For as long as I can remember
I’ve heard your resonant voice
Flow like a spring-fed stream
With ideas, opinions and conviction;
Sometimes forcing me to wrestle
With thoughts opposing my own,
Others extending a helping hand
To my own formulating mind.
But echoing louder than your voice
Has been the witness of your living,
From the plains of the mundane
To the rocky pinnacles of crisis,
My psychological tape recorder
Stored the lessons you taught,
Though you weren’t always aware
Your life was being watched.
Contrary to the opinion of many,
The status quo is not the pinnacle,
But the lower form of achievement.
Never one to accept the average,
But always reaching for the heights,
Life’s brush illustrated the horizon
And I learned lesson number one:
In a phrase, “Good enough, isn’t.”
Like old commercials for a people
Whose education was disposable,
Recognition of the innate treasure
Resident in the human intellect,
Exercising its breathtaking promise
Our common household exercise.
The second lesson firmly ingrained:
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
Beneath expansive night skies,
Contemplating the vast universe,
Awed by its beauty and mystery,
Captivated by all it might contain.
Exploring its outermost reaches,
As well its unfathomable Container:
A third, gained on classroom lawn:
“There is such a thing as awesome.”
In a world in which primary concern
Tends to be one’s personal gain
Or greatest strategic advantage,
Your focus, the opposite direction:
Whether marriage or vocation,
Or for some transcendent cause,
I learned, “There are some things
Worth giving up everything for.”
Humility and peace notwithstanding,
Showing what you cared about most,
There was no mistaking the things
On which no deal could be reached:
Integrity, love, justice and faith,
Comprised your non-negotiables.
Number five: “There are some things
Worth standing and fighting for.”
It’s not that everything I learned
Merited such recorded memory.
Life has its pain and frustration,
And father-son love’s not exempt.
But through the voice of your living,
These lessons inspire me to aspire
To speak loudly without use of words,
And live a life that’s worthy of watching.