On my father’s death bed when he gripped my hands I realized I now had his hands as I remembered them has a child. Now I have noticed my sweat smells of him in an almost daily reminder. My humor and annoyances, my tolerance and lack of the same, my loves and worries are as I remember him. I don’t remember knowing my father as well as I see him in me now. I fought my father as unyielding and far focused and on occasion he made my mother cry. I can’t say I embrace all of what has grown in me from him but with this deeper understanding has developed a respect for the complexities of the problems and chosen solutions to your linked lives.
So much is out of our personal control but yet even in the smallest actions and choices we make changes. Many of the changes are not beneficial to the one taking the actions or making the choices. I have benefitted from the actions and choices of my father and from generations of forefathers. I want to take actions and make choices that generations will want me to make for the generations to follow. My father would call it a sacrifice and at the same time love. This also means that not to sacrifice is not to love, or to act and chose only for personal benefit is not to love. I guess that is the greatest lesson I learned from my father is to love. To paraphrase the book of love do onto future generations as you would have the previous generations do for you.
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