In last week’s post (A Thought In Passing) I described my father’s death.
In the eulogy at his funeral, the Rabbi spoke about three names by which we are known:
– the name your parents gave you
– the name by which you are known amongst your family and close friends
– the name you are known by in the broader community
(I would also add the name by which you know yourself but that’s a discussion for another time.)
This eulogy, together with comments from a number of other people, got me thinking about who Edwin Harrould really was.
To me, he was “Dad”, a ‘name’ which is highly charged as it is based on a lifetime (mine) of experiences and interactions.
This was his second name.
But what of his third name – that by which others knew him?
Everyone I speak to, comments on his friendly smile and his ability to make them feel special.
I’d heard those remarks often but hadn’t placed much store by them until a comment by a visiting rabbi triggered a new thought.
The rabbi asked his age.
When informed that Dad was 90 the rabbi immediately responded “Tzadik”.
Tzadik is the 18th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 90.
(In Hebrew there are no separate characters for numbers and letters so each letter has a numerical equivalent.)
This comment was intriguing on a number of levels:
– 18 is the numerical value of the Hebrew word “Khai” – life
– a Tzadik is a person who is completely righteous
My father wasn’t a religious man but the more I thought about it the more I realised he lived by a set of values and standards which were quite consistent.
As I said he always made the people around him feel very special.
His moral and ethical standards were high (a result of his inner self and having lived with my mother for a long time).
I suspect a lot of the tension between us was the result of him expecting a similar standard of me which I don’t believe I lived up to (not in his eyes, anyway).
This tension caused a barrier and distance to exist between us which was never broken through.
It’s only now that he’s gone that I can see him from a more distant perspective.
While I can begin to think of him as a tzadik, he wasn’t a saint (I suspect he’d be annoyed with anyone labeling him like that).
Our interactions were always overlaid with emotional baggage and so I always saw him through a cloudy filter.
This morning a rabbi commented to me that Dad lives on through me and I am the bearer of his legacy.
This comment was made in a context of being comforting but still brought up resistance in me.
However, since he’s now gone I’ve begun to see myself as a combination of his attributes and characteristics and those of my mother.
The challenge for me, is to be an expression of those aspects which I see as the positive ones, like those mentioned above, and to limit the characteristics which I find to be not so desirable (many of which came out in the “Dad” relationship).
For example, hearing about his relationship with my mother (a marriage of 65 years during which he was clearly devoted to her) as told by my mother, recollections from other people and finding certain things as I cleared out his possessions has shifted my perspective on who this guy, Edwin Harrould, really was.
I don’t regret that we didn’t have the sort of relationship I would have liked to have had but I am becoming more comfortable with seeing attributes in myself and acknowledging that some of my positive characteristics had been formed by him.
Parts of me are becoming comfortable with being the “bearer of his legacy” and that’s a big shift for me.
So, I can finally say with some conviction, that Edwin Harrould was a special person and it’s been a privilege to be associated with him.