A Letter to Erin

July 22, 2017 Pat Moriarty

Dear Erin,

I had a strange dream the other night and it got me thinking about you and your one-year-old Sam, and the meaning of fatherhood. The dream poked me in the eye and reminded me of a remarkable moment we shared when you were growing up.

I often settle myself into sleep by recalling happy thoughts of our time together: shooting hoops in the back yard, launching marshmallows into orbit with badminton rackets, or watching your college cycling races at Michigan.

A few nights ago my thoughts turned a different direction. As I was drifting off to sleep a dream memory entered my half conscious mind, one that goes back to when you were about to graduate from high school.

Do you remember how we’d watch the evening news right after Home Improvement? One night the lead story was on the famine in Darfur and the conditions in one particular refugee camp where a reporter interviewed a father and his young son.

The father shared how his village had been attacked by forces of the Sudanese government and burnt to the ground along with their possessions. During the assault his wife and daughter were raped murdered in front of them. The father and son were later tortured and left for dead. Somehow they survived and found their way to a refugee camp where, for three years, and they existed on cornmeal, water and and the loving encouragement of each other. They were living in what appeared to be horrific circumstances. It was hard to imagine how they made it through one day, let alone three years.

Yet this father and his son were very much alive.

This startling interview revealed how they’d moved beyond, way beyond, the devastation they had experienced and into a deeply uncertain existence that was far from over. They shared their hopes and dreams for life after the camp and their conviction that they’d live to see that day. What amazed me was their upbeat, can-do attitude in circumstances that warranted no such optimism. No one watching that interview could not have been touched deeply by the love and devotion of this father and son.

I remember wondering to myself, where was the bitterness, the resentment, the outrage. Why weren’t they screaming for revenge? When asked this question the father raised both his hands and simply said,

To what end?
Would his wife and daughter be brought back to life?
Would his village be saved?

Somehow, some way, this father and son had found a way to let go and move on from their misery and find a place deep inside where all the horror, sadness, and unfairness of life could not touch them. They were teaching us both a great lesson about where real happiness and contentment can be found.

Not from our possessions:

For the truth is, all too often we come to be owned by what we possess.
That which we hold tightly often disappears.
Even those we love the most are not ours forever.

This father and son showed that life is best lived with a light touch and an open hand, remembering things are best borrowed and not possessed.

The interview ended with the boy offering the correspondent a bracelet made from rocks he’d found about the camp, rocks that could not be taken from him.

Best that we find happiness where we are, in the events of each day.

Affectionately, and give Sam a hug from Grandpa Pat.

Pat

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