Michael Moffatt
February 8, 1944 – November 26, 2011
Born in Hartford, Connecticut to Stan and Kay Moffatt, Michael grew up in a household filled with love, industry, a firm belief in eccentricity, wonder and the value of art in its myriad forms. Stan grew up in India as the son of missionary parents. An engineer by profession, he was an artist by night and Kay not only took on community causes, but played piano, sketched and delighted her children, Michael and his younger sister, Harriet, with pranks that disguised her hard-won wisdom as a veteran kindergarten teacher.
From 4:00 a.m. newspaper deliveries, to archeological digs and a thousand-mile-plus bicycle ride through the New England countryside with high school chums, Michael vigorously engaged in the world around him, and reveled in its most mysterious inhabitants: human beings. He pursued this passion studying anthropology at Dartmouth, then Reed College, Oxford University studying with Rodney Needham and finished his PhD at the University of Chicago while polishing his dissertation for publication with Princeton University Press and beginning his more than thirty-year professorial career at Rutgers.
More than anything in the world, Michael loved being a father. He relished helping to parent Alan and Sasha. He loved galumphing around the woods or playing charades with the “young cousins” Adam, Josh, Amanda and Asha. Michael cherished the Salem - Manganaro children like his own nieces and nephews. He had a natural affinity for enjoying what he called “the back side of the moon” way a seven or eight-year-old saw the world and kids never stopped delighting him, including his own two, Alex and Jacob.
Michael was a natural parent and connected all the children he helped raise with the rugged and real beauty of nature. He eagerly initiated regular rambles in the countryside with Jacob and Alex or “evening constitutionals” when I was unable to go too far. Picture your favorite bucolic scene. Imagine twittering birds lilting like flutes from "Ranz des Vaches," when banshee screams rupture the calm. The boys shout and squeal as they careen into woodlands, marshes or meadows sending small creatures scurrying in every direction. Once, as Michael and I were navigating our little brood across a stream in the "Sadie Woods" by Rutgers Gardens (one drenched Irish Water Spaniel, a toddling Jacob stooping to observe each stone, and a splashing Alex practicing stone-skipping) a couple of students deferentially asked if they could take our photo. When we said yes, they whispered excitedly, "It's a family!" like birders discovering a rare species. Michael got a kick out of that—the anthropologist observed.
As a spouse, there was none more devoted (or dour before his morning coffee). He took on the household, childcare and bravely bore “nuits blanches” of Rolodex worries as I finished my dissertation. My director, François Cornilliat rightly noted—and this goes for all who've endured a dissertating partner—, “There should be a special medal of honor for the spouses.” Michael and I sang our way through stress, not only with the Reformed Church choir, but at home on the piano with songs like "After the Ball" and "Silver Threads among the Gold." During Jacob's birth, we made our way through all the hymns and holy songs we knew during the fourteen-hour labor. By the time the epidural took hold for the emergency C-section at the end, we had descended from celestial heights to the practical and prosaic "I've Been Working on the Railroad". And Michael held steady on course through it all till he nestled a swaddled and rather red-faced Jacob under my chin.
Michael was a mensch. He never backed off from what he thought was right, even if it was unpopular. When September 11, 2001, arrived, academic discourse seemed far less crucial than active engagement. Then living Central Jersey, Michael took his anthropology of religion students on field trips to many different religious centers to give them first-hand experience with the multiplicity of Indic faiths and cultures: Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim. We shared a vision of inter-religious harmony and appreciation of diverse faith traditions—and ultimately, that we are all of us in this world of one family, the human family.
He gave public support to the local Hindu community members when small-minded neighborhoods persecuted them in Central Jersey. The Swaminarayan Temple in Edison fully embraced Michael and our family as he and our younger son, Jacob, regularly attended services. We all enjoyed the fellowship and delicious meals there. As a family, we marched and rallied for peace, from the UN Plaza to Plainfield, NJ with sisters and brothers transcending religious, national and cultural barriers.
