The Greater Harmony

Dad’s secret to parenting discovered

Some time ago, I think it was a staff member of mine who gave me a plaque that I kept in my principal office. I was (am!) a sucker for such things—because things of that type always spoke to my Soul. It wasn’t until just the other day, when I saw it on a shelf in my home, that I realized it was a sign about my Dad.

That’s my Dad right there.

See the resemblance?

And then there was this:

I’m still reading that book by John O’Donohue; the one I said in a recent post that I had stalled in. I’ve picked it back up and I’m reading it again—but slowly. This is one of those books I need to read slowly because it is so rich. Every page; every paragraph, sentence, and word, pregnant in, well, beauty.

In the renewed reading, while on my blue couch during a rainy Sunday afternoon (aka “a perfect day!”), I discovered, courtesy of John O’Donohue, the lyrical secret to Dad’s brand of parenting:

There is a kindness in beauty which can inform and bless a lesser force adjacent to it. It has been shown, for instance, that when there are two harps tuned to the same frequency in a room, one a large harp and the other smaller, if a chord is struck in the bigger harp it fills and infuses the little harp with the grandeur and beauty of its resonance and brings it into tuneful harmony. Then, the little harp sounds out its own tune in its own voice. This is one of the unnoticed ways in which a child learns to become herself. Perhaps the most powerful way parents rear children is through the quality of their presence and the atmosphere that pertains in the in-between times of each day. Unconsciously, the child absorbs this and hopefully parents send out enough tuneful spirit for their child to come into harmony with her own voice. In its graciousness, beauty often touches our hearts with the grandeur and nobility of its larger resonance. In our daily lives, such resonance usually eludes us. We can only awaken to it when beauty visits us. Like intimacy, beauty is reserved. It turns us towards that primal music from which all silence and language grow.

~ John O’Donohue (p. 58)

“[…] the quality of their presence and the atmosphere that pertains in the in-between times of each day.”

With luck, my brothers and I were able to “unconsciously absorb” that which always went unsaid from the large harp that was in our lives. There were never any grand pronouncements, explicit teachings, overt Eldering lessons, or directions to “do it my way” or “this way.” And weirdly, I cannot recall ever going to my Dad for advice (I’ll have to ruminate on that some more). But to whatever degree any of us three can be said to have found our own voices in our worlds, we do owe it to the one who was able to strike the sacred chords of integrity, humility, hard work, and kindness—so that his innate and quiet nobility, and the understated grandeur of his character, could resonate within each of us, to our core. To the degree we are resonating with the qualities from his lived example, THAT would be due, then, solely to the quality of his quiet presence. Turns out, I never had to go to him for advice.

I just had to absorb.

And THAT was Dad’s secret to parenting.

Love, always Love,

Kert

🙏🏼

Postscript I: the next post I’ll send out on Monday, April 10; it will contain more information on the final services for Dad including a zoom link if you would like to “zoom in” to the funeral that will take place on Saturday, April 15. We also hope to record it.

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Postscript II: At dinner the same day I read that O’Donohue passage, Kristin, out of the blue, asked me if I remembered the last words my Dad said to me.

I said I did.

She said, when she heard my reply, “That’s so great you will have that as one of your final memories.”

I said I agreed.

But the way she phrased her question was key. In my answer, I spoke the truth. But those words said to me were not the last words Dad ever said. I think I know what those are too, but those were words likely recalled from the distant memory of his “way back” that held no significance or relevance to us, but certainly did to Dad. They were the words that were puzzling us for a while and said aloud to no one but the ethereal ghosts present only in the confines of his mind. If you are an adept and frequent reader, you might be able to guess at what those words were.

But Dad’s last words to me?

They were his response to what I said to him right before, which was proof at that time that he was still with us, and hearing us, and responsive, even though he was in and out of a deep, semi-comatose sleep. And, it was proof of Dad’s innate character—I know his response was not habitual nor on autopilot; it was further evidence, not that we needed it, of the nobility and grandeur of his resonance. An embodied and verbal expression of The Greater Harmony he lived through his way of being in our world.

In other words, he knew what he was saying.

Kristin: Do you remember the last words your Dad said to you?

Me (in the soft and whispered tenor of Dad’s voice that by that time was the loudest he could vocally register):

“I love you too.”

Now you tell ME who’s the luckiest person in the world.

💜

From the archive:

One Life’s Legacy