Reflections on my Dad: Don't take life too seriously

My dad recently passed away. And it’s only now that I’m finally learning the lessons from his life. Whether he or I knew it at the time, my dad was teaching me life lessons.

I am up to the third life lesson. The first two were, 'actions speak louder than words and the importance of self sacrifice.'

 Life lesson # 3 is: don’t take life too seriously:

I learned from my Dad not to take life too seriously: My dad was born in Brooklyn, New York, during the great depression; a time of devastating poverty, joblessness and outright destitution.

Rising out of this human calamity, was a belief that worldly possessions are fleeting, and life is indifferent to ones survival. 

It was from this background, that the conviction ‘not to take life too seriously,’ became embedded into the culture of that day. Why? Because you never knew when life as you knew it, would come crashing down.

My dad’s attitude towards life reflected author Fredrick Buechner’s admonition: “here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”

As a boy, I saw my dad as physically strong presence. And to witness his decline, reminded me how fragile life is. Yet my dad’s determination and attitude towards his ‘life circumstance,’ kept him from despair.       

During the last few years, I observed the slow deterioration of my dad’s health until he became wheelchair bound. I asked him ‘do you ever miss doing things you used to do?” And he said to me, “I don’t worry about that son, there are people in this world worse off than me.”

In the months leading up to his passing, he was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and he could barely catch a breath to speak to the Emergency intake nurse who asked him to rate his health on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being poor and 10 being good; he told her it’s a 9, ‘my health is ‘good.’

We all thought dad was in denial, but he was very much aware of his condition, he would not allow sickness and pending death to dictate his attitude towards ‘the cards’ life had dealt him.  

He was living out of the principle 'don’t take life too seriously;' in spite of what life had handed him, he left this earth on his own terms.