We Love David Carr! (Arrangements Email).”
On February 13, 2015, at 2:40 P.M., I emailed thirty-nine people the following:
You were so very special to my dad and if you can make it to the services in New York, they are as follows: Wake: Monday 2/16 at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home (Time TBD but in the evening). Funeral: Tuesday 2/17 at St. Ignatius at 10am. My dad literally did a talk on stage last night before he passed. Always a worker, earner, thinker…he is incredible and we are so, so proud of him. He will be missed endlessly. Please contact me if you have questions.
Many replied with a kind memory about him, but the ever-present response was “Please let me know if there is anything I can do.” I never had an answer for this. Others politely inquired if they could forward the details along or if it was private. That, however, was a question I had a definite answer for.
Please pass to anyone and everyone. He had so many friends. I couldn’t remember them all.
On the day of the wake, our neighbors Bonnie and Eric Baker booked a car for us to travel in style from Montclair to the funeral home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Jill, Madeline, Meagan, and I arrived early and decided to head to a nearby restaurant. No one had an appetite, so instead we split a bottle of champagne. The glittering droplets, which should signify celebration, not tragedy, made my eyes hurt. I put a Xanax on my tongue and swallowed, knowing I would be unable to take in what came next sober.
We headed back to the funeral home and met up with Dad’s sisters and brothers, who had come from Minnesota. There were smiles and hugs, but they soon vanished. One of the men in black suits summoned us upstairs to see the body for the last time before he was to be cremated. His siblings Joe, Jim, Missy, Lisa, and John walked a couple of steps behind Jill, Meagan, Madeline, and me. I turned around and could see my dad in each of them, the same twinkling eyes. They’d lost one of their own, someone they’d known far longer than any of us had known him. We took the elevator a few floors up and were greeted by more men in black suits murmuring, “So sorry for your loss.” I saw a funeral employee with a mustache and thought to myself, That looks terrible. I wish I could rip it off. I’m angry at everyone, anyone.
We walked into a softly lit room with wooden paneling. I watched my dad’s family closely. They had seen loss before; they’d buried their parents and their sister in the past fifteen years, and now their baby brother was gone. With grace, they knelt down beside him and kissed him and said a prayer. They knew the order of these things. After a couple of minutes, they left the room, giving us privacy. Madeline was the first to talk.
“But that doesn’t look like Dad.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just so weird. It doesn’t seem real.”
“I can’t,” Meagan croaked.
Madeline walked over to the head of the coffin.
“Come over here. It actually looks like him from up here.” I was skeptical that any angle in this room would make him look more like our dad, but I followed my youngest sibling. As always, she was right. I started to laugh out of nervousness, and they joined in, despite how inappropriate it felt. The laughter led to tears and we three sunk down next to the coffin. I clutched my knobby knees to my chest. I don’t remember where Jill was at the time; perhaps she knew that Dad wouldn’t want anyone to see him like this. She knew his wishes better than anyone.
We three girls sat beside the coffin knowing full well this would be the last time we would be in the same room as his body. We wanted to be close to him but not see him in that state. The men in black suits averted their eyes, but I knew it couldn’t last forever. The service was about to start. The three of us took one another’s hands as we got up and one by one kissed him for the last time. We took the elevator downstairs as the rest of his tribe began arriving.
Jill had lined shelves and end tables of the well-lit funeral home with Diet Cokes, pictures, and, oh yes, old-fashioned reporter’s notebooks. You know the ones with the tan covers and the spirals on top? Version number 651. My dad bought them in bulk from the manufacturer, some genius in Virginia. I asked Jill if I could keep one and she told me she had saved some for us at the house. These were for others. I stared at her. Her perky blond hair had been coiffed, but her eyes were dark and steady. Lines creased her face. They seemed fresh to me.
After what felt like an eternity, it was time for the show to begin. A kind and gentle priest made his way up to the wooden podium, which was lit by a small brass lamp.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My brothers and sisters, we believe that all the ties of friendship and affection, which knit us as one throughout our lives, do not unravel at death. God always remembers the good we have done and forgives all of our sins.”
I leveled my eyes at the priest for bringing up the notion of sins so early on. I figured it would be a common theme. A baby gurgled behind me, which was comforting, and I tried not to zone out while the priest talked loudly about resurrection. There will be no miracles here tonight, I thought. The priest reminded us to be wrapped up by nine.
We had selected a few people to speak. Uncle Joe was the first to step up. His Minnesota accent was as loud as they come and unapologetic. He thanked the assembled crowd for being there and started out by saying, “It’s tradition in our family—ya know, being so Irish—that we tend to celebrate as we mourn. An integral part of that is to invite people to tell their stories.” He then launched into his own story with the simple line, “Do you believe in resurrection? I do.”
I heard a couple of people shifting in chairs, but the room was silent otherwise. Even the baby understood that it was time to be quiet.
