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I celebrated my birthday this weekend and I received the most beautiful note I have ever received from a friend. I can't imagine a better birthday gift. It is a deeply personal ode to my father. I share it only because I think it is too beautiful a gift for me to keep for myself and I do so in honor of my father.
The scene was an event space where Marcin Patrzałek performed for us. I met @MarcinGuitar on @X. He is an incredible talent.
The note came in the form of a WhatsApp text:
Dear Bill,
Yesterday, while a young prodigy performed before an audience of spellbound spectators—much like one is captivated by a magician with more than one trick up his sleeve—images from a family album flashed across a screen. Adults and children with smiling faces, confident in life, happy to be together. Faces of parents, children, and friends—profiles of happiness and silhouettes of joy. Not a cloud in the sky, just the unfolding of a life blessed by love and closeness, gently swept along by the fresh air of travel, camaraderie, and family gatherings. And in all of this, a constant presence by your side, as if you were inseparable, to the point that one might have wondered who was the shadow of whom: your father. The resemblance between the two of you has grown over time—no doubt the effect of graying hair, but not only that: in both men, the same satisfaction in their eyes, stemming from the fact that they have fulfilled their obligations to their loved ones with courage and determination, and that this justifies saying, without presumption, that they did not come into existence for nothing and that they have even carved out a path that has itself become a road to fulfillment for others. The satisfaction, then, of having lived up to a duty that no one in particular ever demanded of oneself, nor spelled out in so many words, nor described in advance, but which nonetheless haunted the conscience of the human being that one is. It is this duty that gives meaning to existence, but also to that category of Mensch that has often been mentioned in connection with you over the course of this weekend. So, yesterday, on the screen, behind a sort of genius-like, slow-to-mature teenager, capable of transforming a toccata as beautiful as the world into a rock riff of eternal youth, what I saw was this: a mature Mensch, loving to take his wife’s hand in his, leaning gently, kindly, and confidently over a little boy at first, then a teenager, and finally an adult who has become a father in his turn, to tell him without saying it: I am you, my son, and you are me, your father; we are united forever, so that everything I do, you do it, and everything you do, I do it. It was then that I myself understood not only where your self-confidence came from, but where that wild generosity, that tireless desire to do good, that appetite for loving life and blessing its kindnesses, came from. Where your sense of responsibility came from. Where your will to find happiness came from. The fact that your father is gone changes nothing about the fact that he never left, and that he will never leave. Leaving simply meant that he would not only be within you, but that he is you. For a while, gazing at these photos, with a fascination that grew as I noticed the absence of any negativity in them, I asked myself: can one ever recover from the loss of such a father? How can one bear his absence, when the love received was so strong? Even the greatest love one can have for one’s wife and children cannot heal the wound of time passing and taking our most precious affections away from our presence... But no, these questions were wrong: I realized this as the photos scrolled by. This father who was supposed to be absent was very much there, completely there, there as never before; he was right in front of me, in the flesh, in the room. He was wearing a bright blue tuxedo and a crisp white shirt; his gaze was clear, like that of someone who sees far and from afar. I myself had just given him a hug; I had just thanked him for the three days of enchanted wonder he had given to his loved ones. Well, yes, this man and his father were one and the same person, and it was from understanding this that came that indescribable feeling of having accomplished something in his life. In the thanks to everyone for contributing to this success, there were two voices in one. The merging of two voices. It was your father thanking your loved ones for making you who you are. It was you thanking your father for making you who you are. It’s not that you’ve made money, that you’ve become known to strangers, that you have the power to influence the course of events, etc. No, none of that matters much. What matters is that you are now living proof that life always triumphs over death, as Judaism teaches anyone who is willing to listen. Yesterday on the screen, in the close-up faces of a father and son, the psalm of the prophet Hosea shone through: “O death, where is your victory?”
Happy 60th, my dearest Bill,
English
