Undeserved Gifts

My father and I were standing in the large back bedroom of our house, which I shared with my brother Jeremy and which served for some months as the venue for our family’s nightly performance of Royal Canadian Air Force exercises.

I don’t remember what, if any, conversation preceded Dad’s comment. Just him saying to me rather matter-of-factly, “You’re smarter than most people, you’re better-looking than most people (okay, he was my father, and it was a long time ago); and you are more affluent than most people. And you did nothing to deserve it.” Whether my father actually said it, or it was only implied, I understood that I was thereby obligated to make the most of my undeserved gifts for the good of others.

Many times over the years, I have described those words as the primary message with which I was raised, though I have only that one memory of my father articulating it specifically.

I wish I could sum up my legacy as succinctly for my descendants. Or that there were some image of me that my children will all share — like the image my friend Alan Sakowitz bears of his father, who while on family vacation in Mexico City plunged without hesitation into a gang of toughs beating a complete stranger. Years later, at a crucial juncture in his life, that image forced Alan to share with the FBI his suspicions about a Ponzi scheme, knowing that he was thereby putting his life and that of his family in danger.