#685 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Thursday June 15)
Good morning,
Fathers’ Day is this Sunday. The following essay excerpt (including with the Umberto Eco quotation it cites) suggests that the greatest wisdom often is the “little things” and that these little things stay with us long after the person who shared them with us is gone:
WE ARE FORMED BY LITTLE SCRAPS OF WISDOM
By John P. Weiss
“Sometimes I experience echoes of my father.
A gesture. A tone of voice. A stranger’s mannerisms. And he is back with me but for a brief and wondrous moment.
But then the moment passes, and my father recedes. Back into that mysterious place of dreams, memories, and benevolent ghosts who seem to accompany me through life like unseen but loving guardians.
I remember gazing at him. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow and faint. But as I reminisced, his eyebrows twitched and the kindly hospice nurse assured me that hearing was often the last of the senses to go.
As my father hovered between this world and the next, I spoke of memories. Family gatherings, our beloved pets over the years, and how fortunate we all were. And I told him that if he was tired, to sleep. We’d all be fine.
I drove home and an hour later Dad passed away.
We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
My father may have joined the “chapter celestial”, as he used to describe the afterlife, but his spirit mostly remains with me. When I look at his picture and close my eyes, I can still hear his booming baritone and see him prowling the library to show me passages in books.
But time cruelly blurs recollections and dims memories.
Family and relatives can help. Sometimes I reminisce with my sister and she calls up memories and details I forgot, and vice versa.
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”—Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
In the end, whenever my father feels distant, I focus on some of his life lessons. The little things he taught me through his character and actions. Doing so always fans the embers of memory, and soon there’s a fire of vivid recollections and life-affirming warmth.
Warmth in the knowledge that my father loved me and taught me well.
Dad took the time to review my homework and help me. He supported my academic, athletic, and social life. He was balanced with discipline, and generous with life lessons and wisdom.
But it was his example and unscripted actions that stay with me the most.”
THE LITTLE SCRAPS INDEED
I concur that these little scraps of wisdom are, in the end, what we carry with us. It is not the “big moments,” although these can be instructive as well. It is the little moments—how one’s father treats a server at a restaurant, the smile and kind comments to strangers, the supportive observations (spoken casually but intended to impart wisdom), the way your friends related to him, and the casual asides. It is in the myriad examples that one sees a pattern worth emulating. We may not have vivid recollection of all these seemingly unconnected events (and maybe only foggy recollections), but the the person, the ethos, and the way of living remain.
They are, indeed, little scraps but when pieced together they form a whole. We carry the scraps that, together, recreate the presence of a person with wisdom from years of life’s experiences—the moments of joy and the agonies of loss. They inform us, spark memories, and remind us of days past. Together they constitute the whole of the man we have lost. And if we are very lucky, many of these scraps become pieces or ourselves (which are then carried by others) and help form the person whom we are—or aspire to be.
Have a great day,
Glenn
PS: Thanks to Leslie Mayer for sharing the essay.
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