Robert O’Neal Boudreaux

For most of my life I have heard the expression, “You can’t kill bad grass.”  Not a strange phrase in and of itself, but it has always been used to describe my father, who in his 93 years of life, had many close calls with death.  It applied when he survived cancer and car wrecks, brain bleeds and bowel reconstruction.  Whether he wanted to or not, he just kept going and going and going and we loved him for it.  One year for Father’s Day, I actually gave him a hat that said, “I survived hospice.”  

At Thanksgiving this year, when he was diagnosed with pneumonia and weighed a measly 77 pounds, we gathered around his bed with tears and heavy hearts. 

 “I’m ready to go,” he said.  

I thought of all the times I’d kissed him goodbye, all the times I’d left his bedside thinking I’d never see him again.

“Dad?” I asked. “Are you gonna be okay when you wake up next week and you’re well?”

We laughed.  That’s what we do.  That’s what he taught us to do.  He made it to Christmas and on December 28th, he died—his eyes were open, looking upward and he had the loveliest smile on his face.  

Robert O. Boudreaux, Ro- bear,  Robbit, dad, Paw-Paw and to his great grandchildren Immy and Toby, he was ‘Funny Paw-Paw’. He didn’t care what name you knew him by and neither did I – I just wanted people to know him.

My father was a great influence on me and in much of my writing, he was the main character. Let’s face it, he was a great source of material. I used to practice my readings in front of him. Dad was an accomplished public speaker and loved giving me pointers.  

I would stand behind a make believe podium and he would sit in a chair with a stopwatch in his hand.  “Ok, GO!” he would say.  I would read, then he would give me feedback – like, “I  know you THIINK you need to use your hands but you don’t or 

“Dahlin, it’s ok to show emotion there.”  

One time, I didn’t get the chance to do an in person practice run with him.  This made me nervous, so I called him on the way to the reading, pulled over in a parking lot and read my piece, which featured him in some way.  When I finished he said, “Ok. That’s good. Very good. and I only have one suggestion – when you get to the part about me, go real slow- because THAT is FUNNY stuff.”

He was many things, funny for sure—he could light up a room.  He was an innovator—ahead of his time in the pharmacy realm and well respected for it. He was game—always up for a challenge, be it a round of gin rummy, or a fishing trip to Fourchon, but he would also stop everything to care for the sick, or to round us up to pray a rosary for someone who needed it.

My earliest memories of dad are church centered 

On Sunday mornings, while he sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, my six siblings and I  would run around looking for lost shoes, digging socks out of the dirty clothes, throwing wrinkleddresses in the clothes drier hoping they’d come out looking ironed, accuse each other of losing or HIDING the outfit we wanted to wear, the brush we loved, the belt we needed. 

If I asked him to help me buckle my shoes or zip my dress he’d tell me to ask one of my siblings to do it. “That’s why you have Caroline,” he’d say.  I recall running through the kitchen once and seeing him staring off into space. 

“What are you doing? I asked him.

“I’m meditating,” he answered.

So, from the outside looking in, he drank coffee, got dressed, walked outside, got in the car and started honking the horn for us to hurry.  But on the inside, he was in the eye of the storm, centering himself before going to church, where we sat in the front pew through the entire mass. We didn’t rest our heads on anyone’s lap, or ask to go to the bathroom.  We were expected to be still and quiet, respectful and alert.

That was the pious part of dad.  The punchy part came the day before. On the occasional Saturday, when he would bring us to the church and tell us to climb over the pews, talk out loud, giggle, run down the aisles and up to the choir loft, the sky was the limit (well maybe not sky part) but you get the idea. Seven children running wild.

Some people would say he was a contradiction. For example – Dad was named Pharmacist of the Year for the United States and Canada- he was brilliant in his field, but FUN FACT about Ro-bear, he didn’t know the difference between a phillips and flat head screw driver.   If it didn’t work you unplugged it.  If that failed, you called a repair person.

He was ahead of his time in a lot of ways. He had a prepared speech for the pre-pharmacy students he hired in his drugstore. “If the floor needs mopping, you gonna mop it, if the garbage needs emptying, you gonna empty it.  And just so there’s no confusion, It’s not your job because I’m white or you’re a girl. You’re gonna do it because I don’t want to.”

He had several speeches like this.  One of the best, centered on how he wanted his children to treat one another.  My memory is that there was some arguing going on among us and he sat us all down and told us he had some bad news.  “IF YOU, he said pointing to Andre, are unkind to her, he said pointing to Caroline, then she will be mean to Claire, and Claire will be mean to Damian, and then Damian will be mean to someone at school, and it will go on and on and on.  But here’s the good news.  André, if you’re kind to Anne, she will be good to Alyce-Elise, and Alyce-Elise will do something nice for Douglas, and so forth and so on. It’s up to you y’understand. You can spread the bad or you can spread the good.

He knew which one he would spread and he really did teach us that by his example.  I could tell you more stories about him. If you knew him, I’m sure you have your own, but my goal right now is to honor him, for teaching us how to live our lives, for showing us that:

• It’s a good idea to slow down and relish the funny parts.

• If you’re centered- you can get through any storm. 

• Running wild isn’t bad in and of itself, but running wild at the wrong time in the wrong place is. 

• It’s ok if you don’t know everything- as long as you know where your strengths are.

• Sometimes the dirty work will be yours to do,

• and that each and every one of us has the power to spread goodness and make the world a better place.

Robert O’Neal Boudreaux

May 19, 1929 – December 28, 2022

Rest easy Dad.