“As Father indicated, he was not a perfect Christian. Back then he was not a perfect anything.” The crowd laughed, grateful for a moment of lightness. “Only exception to that was that he loved fiercely. Even in the throes of his crack addiction, he still loved us. But he made it hard to love him.” The room was once again silent, the word “crack” reverberating. It was most likely not a word that was thrown around a lot at the posh Frank E. Campbell funeral home. My uncle, like his brother, pulled no punches.
After a couple of minutes, Joe stepped down and a familiar face walked quietly up to the podium. My stomach tightened as I saw Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times and the man who’d informed me of my dad’s death. I knew my dad would be thrilled that he was there, but I felt deep sadness. Ever so meta, Dean started off by describing the email he thought my dad would have written him about his own obituary. He mentioned that it might be tart, and he would have liked it on the front page. Dean and the editors knew this and had factored in his wishes accordingly.
At this moment the overhead light was accidentally turned off. Dean continued to speak in darkness. He cracked a joke about my dad perhaps smiling at the fact that the announcement of his death on the site received two million page views. He spoke of the Twitter chorus that chanted at me after his death and recalled h
is favorites: one from Stephanie Mencimera, a Mother Jones writer who called him “a bundle of genius wrapped up in the unlikeliest of packages,” and Politico columnist Jack Shafer, who called him “a master interrogator [who] used his guise the way an angler fish uses the wriggling growth on its head to attract and then devour other fish.”
He said out loud that he wished he could share a recent memo about hiring that my father had written his boss, but he couldn’t because “he had named names.” And with that, I sat back a bit in my seat. For the first time all day I felt more relaxed. I was just listening to a story about someone who I could not stop thinking about. This room saw him as I did, fully dimensional. We weren’t there to cover up the dark spots in his life; we were there to celebrate him wholly.
It was now time for people to come up and share any stories they might have about David Carr. I breathed a sigh of relief when the first was Erik Wemple, one of his longtime best friends who knew him as a boss, writer, and ultimately a kind of brother. I watched him, blond and serious and without notes. He is one tough-looking dude who can also pull off a white cable knit sweater. Erik was responsible for clueing us into the beauty that is the Adirondack mountain range. The Wemples had owned a little cabin up there for decades, and when their family grew bigger, they moved to a better spot on the lake. My parents snatched up their old place and went about the business of creating their own memories there.
I closed my eyes as he told a story about our guy in his Washington-era days. My dad had battled necrotizing pancreatitis and was in the hospital when one of his employees, Dave McKenna, was set to have his bachelor party in Atlantic City. Never one to miss a party, my dad checked himself out of the hospital to attend the celebration and then promptly returned to the hospital after the festivities were over. The room erupted in laughter. He had invented fear of missing out, aka FOMO. Erik made sure to add, “He didn’t miss anything in journalism, either.”
His eyes fell for a second, as he steeled himself for what came next: a recounting of his own experience with parental loss. His own dad had died when Erik was thirty-one. “I realized that we as people never lose our need for guidance and for someone to play that role, and that’s what David did for me. And just how David missed nothing, it is our turn to miss him. I will do that.”
Michael Borrelli came next, almost as if my dad had arranged the lineup. I knew what he would say, but I could not wait to hear it. Michael represented another big puzzle piece in his life: striving for recovery. Michael waged his own battle with the disease, a disease many in the room knew intimately. A disease I had, but was trying to forget. I snapped out of my reverie when Michael said my name, recalling the previous week when we were called to the Montclair house to watch the Super Bowl. I came, as always, not for the sport, but to be close to my dad. To ask him questions.
“I don’t know how many of you—well, most of you have probably seen or experienced David dance.” He knew to pause, the big laughs coming loudly from all directions. “If you haven’t, it’s an amazing sight. I can’t tell if he was the worst dancer I have ever seen or the best dancer I have ever seen. But he was the least insecure dancer I had ever seen.”
Michael finished with a vivid punch line when he uttered, “And I was so uncomfortable.” I closed my eyes and saw those dance moves in all their glory.
Ike Reilly was next, a musician whose songs I know by heart. Every word. He did not speak to my dad’s career, because that’s not what he knew. He knew him as a guy, friend, dad, human. “I really don’t like being in this city without him.”
Cousin Tommy walked up to the pulpit next. And then funny man Tom Arnold killed it with his talk of loyalty and ancient shenanigans. Dad and Tom had bonded over their mutual affinity for Minnesota and cocaine.
But something was missing. When would a woman get up and talk? Should I say something? Immediately, my stomach seized into knots. The long-ago-swallowed Xanax was no match for the mere thought of publicly speaking after these guys. I knew the order did not matter, but my dad would fucking lose his shit if I got up there and tumbled. It was time to be strong, insightful, tender. And funny. No pressure.
