Bill and Annie, December 28, 2008

On Sunday, March 15th, the Haas School of Business and the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program at UC Berkeley hosted a memorial for my husband, Bill Sonnenschein. About 300 people attended. I spoke, along with colleagues, students, friends, and other family members. Here's a transcript of my speech:

_________

I'm Ericka Lutz, Bill's wife.

Bill and I were together 22 years, we were married for 19 years. Nobody should have to give a eulogy for their husband, it's grim, it's hard to do. But Bill always said eulogies were actually a form of persuasive speaking. They were persuasive speeches; they were intended to inspire and help people move on. And in a way, speaking with you today is an opportunity for me, to do that -- to inspire me to move on, as well as perhaps for you. So I want to thank you all for the opportunity to have the chance to talk to you briefly about who he was as a teacher, as a father, as a husband, as a man. And what I've learned from his life.

Also first of all, to thank all of you. Thank Haas, and the ELP program and each of you individually and collaboratively and all of that, because this is a tremendous gift to me and to the entire family. I didn't have to do anything.  Nothing! And that is huge, and a beautiful, beautiful thing. So thank you. It's one of the many gifts that I and the rest of the family have received over the last two and a half months and we are very grateful. And that so many people here at Cal would come together and do so much really is, as you have been hearing and as you know, just a testament to who he was and how much he touched all of us.

He loved teaching here.  He loved it. He was so proud to be on the faculty at Cal. Even after 16 years he would walk across the campus and he'd be like, "I teach here!" And he worked way too hard here, and he never learned how to say "No," and it was all part of that pride that he had. And actually, the fact that he taught at Cal was one of the first things he always told everybody he met. And because Bill liked to talk to everybody he met, everybody knew that he taught at Cal.

Bill was very open with his students. He gave so much. He gave to his students, he gave to his colleagues, and his students and colleagues became his closest friends. I met Bill when I was one of his students at San Francisco State. (This was before those kinds of things were illegal). He was a hippie who talked too much with a couple of half-grown kids and I was a post-punk art student and it wasn't the most obvious match. But those flashing eyes. And that he understood me on so many different levels. And that he had such passion and commitment for everything that he did. And that he enjoyed life so much.

He was political and he was engaged. He was a terrific father. In his life, got to do all these things: he was a hippie and he was a civil right activist and he was a draft resister and he worked as roadie, and he managed bands, and he ran newspapers, and he taught speech, and he coached forensics, and he became a father at an early age, and then again at a later age.  

And early on in our relationship we turned in all our keys and we took our backpacks and spent a year in Southeast Asia and he loved it. He said he took to traveling like "a duck to water." And we traveled through Thailand and Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore and India and Nepal and then we worked for a few months in Japan.  And he always looked back on that year, and he loved it, and once he started traveling he never, ever wanted to stop.

And then we came back from that year, and a couple of years later he got his job at Cal and that was his dream come true. And then he was a professor at a business school. And in his lifetime, as has been mentioned, he taught well over 10 thousand students. Actually, that number was something he figured out about three or four years ago; he came downstairs and said, "I think it's about ten thousand students I've taught!" So it's probably way more than that.

He consulted internationally, he cooked great food and baked artisan bread, he did all these things. He loved coffee. He loved movies. He loved to travel, and to adventure. He loved his kids, and his dogs. He loved hiking and camping and swimming and hot weather. He loved being naked and he hated underpants. (Sorry!) He hated the cold though he liked to play in the snow. He liked to play board games and we played backgammon almost every day of our marriage. He was opinionated, he loved politics, he loved to argue, and he loved his friends of all political persuasions. He was handsome. He was sexy. He was challenging to live with. He demanded honesty. He was committed -- to all of us, to his children, to me, to his work, to the planet, to humanity.

His highest goal was to be a good person. He worked really hard at it. He struggled with his impatience and his temper. He tended to be judgmental, so he redoubled his efforts to be nonjudgmental. And he loved to talk and communicate, and he would have been so honored, so pleased by all of this today. By this celebration. He was a very, very good man.

When Bill and I bought our house, there were fig trees in the backyard. Two of them. And somebody told us of the old Italian tradition of planting two fig trees close together when a couple got married. And over the years each would grow into its own tree able to support itself, with its own trunk able to support itself, with its own branches, and its own leaves, and its own roots. But the branches would entwine, and under the ground, the roots would, too.

Bill and I had a long-term marriage and it was complicated, and it was challenging, and we told each other all the time that we loved each other -- and it was true.

Losing him is like losing my other tree. I'm standing and I have my own trunk. But my branches, my roots, so entangled with his...  

It's a hard loss and I miss my friend. And yet I am so fortunate. To have had this love, this expansive, big, broad love that spanned decades and continents. And to be able to share work and play and passion and family.  It -- he -- has so deepened all of my capacities.

Today, March 15th, 2009 -- the Ides of March -- would have been his 60th birthday. "Beware the Ideas of March," he would always say. Bill was very leery of this particular day, this year, this day.  Sixty is not so old, but it's not so young, either. And he was young and he didn't want to be old. He wasn't happy about turning 60. But mostly he wasn’t happy about the idea of being alone today, turning 60 away from us, his community.  

It's a lot to take in, a lot to get used to -- Bill gone. But we've all gained so much from him.  We watched a man live and live and live and live at full intensity -- take important risks and follow his dreams -- and then suddenly die. It's so easy to get caught up in the tragedy of the dying part of it, without seeing the gifts of the living and the living and the watching a man live so intensely and so fully and so engaged -- and that's what I want us to remember.

So Bill, today, on your birthday, on your memorial day, the forest of your community are here in this room. We are still strong trees, we have our own trunks, but our roots are raw. Our branches droop. We miss you. Yet because of you, we are all here today appreciating and loving you -- a man who inspired us all to eat well and to live well, to be better people and to do good work, to tell our stories and to speak our truths. Our trunks are rooted. We're going to be okay. And we will always miss you.

Thank you.