My Dad shaped so much of my life, he was my greatest living hero.
We knew he was dying months before he died and I was supposed to write something like this before he died so that he could read it himself. I couldn't bring myself to write it then. I don't know that I will ever be good enough at writing to capture how much he means to me. And I think he knew better than I could ever express how I feel about him. But I think I need to do this for me and those that want to understand me better.
I didn't (and don't) feel sorrow for losing him. That's not an emotion that I feel very much. Perhaps that's sociopathic of me. But I do get teary eyed when I think about how much he means to me and how grateful I am that he is, and always will be, such a big part of my life.
He was such Don Quijote, chasing wild dreams that perhaps could never possibly be realized. He love reading about great people from history. While reading about Benjamin Franklin and a large compilation of Franklin's own writings he discovered that Benjamin Franklin wanted to write a book called, "The Art of Virtue." He loved how Franklin had captured such essential ideas on how one needs to frame their thinking to avoid self-deception and to open one's mind to think more clearly and more productively. My dad did an amazing job of capturing these ideas in The Art of Virtue. But it is by no means an easy book to read. It's packed with ideas that might seem easy on the surface but that can take life times to master.
As my dad looked at these virtues of early American founding fathers and compared their examples to many of the problems we face today in America, he discovered what he called the "Missing Piece of Education." He worried that the education system of today isn't designed to create the kind of greatness that could be found in Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or other great leaders of the past.
He died virtually unknown to the world, while being the most amazing champion of greatness that I have ever known. I can only image what it must have felt like for him, to have fought his whole life for something like these ideals and never feel like he really got anywhere with them.
I think that if you look at each of his children you can see how each of us imperfectly try to live up to these ideals of greatness.
Right before he died he wrote a wonderful review for my book publicly, but privately told me how he didn't like my book. He didn't like how flashy I made greatness look. Greatness, he told me is so much more subtle. It's found in the people that are often passed over and over looked. It's the kind of story that isn't exciting -- it's the mom that's lovingly taking care of three kids who are all screaming at the same time, or the dad that's struggling to make ends meet, or the son that's trying to fit in at school. ... It's found in so many places that aren't glamorous or even fun. It was and is my dad.
