Evidence of a valuable life

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

My father’s aged, yellow papers are stored in an old bookcase. Typed references and substantial achievements recorded in hand written calligraphy on parchment like scroll. Water stained apprenticeship qualifications and a Teaching Certificate kept in a cracked plastic sleeve.  A few photos on the job here and in the country. An old, folded newspaper article records his retirement.  An entire working life in one blue, government issue folder.  Evidence of a valuable life.

The mottled grey suitcase under the stairs is more personal.  Letters to his mother about school life, marriage…and me.  Knick knacks from his desk.  Granny’s magnifying glass. A photo from the 1970s on holidays in Fiji.  Seemingly no order or reason for the odd collection, except their connection to him.

The value of one life

No online presence exists of a life lived ‘pre-selfie’.  No memorial page marks his journey. All there is left are odds and ends. Filtered through moves and divorce and finally through his simple will, they made it all the way to me. Given because we shared a profession and a love of words.  I cherish them, like the keeper of a memorial flame, but stil I find it hard to look at them sometimes.

So many letters of thanks from the YMCA, Rotary and parents.  So many personal remarks of high regard, written by people long gone. It seems somehow strange that a man so successful and so respected in his time, is remembered these days by so few. Not that it would have bothered him. In actual fact he’d prefer it that way.

Yet I remember him well, just as it should be.  He walks with me always.  Whispers to me sometimes from that hazy world just beyond my consciousness. I am his son, so this is not so surprising.  Yet his whole existence fades from view so quickly.  When I am gone, all direct connection to him will vanish with me.  It forces me to wonder what one life is really worth?

What I remember

I always struggle to remember the name of the shipping company he was apprenticed to or the schools he taught at.  I forget sometimes that he made Inspector and topped the seniority list so quickly.  Details and numbers only tell the outline of his life, I guess, not the real truth. The evidence of a valuable life exists elsewhere.

The real truth I don’t forget. The truth has not dimmed with time. I hold onto the stories of his great determination and how he made something of himself.  How he pulled himself up by his depression era bootstraps and had a go. I remember his sense of humility and his fierce desire for privacy. I remember his generosity when we ate out and his underrated ability to tell a story.  The lilt of the sing-song rhythm in his voice as he quoted poetry to me over a beer or two, always settled my busy mind.  The Roaring Days, Grey’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Slessor’s Five Bells.

I remember walking with him.  Miles and miles passed under our feet as we talked about everything.  I remember too, his love of films and how he passed that simple joy onto me.  Sunday Too Far Away, The Good The Bad and The Ugly and The Birds. I remember that he enthusiastically returned the favour,  letting me introduce new ideas to him as I grew.

No less than priceless

Mostly though, I remember that his love for his children never dimmed.  I remember how he refused to give up on us and struggled to repent of his lapses of judgement when times got dark for him. As I look at his grandchildren safe within the walls of a solid home, I remember that his greatest desire was to give us all a healthy start, which he did.

What is one life worth then?  My father may never know specifically, but from his choices I’m sure he did generally.  His life was and still is valuable because he sought to leave the world a better place than he found it.  He was professional in his career and nurturing of his children, especially as we started to negotiate the bumpy, shard littered road of adulthood ourselves.  Whilst he did not get to see all that I became or hold my children, he lives in my heart every day and he sees them through my watery eyes. 

What is a life worth?  What is the evidence of a valuable life? If it is lived with kindness, forgiveness and a determination to look after your loved ones above all else, then it is no less than priceless.

Links

The legacy of kindness » The Good The Bad and The Unrelated

Acts of kindness and compassion | healthdirect