At the end of My City of Dreams, I had many ideas that I wanted to put on the page as “themes” or “lessons”. Much of this was removed from the final version of the book. With my upcoming event through the bioethics departments of Harvard Medical School and Colorado University, I wanted to share them here…
A friend once told me there is a Jewish tradition of writing out your “ethical inheritance” when a parent dies. This is what my father left for me: You choose a job you love and you work hard. You never squander your money. You are always prompt and you keep your house clean, your car washed and your yard presentable. You love your family above all else.
Within each of us are buried seeds that can flower into evil. But we each have a rectifier, something biological that senses if we are on course or not. When you witness an injustice, you must stand firm. That is how a true Mensch lives his life.
I grew up in a home where order and unspoken emotion reigned, but I understood that the world outside was chaotic and dangerous. And from a young age, I sensed that we are all fragile and need to be handled with care. But it was never failure or emptiness that I sensed below our collective surface. It was yearning for connection and for the people we have lost.
Viktor Frankl and my friend Eberhard say we tell stories to make meaning of our lives. I tell mine to find the strength to move forward. After I finished videotaping my father, his nightmares vanished and he never had another flashback. Putting this story on paper, I have found my edges again. But Mia and my father are now within me, and their memories continue, clear in my mind.
I leave the lake and travel back up our road. The old French doors creak open and I tiptoe into the house. Bouquets sit on every table and blossoms trail down to the floor. I look out our front window down to the lake, gleaming in the valley below me. There are times on Diamond Ledge when even folding laundry feels like a prayer.
[Image: My father quotes Goethe’s Faust but leaves out “guten” (good) before “Mensch” (man)]