celebrating the life of Claudia Long, part two

February 7, 1950 – February 11, 2026

happy Father’s Day, everyone.

last Sunday, I took a break from blathering on about politics and about how everything totally fucking sucks, and shared with you the eulogy I wrote for the late Claudia Long, who was my wife for 41 years — and the love of my life for 46 — before passing away unexpectedly last February.

today, I’d like to share the other two eulogies that were delivered at Claudia’s memorial last week — daughter Katie’s eulogy for her mom, and bff Kathy’s eulogy for her friend.

— jeff t.

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Katie’s eulogy for her mom

I’d also like to share the story of how my parents met, but I’m going to tell it the way my mom told it to me a couple of years ago.

Not long after being hired at High Times, a colleague suggested she meet the assistant art director. They went down to his office, and the guy turned around in his chair and said “hey…do you want to smoke weed?”

Thank you all so much for being here to celebrate and remember my mom. There are people here I know, but also some faces I don’t recognize.

I can’t be surprised: my mom was 41 when she had me, which is older than I am now. She had already had a life dense with adventures before deciding to make it more difficult and weird by producing a difficult and weird child.

So I got here just under the wire, but I’m here now. I wasn’t there for the first half of her life, so I can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you about the person it produced.

She always told me that she wanted to give me the childhood she was never able to have, and from what I do know of her youth, I think she succeeded. I was given amazing opportunities and experiences, and I always knew I had her in my corner, and a home that was safe and full of love. (Dad, you helped too, but you’ll hear more about that at your funeral.)

She fed my creativity and curiosity, and made me feel like I could do or be anything. She also took me to probably every museum we’d ever been within five miles of, which is a tradition I now inflict on my husband.

She fostered in me a love of the natural world, and introduced me to the joys of hiking and birding and just spending time outside, even if she sometimes had to drag me away from my Nintendo to do so. Whether it was the desert, or the beach, or mountains or wetlands or woods, she loved to see new places and learn about the world around her.

Later in life, when health challenges reduced her mobility and she could no longer go for long walks in nature, she still found ways to embed herself there; she had an amazing skill for finding places to stay off the beaten path, and I will always treasure memories of vacations with her, sitting on a random porch in the middle of breathtaking habitat, feeling the wind, watching the sky change, listening to birdsong with her, and debating the species identification of whatever flew by. Sometimes a bottle of wine or a joint was involved.

The comedian Mike Birbiglia said that he loved his parents, but he didn’t like them. Like if he met them at a party and they were strangers, he’d just be like… “these people?”

I don’t actually think that’s all that uncommon a feeling, but I personally can’t relate: my mom was cool — way cooler than me — and I really liked her, not just as a parent but as a friend. Even after I left home and the east coast to go off and do my own thing, she was always with me in my pocket, ready to deploy the latest photos she’d taken of old barns she’d driven past, or news articles about recent advances in paleontology, or unsolicited medical advice, or whatever else was on her mind.

I will sincerely miss being the first person in Wisconsin to know whenever it started snowing in New York.

I’ve heard the saying that grief is love with nowhere to go. It’s corny, but it’s true. That love isn’t only feelings — it’s sharing dinner recipes, and anecdotes, and opinions, and cat pictures. She’s only been gone for a couple of months, and there’s already so much I want to tell her.

My mom was smart, and cool, and funny, and strong, and she was my friend.

I’m really going to miss her, and I will love her and like her forever.

* * *

Kathy’s eulogy for her friend

I owe a huge debt of thanks to my neighbor Karen who, about 8 years ago, said, ‘there’s a very interesting woman with a camera who walks around our neighborhood taking photos and I think you’d like her.’

So one day, Karen arranged for me to meet this interesting woman at Lake Mohegan Park.

When I arrived, there sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, holding a camera and deep in conversation was … Claudia.

Karen introduced us and I have no idea what we said to each other that day, but there was an instant connection.

Claudia was a kindred spirit, a lover of nature and birds, and photography and art.

She loved language and people and poetry … and had great taste in everything.

She was curious and fun and witty and wise … and I felt like I could tell her anything.

She had lived in New York City and was a writer and had worked in the TV broadcast business, just like me … and our friendship grew.

Her husband Jeff and my husband Scott also hit it off.

We had a similar sense of humor, view of life and easy-going relationship and so … we started hanging out.

At first, we met up once in a while … then once in a while became once a month and then eventually, once a month became once a week, whenever possible. (However, Claudia had a ‘Once-a-Week Rule’ ... If we got overly enthusiastic and wanted to get together more than once a week, we had to check in with Claudia first, because like a mom, she thought maybe 2 meet-ups a week might be … bad manners or just a little too much fun!)

We discussed movies and music, TV shows and foreign films and regaled each other with our stories of city life in the ’80s.

We’d meet at a restaurant on the river … our dock on the lake … their cozy backyard …and a few times, we even managed to meet up in our favorite New England towns.

Claudia was adventurous and strong and strong-willed and didn’t let her health issues hold her down for long.

She kept showing up … at lunches, at Lake Day, at dinner parties and Mölkky games in the park.

She kept taking her gorgeous photographs … and writing and planning and booking family trips with Jeff and Katie and Norrin.

She was inquisitive and interested in everything.

She grew up in the desert and had lived in California.

She was a ‘worldly woman,’ and our nieces and nephews enjoyed her conversations and sage advice on life and just about anything else.

She was smart and sensitive … and very very loving … especially when it came to Katie and Jeff.

Claudia and Jeff had such a fun, funny wry sense of humor together.

And she often said that being Katie’s mother was her greatest achievement.

I only knew Claudia for 8 years, but sometimes it felt like a lifetime.

We texted each other often ... sharing stories about our childhood, or photos of our families, our travels … or a backyard bird.

(I’d often ask Scott to ‘Quick, stop the car!’ so I could take a photo to send to Claudia.)

Claudia was truly someone I could pour my heart out to, with absolutely no judgement at all.

We could share a good story, good gossip, a good laugh and a good cry.

I miss her hugs and warm wonderful laugh.

Claudia’s last words to me were so life-affirming.

On February 10th, a cold wintry night when I really wanted to go to the ballet, Claudia texted this to me ...

‘I would scold you for going out in this weather but I know it wouldn’t do any good … and I know how much you love the ballet and … What do we live for, except for the things we love. Enjoy, darling!’

Thank you, Claudia for sharing the things you loved with me.

I miss you every day and will hold you in my heart forever.

❤️

* * *

the following video montage was produced by the Yotktown Funeral Home and shown during Claudia’s memorial.

* * *

let me leave you with this. it’s the front page of the June 20, 2026 edition of the Italian newspaper Libero. the headline reads ‘Trump is an asshole.’

have a great Sunday, everyone. don’t be an asshole.

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here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

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this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.