Yet, even with teaching, research, activism and home life, Michael would always find time to enjoy spontaneous forays into nature, taking Alex on a canoe trip, or pausing class to feed by hand a dead squirrel to a wild red-tailed hawk, to the amazement of his students. When speaking of birding, he not only enjoyed the winged creatures, but also his bipedal friends—George and Paul. Michael relished their buttoned-down humor, quirks and prowess finding and differentiating between species by identifying their elusive markings or unique song characteristics. Michael's dramatic rendition of solemn birders gathering by the half dozen to watch a mating pair, all binoculars riveted, and applauding at the end—to the astonishment of the humans so engaged—was howlingly funny.
Clever and non-conforming, Michael challenged post-modern theorists with satire and classical theorists by turning the tables on them. His prose in casual conversation was ever erudite, full of plums plucked and coddled from his voracious reading. Whatever he read took on a literary spin with an anthropological twist coupled with humor. He probably would not have called himself a religious man. Yet he lived as a Godly man. He was brutally honest and concretely gave of himself to serve others, regularly feeding friends with Indian cuisine, barbecue, or homey casseroles.
We made yearly pilgrimages to Family Camp in Pennsylvania where parents and children enjoyed fellowship in natural, faith-based community. There, he would regularly sing satiric songs like Tom Lehrer's "The Irish ballad" or, together with Chris Bush, revised the lyrics to Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" to suit the Shehaqua group that year. Michael played with complex concepts as deftly as he did cornball humor and ever with an eye to displace routine assumptions. However, he always put parenting first. He connected heart-to-heart with other parents and their kids at camp, hiking to waterfalls, and, as he became increasingly ill, skipping stones at the nearby stream or chatting 'round the dining room table.
He faithfully attended and keenly observed countless religious services for hours on end understanding neither Gujarati nor Korean. He was not the sort of person to feign religious deference, but he had a sincere heart of attendance to the divine even as he drank in the behavior of devoted humans. Nor was he the type to beg God for spiritual experiences. The three-dimensional world and multiplicity of cultural constructs that surrounded him fascinated him—be it a grandmother in a cow-dung hut in India, college-student culture in the dorms, or the good old boys in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
However, this practical man came to cherish the true love values we shared in raising our children. In one theological epiphany, he noted, “If I'm right and you're wrong, we'll both be dead. If you're right and I'm wrong, you'll be saying 'I told you so!' for eternity!” He lovingly endured what he jokingly referred to as “Unification Ordeals,” when sermons would go on far longer than anticipated. The last time we went to hear Father Moon speak, at the Manhattan Center (2009), before anyone else in the audience was aware Father was onstage, Michael, who could see into the wings from his balcony seat, leapt to his feet applauding and shouted, “Yay!” in classic Michael mode. He never shied away from saying what he really thought.
We’ve been a long journey since Michael’s illness first developed and the treatments produced their own wayward side effects. Brothers and sisters of many faiths filled our lives with love and the sense of family. Rev. Marquez and his wife Noemi became as second parents to Jacob; Susan and Keith Howells, whom we’d met singing in the Reformed Church choir in Highland Park, took us all in for six months when we were homeless and Michael was first hospitalized in 2002. Susan Linn and John Jenkins were a constant comfort during Michael's last days in hospice. All those who helped prepare and attend the Sunghwa gave us tremendous strength, as did those who lent us heart, hearth and home. The prayers of many have sustained us. Thank you for sharing your lives with us.
At young ages, Alex and Jacob, once the recipients of Michael’s fun-loving adventures, found themselves serving as caregivers, guiding their dad where he needed to go and helping to dress him. As a family, we learned many love lessons through Michael’s illness. We learned that some talk is just talk and other words have real meaning. We learned the value of true friendship. We learned of the strength of spirit that we had to create within ourselves and we experienced over and over again Michael’s unconditional love, his heart, patience, humor and determination. He leaves these legacies with us so that we may have the courage to take on the world and to follow our dreams.
~*~
