The second time my brother brought me to tears was last night when he spoke at the Democratic convention–not the same kind of crying jag that resulted from the truck incident, but rather tears that come from a swell of pride, tears that spring straight from the heart.
There was something sweetly haunting about the cadence of his voice, the occasional tilt of his head. There was a shadow of our father there, a shadow that rustled beneath the skin of his son and made more than a few people see the resemblance. I suppose I have seen hints of that in the past–a son showing characteristics of our father, Ronald Reagan–but never as much as I saw them last night.
When a loved one dies, you try to fill up the empty space that person has left behind. You fill it up with each other. My mother, Ron and I stretch ourselves across the chasm my father left when he died. We fill it up with long conversations, with frequent visits and, most importantly, with carrying on–trying to do something in this world that will help, that will have worth and resonance. Last night my brother filled up that empty space with a fierce compassion, a pledge to further the effort of stem-cell research, a commitment to help herald in a new dawn of medicine that is nothing short of miraculous.
Our father had a unique gift of being both strong and gentle when he spoke. I don’t know if that gift can be passed down genetically, but it might be. Ron was asked in an interview about the “courage” it took for him to speak at the Democratic convention. He smiled, shook his head and said he didn’t see it as courage at all–he just believes in what he was there to talk about. He wants to make a difference, and this was a great opportunity. Our father never saw himself as brave, yet he was. That’s the thing about true courage–it’s always softened by humility.
There are obvious challenges to being the offspring of a man who has left such a huge imprint on the world. More so for a son, I think. I have thought about that over the years–and thought about it again as thousands of people lined the streets of America to express their grief over our father’s passing. I thought about the uniquely male desire of a son to fill his father’s footprints with his own. I wondered if in some corner of his heart my brother sighed a little and said, These are footprints no one else can fill. But there is this: we are the children of a man who believed that every person on this earth has a purpose and a reason for being here. He believed that no one is more important than anyone else. We are all different, and we are all special. He taught us well.
My brother has stepped forward to help in the cause that our father has left us with–a cause that can help thousands, possibly millions of people live lives free of disease. My mother, Ron and I stood at our father’s bedside when he took his last breath. We knew we would have to go on from that day, that moment, that room that was suddenly so silent. We would have to remember all that my father taught us about making a difference in the world, and we would have to trust that if we spoke from our hearts, people would listen. I believe my father was watching his son last night. I believe he was smiling. I think he cocked his head and said, “Well, look at that.” As children we never lose the desire to make our parents proud of us. We run away from that desire for years, until we decide to stop running. But we never lose it. My brother accomplished that last night–he made his father proud.
