“I Wanted Something of Me to Remain There.”

Christopher David, MSW, LCSW,  is one of my coaches.  He is currently working as a Social Worker for Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare – All Saints.  He has over 19 years experience in social work and he is extraordinary.  After my cancer diagnosis in June of 2008, he kept me sane and authentic and has continued to guide me on my spiritual and professional paths.  He is compassionate, straight-talking, brilliant and funny.  I am thrilled that he has accepted my offer to write a featured bi-monthly guest blog From the Coach’s Coach. 

 

I’m a big fan of podcasts, including those free from public radio.  They’re easy to acquire, usually free and simple to playback via a variety of mediums.  I listen to mine on disc – burnt as MP3’s.  The poor man’s IPod.  The Future of Information Technology is here and it’s whacking me in the face with a big #1 foam hand.  It tickles and I love it.

 I download a lot of audio.  Due to the sheer volume and limited time to listen, I am behind on what I download by months.  So the time sensitive news shows have gone out the window and I am more discriminating about what I keep.  While much becomes fodder to skip through, sometimes there are real jewels.

 One of those gems featured a recent interview on the show “On Point” with someone I admire: Elie Wiesel.  He is most famous for his autobiographical novel Night about his experiences surviving the Holocaust.  He is also a professor, activist for human rights and Nobel Laureate for Peace.  The quality I find most admirable is the mindful spaciousness he creates in conversation.  It’s an invitation to ponder deep questions.  When listening, I have the emotional and intellectual response akin to appreciating a Shakespearean soliloquy done by a skilled actor or hearing a poem read by a master orator.  As one who listens for a living, I find his speech and eloquence full of subtlety and complexity you rarely find.  It reflects a very trained and creative mind.  I wonder if he ever has a problem turning it off in the supermarket and ponders too carefully the regular or quilted Charmin. 

 He is someone who as a survivor experienced tremendous horror and depersonalization, yet in the wake of it has cultivated wisdom and graciousness.  When he says that he truly doesn’t understand evil, you grasp that his reverence for life overpowers any attempt to make it fit his worldview.  Despite the brutality and loss he experienced, he raised his humanity and that of all humanity through his efforts.  I first read Night in high school and return to it from time-to-time as a touchstone.

In the interview, a caller asked him if he had ever returned to his birthplace in Romania following the war.  Mr. Wiesel responded that he had returned 20 years after the war.  He recalled that the night before his family’s deportation to the ghetto, they hid valuables; in his case he hid a gold watch he had gotten as a gift from his grandfather.  He buried it under a tree in the yard.  So during his return visit he ventured to the home at midnight while the current occupants were asleep.  He went to the tree and dug for it.  He found it.  After over 20 years it was still there.  But instead of taking it, he put it back into the earth.

 The interviewer was surprised by this decision and asked him why.  Mr. Wiesel replied: “I wanted something of me to remain there.”  He needed to make real his history and preserve the memory of his family who all perished.  It was imperative to have a tangible remnant of that history remain there.  Years later his childhood home was made into a museum and the watch still remains in the ground where he left it.   As I sat with his words and thoughtful pauses, I reflected on meaning and legacy.

 Currently, I work in oncology as a social worker and psychotherapist.  There is little else that crystallizes one’s thinking on legacy and meaning than receipt of a cancer diagnosis.  When interviewing patients, I normally ask about any suicidal ideation or gestures.  One patient I talked to recently told me with watering eyes that he spent some time thinking about it just following receipt of his diagnosis.  In his sorrow, he thought that getting it over quick might be the best option.  Here was an opportunity to embrace despair, yet he did not.  I asked him what changed his thinking.  He replied: “My grandchildren.  I want to spend some more time with them.” 

 For this authentic and insightful man, his grandchildren and loved ones are his golden watch.  They are what is most valuable and to whom he imbues his meaning and legacy.  Sadly, in absence of family Mr. Wiesel had the watch to verify his history and legacy.  To me, his writing and activism on behalf of human rights is a much larger legacy and will endure.  His work is the best way he has preserved and nurtured the memory of those he lost and all of the victims of the Holocaust.

 So, what or who is your golden watch?  How are you honoring the legacy of those you’ve lost?  What are you doing to protect and nurture your legacy and the legacy of those you love in your life right now?  How are you cultivating meaning in your life? 

Christopher David

June 11, 2009