My Uncle Jim upped the dude quotient by speaking next, and to add insult to injury he opened by calling my dad “Davey,” something he was not fond of. Once a big brother, always a big brother.
I texted my sisters to see if they were up to the job of talking about our dad. Madeline, ever the quiet one, can be a monster with words. Meagan is all heart and always finds the right thing to say. I have what one might call an inconsistent batting average. My sisters didn’t respond. Nick Bilton was at the podium, describing my dad’s last tweet.
And then my aunt Linda, married to my dad’s brother and always a favorite of mine, made her way quietly up to the front. For a second she looked petrified, unsure if she was supposed to be standing there. I heard her laugh nervously as she recalled the family’s confusion when my dad presented his book to them and told them the title was The Night of the Gun. Their father, my grandpa, had suggested the alternative title Nuns Prayed for Me. I grinned; I’d never heard that story. I’d officially learned something I didn’t know about David Carr.
She motioned to her husband, John, whispering, “What was the other story I was supposed to tell?” Then Linda recounted her first meeting with the Carrs in Hopkins, Minnesota, forty-five years ago. It went all right, but she later found out that not ten minutes after she left, my dad was arrested in that very driveway. “Long hair, plaid leisure suit, he was just nuttier than a fruitcake.” She cackled and so did I at the thought of him in a plaid suit.
James Percelay read the room and knew he should speak to the suburban side of my dad. Whether it was mowing the lawn or firing up the snowblower my dad always had a gadget or two to aid in house maintenance. He liked these simple tasks, and he bonded with many a neighbor about #thissurburbanlife.
Lena Dunham got up and said what I was thinking: “I thought it was important to come up and fill out the female contingent of his friendship circle.” Lena spoke to friendship, New York intros, and, again, loyalty. She closed with, “I will think of you every time I dance, every time I eat bacon, every time I touch a waitress on the butt.”
Natalie Kitroeff came next, then Eric Baker. Tim Carr followed, one of the other great speakers in our family. John Otis, longtime friend and fellow journalist, who flew in for the service from Colombia, recalled, “I think he took me to my first peep show.”
One by one, mourners spoke to the different facets of his personality. The combinations seemed endless. How could one human be so many things? Still, one role had not been addressed: dad.
It is now or never. I had no notes. I walked up slowly to the pulpit, and then I heard myself talking. “I am going to be brief because I get to speak at the funeral tomorrow, but I did want to be sure to say that we—Jill, Madeline, Meagan, and I—are so thankful to all of you for being here.” My voice seized, and I took a big gulp of air. I had no control over what came next; I wondered if I’d be able to make it through without sobbing uncontrollably.
“My dad was a crazy one,” I started. “When we were born, a couple months premature, everyone thought it was not going to end well.” I tried to express the pure and unquestioned faith he had in me and my professional abilities. I caught myself. This is not about me; it is about him.
“He told me I could do anything. And I want to say that to each and every one of you. You can do great things. I’m so sad he’s not here, but goddamn, he would have loved this.”
I exhaled and walked back to my seat. And then eight-year-old Lucy, the daughter of Erik Wemple and his wife, Stephanie Mencimer, hit the podium. “I don’t want to make a speech, but David had a big personality and he never yelled at anyone.” It was my favorite remark of the wake, because it was delivered by someone so young, so small, and so mighty. My dad would have been impressed.
His godson Chris Carr came next, and was followed by writer Seth Mnookin and wild boy Mike Carr. And then it was over.
While I had broken my nine-month sobriety a few months earlier, his death certainly fueled me with more ammunition to imbibe. We headed from the wake to a nearby bar, and countless people asked if I needed a drink. Don’t mind if I do.
I had a nagging feeling that I should be somewhat sober for the funeral the next day, but my Irish heritage kicked in and I clocked out. I got blackout drunk for the fourth night in a row, one of the only things that made the feelings disappear.
They would reappear and grow like the Hydra overnight, but a couple of hours of numbness was all I needed.
EXCERPTS FROM DAVID CARR’S UC BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM COMMENCEMENT SPEECH
My name is David Carr, and I’m an alcoholic. I think it’s cool that you guys have all these drunks and drug addicts and pirates up here talking….
Things have changed in a fundamental way. We talked a lot about that. But just a quick note: My daughter Erin is a video journalist. And I spent a lot of time trying to dissuade her from getting involved in our business. She listened carefully, and went the other way. You should do the same today.
My first story that I did was about police brutality. It was a little local weekly, about thirty thousand people probably saw it. Erin—same age, twenty-four years old—went and did a story about a guy who used 3D printers to make guns to get around federal gun laws, and I sort of head-patted her. I said, “That’s a cute project, that’s a good idea, honey.” Think it got twelve million hits on YouTube. I’d like to strangle her.
All That You Leave Behind Page 15
