Life-Enriching Relationships

May they be brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

Dear Aly and Bella,

Just over a year ago, Grandpa Tom lost his battle with leukemia.

In the final three weeks of his life, while still close to full strength, hundreds of friends, family, and acquaintances dropped by to express their appreciation for his friendship and the contribution he made to their life.

The parade of grateful expression was like sweet nectar for your grandpa, not because his ego was stoked by taking in the testaments, but because it gave him the opportunity to express his love to them one last time.

People brought Grandpa Tom joy and happiness. Relationships were the essence of who he was.

Grandpa Tom didn’t believe relationships just happened by circumstance or coincidence. Rather he held it that meaningful connection was created, and cultivated, one interaction at a time. And when accompanied by the critical yeast of time, the bonds of relationships expanded. Deepened.  

Aly and Bella, being just twelve, you only knew Grandpa Tom for a short time. I want to capture for you some of the special perspectives Grandpa Tom brought to his relationships with the hope you may learn from what he modeled.

For Grandpa Tom – it was always about others and almost never about himself. As a physician, ailments weren’t merely to be solved, but patients to be understood. As a dad, kids weren’t just to be carpooled, but to be mentored and coached. Grandpa Tom enjoyed seeing life through the eyes of another – seeing what they saw and feeling what they felt.

Grandpa Tom brought love to relationships. On many occasions, we would “till the ground of love” by reading greats like Marcus Borg and Richard Rohr and listening to David Whyte. We endeavored to increase our capacity to be more loving. Sometimes that meant calling forth compassion or summoning kindness when judgment crept in.

I recall a time when we met to play golf. Before teeing off, Grandpa Tom walked across the practice green to engage a man putting by himself at the far edge – away from everyone else. They spoke for several minutes. Walking down the first fairway I asked who he was. Grandpa Tom shared that he was a club member who, years prior, had been convicted of embezzlement.

The man spent ten years in prison and was now rebuilding his life. It would have been easy, and possibly less awkward, if Grandpa Tom had kept to himself, like the others on the green. Instead, recognizing the humanity in this man, Grandpa Tom went out of his way to extend kindness.

Grandpa Tom liked the perspective – “for all the finite resources on our planet, love might be the only infinite resource there really is. We just need to look within.”

A few months prior to Grandpa Tom’s passing, I came across a profound definition of love. I couldn’t wait to share it with him – to till it, as we would say.

“Love is the non-possessive delight in the particularity of the other.”

Grandpa Tom loved it – mostly because it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the other. He delighted in the particularity of others. When I shared it with him, I misspoke and said “peculiarity,” instead of “particularity.” We laughed. He thought that was even more accurate.

Grandpa Tom’s love for others far exceeded differences in opinion. Aly and Bella, you know those weekly rounds of golf and card games Grandpa Tom oriented himself around. The majority of his friends were on the opposite end of the political spectrum. They had spirited debates and sometimes, albeit rarely, took breaks from each other. But they always returned. Grandpa Tom embraced diversity in a room full of people, when these days, most are on the hunt for a like-minded tribe.

Grandpa Tom believed that God dwells in all of us, as us.

Some pray to connect with the Divine. While Grandpa Tom did that too, his way of connecting to God was through others – horizontally more so than vertically.

Grandpa Tom was an incessant question-asker, contending that you could “listen a soul into existence.” He wasn’t just interested in the exchange of information with another. He was interested in their feelings and understanding who they were and why. His gift of acute listening drew people in while drawing their souls out. 

He even remarked to me after an exchange with someone he wasn’t particularly fond of, “They were an acquired taste,” – reflecting his commitment to look for the gold in everyone.

Aly and Bella, Grandpa Tom’s body responded well to his chemotherapy - he lived for about 2 ½ years after he was diagnosed. As a retired physician, he understood his monthly lab results as well as his oncologist. With about six months left, his ‘numbers’ began to worsen. He knew his window was narrowing and he let us know. He didn’t fear dying.

A few months prior to his passing we had a conversation I’ll never forget.

I was out on a walk late one night and I called Grandpa Tom to check in. Near the end of our conversation he said, “James, as I get nearer and nearer to the end of my time, the connections with your mother, with you, your lovely daughters Aly and Bella, your brother, sisters, and their kids, I find it’s really, really……..”

He choked up. He started to cry.

I waited.

I waited some more.

The silence was overshadowed by Grandpa Tom crying, which he didn’t do often.

My mind wandered for a moment, and I started to think about what he was going to say. That he felt sorry his remaining time was so short. That he was going to deeply miss Grandma Brada – his bride of almost 60 years. That he wished he’d had more time to say or do something else?

He pulled himself together and said, “I find, that as the time draws shorter and shorter, my interactions with all of you are unbelievably, brilliant.”

Brilliant.

He continued, “These interactions have an intensity, a radiance, which is just utterly brilliant. It’s like time slows down and the light and energy from you all becomes more intense. It’s hard to describe – to put into words. It’s simply brilliant.”

If I had a thousand adjectives to choose from, I wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to pick brilliant.

I came to a park bench, sat down, and wept.

I felt a rush of emotion.

I felt gratitude that your Grandpa Tom was not just my father but was also my best friend. I felt joy for the relationship we shared - that we had remained connected and we kept cultivating, despite typical father-son struggles interspersed along the way.  

In the raw silence of that very moment, sitting on a park bench, I believe I felt the brilliance Grandpa Tom had just described. It felt like love.

Aly and Bella, Grandpa Tom showed us by putting others first, by listening souls into existence, by delighting in the peculiarities of others, that relationships are the source of magnificent happiness.

As you forge your way into adulthood you have a wonderful opportunity to extend your love to others, like Grandpa Tom did, while creating and nurturing relationships in your own unique way. 

May your relationships compound over time, and one day, in the back half of your life, become utterly brilliant for you too. 

Much love,

Dad

Grandpa Tom kissing Grandma Brada goodnight for the last time,
seven days prior to passing. (Grandma Brada in the bottom
of the ninth inning of Alzheimer’s.)