Scripture: Genesis 49:26a – “The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills…” (NRSVue)
My father, Warren, had knee surgery earlier this month. He is a bit “creakier” than he used to be. He will be 74 in March (unlike my mother, his older wife who is still “39”). He seems to still be in good health, and hopefully will have many good years ahead of him. His father, Cyril, died in 1979, when he was 65 years old. When my grandfather died, I was not yet 2, so I have no actual memory of him, but I still feel his legacy in many ways.
I heard many stories about him, mostly in relationship to my grandmother Pearl. They would spar over politics at the kitchen table. She was a professor in nutrition at Simmons College, and she studied hard to get her degree while also raising five boys. She struggled to remember all the necessary things for her papers and exams. On the other hand, Cyril would regularly go to the library and bring home a stack of books, read them, and have perfect memory of everything he read, before returning them to the library and repeating the process the next day. It drove Pearl crazy, especially when he read her textbooks.
Cyril liked to eat blood sausage, which regularly drove my father and his brothers out of the room. He survived World War II in a remarkable way. As a brilliant biology student, he was told to get his doctorate during the war, but the orders were messed up, and he got sent to the South Pacific as a medic. If you have ever seen the movie Hacksaw Ridge, you have a sense what being a medic on a World War II battlefield was like. The life expectancy was very low. During one battle, a Japanese bomb hit him squarely in the back. It was a dud, leaving only a dent in his backpack. His is a story of marvelous swings of fortune.
My father tells stories about Cyril, but they are always in a vacuum. There is an unspoken distance. There was no sense of things that Warren and Cyril ever did together, any sage wisdom that the man shared with his son. I know that Cyril was not a happy man. He never did get his doctorate, instead working with Gregory Pincus on the team that developed the birth control pill, something that changed history forever. He was depressed. I never knew whether this was due to brain chemistry, thwarted ambition, or PTSD from the war. Probably a combination of them all. In an age before anti-depressants, he self-medicated and became an alcoholic. This is probably why he and my father were at least partially estranged.
One day when I was in college, Warren showed me a letter that Cyril had written to his war colleagues, but never sent, describing in disgusting words what a terrible and worthless person he was. It was the only tangible evidence of him that I ever saw.
Warren has said that I am a lot like my grandfather. I am academically inclined, but struggle with depression and self-doubt. At times, I too spout words of bitter self-loathing. His story is one reason why I never drink.
The legacies that fathers and mothers leave to their children are complicated ones. They are mostly stories of love, courage, and humor. But people are imperfect, and things are never as simple as we wish or that we talk about at funerals.
In the Book of Genesis, the blessings that fathers give to sons are important. All the drama between Ishmael and Isaac or Esau and Jacob revolve around this issue. The last blessings in Genesis are those of the dying Jacob to his twelve sons. They are truly bizarre. Jacob compares his sons to animals or other symbols, mostly anticipating what the tribes named for them would be like. It is unusual to call your sons unstable as water, a snake by the roadside, or a ravenous wolf. Not surprisingly, his kindest words are to Joseph, always his favorite son, to a fault.
Jacob’s words to Joseph meant everything to him. They were a sign of love, honor, and promise, a continuation of the grace God bestowed upon Abraham and all his descendants. But while Jacob is an important hero who changed world history, he was sometimes a lousy father, and his favoritism drove the family apart.
We all have legacies from our parents or grandparents or other relatives. Without them, we would not be the people we are today. For the most part, we love them for what made them great and forgive them for their imperfections. This can be difficult for parents who are alcoholic or abusive. But even bad parents can inspire us to be better people. Today, I want you to think of the legacies you have received, and think about how acts of remembrance, gratitude, and even forgiveness, have shaped who you are and how you live as a child of God.
Prayer: Lord, let me receive your blessing as I remember those who have blessed me, no matter how imperfect. Amen.
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