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My father used to give the full credit of our academic achievements to my mother. For him the environment fostered by her created the conditions for us to get well recognized degrees and the basis for the globetrotting lives that we both pursue. He had aspired himself to professional status and an international career, our development was certainly a source of pride. He saw himself as the provider of means, but not more than that.
It is true that my mother comes from a family where books, high culture and academia were highly regarded. The library in my grandfather's house was significant by any standard, my two uncles are high-level professors, my mother is a teacher by training, my sister grew up to be an international book editor. Here and there in that family tree, one finds a PhD. Books were everywhere in my childhood, and every year on my birthday and Christmas, the gift would five or ten books and the odd toy. It is certain that my book loving traits come from those chromosomes.
My father was on the adventurous, risk-taking side. He was also sort of a wanderer, who would not hesitate to go to another town in search of a different opportunity. A salesman by training, he liked to be on the road, even when the positions he got started to demand less and less of travel. I have the impression that he saw those piles of books with awe and suspicion. He was also short tempered, and I have the feeling that he was uneasy with the long hours I spent reading or studying. At the same time he installed with care all the bookshelves I needed in my room, he would see all those lines of books as holding me back from going out in the world. In more than a sense, he was not wrong.
My mother told me once that her father appreciated my father quite a lot. It puzzled me at the time, in retrospect I can understand why. The bold, action-loving, hands-on personality of my father were certainly in strong contrast with the temperament of my mother's family. Later I learned that my grand-father was more like my father than I would suspect. And I feel the appreciation was mutual.
***
When I was admitted in a prestigious engineering school in Brazil, my father was extremely proud. The day the admissions results came out, he was the first to call the school's office to check them. While he was calling family to spread the news, I was playing soccer with friends. It was a sunny afternoon after all, and I was expecting to check the results in the morning, when they were to be published in the newspapers. My father's father heard of my success before I did.
The school was one hundred-fifty kilometers away, in a smaller city. Even though I expected the result, I was a bit shocked when confronted by the news. After the first visits to the school, the harsh study environment I found in the dorms, and the first contacts with would-be colleagues, I panicked. Although I aimed for that result, the introspective, shy, inexperienced seventeen years old I was became desperate with the prospect of adulthood. I tried to negotiate my way through with my parents, I evaluated stopping studying for one year, I thought about exchanging that school by a less prestigious engineering school in my home town. I felt violated by the sudden reality pulling me out of my nest. For three years I had been working extremely hard, studying ten to twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day, to prepare the entry exam for the school. As soon as I was admitted, I was ready to let all go. Every Sunday afternoon, by the time I had to go catch the intercity bus that would take me from my home town to the school, I was severely depressed, I remember crying in silence many times during travel to the school.
Unsurprisingly, my father did not have the same opinion. He took matters in his own hands and started to drive me all the way to the school. He drove one hundred-fifty kilometers, dropped me gently at the school - in many occasions he stayed with me until he saw I had my spirits - and the drove the one hundred-fifty kilometers back. Most of the times, we drove in silence, he was concentrated on the road, I was too absorbed by my ghosts to say anything. This went for weeks and weeks, in the first semester of 1989, his Sundays afternoons fully consumed by the back-and-forth trips between the cities.
Slowly but surely, I got more and more used to the new life. By the end of the first academic year all the depression was gone, and I was launched in the world.
***
For many years, I had the impression all that effort was partly because of me, and partly because he did not want to loose face by that situation. I never mentioned it, but I felt my success was his success too, and he didn't want us both to give up on that.
His gentle strategy of not confronting me but supporting me; the silences we shared in the car without judgment or admonition; the fact this story was barely mentioned after that year; everything points to what it was: my father doing what he judged best for me.
In fact, after years thinking about that year, I think understand why father was appreciated by his father-in-law. My father valued his presence in this world, he was both physically and mentally in the action. Those traits were a perfect complement for a cosy, intellectual, book-loving family culture. That strong push by my father allowed me to finish off that period of my life. Years of study effort would have been wasted if had given up.
This is his transmission, and the piece that is untold when he gave the credit for my achievements to my mother. Nowadays, that first school year, his year with me, is an inspiration for whenever I need to put my will to work, when reason itself is not sufficient for me to act. Those Sunday afternoons in the car are with me when I need that extra, gentle push.
.
It is true that my mother comes from a family where books, high culture and academia were highly regarded. The library in my grandfather's house was significant by any standard, my two uncles are high-level professors, my mother is a teacher by training, my sister grew up to be an international book editor. Here and there in that family tree, one finds a PhD. Books were everywhere in my childhood, and every year on my birthday and Christmas, the gift would five or ten books and the odd toy. It is certain that my book loving traits come from those chromosomes.
My father was on the adventurous, risk-taking side. He was also sort of a wanderer, who would not hesitate to go to another town in search of a different opportunity. A salesman by training, he liked to be on the road, even when the positions he got started to demand less and less of travel. I have the impression that he saw those piles of books with awe and suspicion. He was also short tempered, and I have the feeling that he was uneasy with the long hours I spent reading or studying. At the same time he installed with care all the bookshelves I needed in my room, he would see all those lines of books as holding me back from going out in the world. In more than a sense, he was not wrong.
My mother told me once that her father appreciated my father quite a lot. It puzzled me at the time, in retrospect I can understand why. The bold, action-loving, hands-on personality of my father were certainly in strong contrast with the temperament of my mother's family. Later I learned that my grand-father was more like my father than I would suspect. And I feel the appreciation was mutual.
***
When I was admitted in a prestigious engineering school in Brazil, my father was extremely proud. The day the admissions results came out, he was the first to call the school's office to check them. While he was calling family to spread the news, I was playing soccer with friends. It was a sunny afternoon after all, and I was expecting to check the results in the morning, when they were to be published in the newspapers. My father's father heard of my success before I did.
The school was one hundred-fifty kilometers away, in a smaller city. Even though I expected the result, I was a bit shocked when confronted by the news. After the first visits to the school, the harsh study environment I found in the dorms, and the first contacts with would-be colleagues, I panicked. Although I aimed for that result, the introspective, shy, inexperienced seventeen years old I was became desperate with the prospect of adulthood. I tried to negotiate my way through with my parents, I evaluated stopping studying for one year, I thought about exchanging that school by a less prestigious engineering school in my home town. I felt violated by the sudden reality pulling me out of my nest. For three years I had been working extremely hard, studying ten to twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day, to prepare the entry exam for the school. As soon as I was admitted, I was ready to let all go. Every Sunday afternoon, by the time I had to go catch the intercity bus that would take me from my home town to the school, I was severely depressed, I remember crying in silence many times during travel to the school.
Unsurprisingly, my father did not have the same opinion. He took matters in his own hands and started to drive me all the way to the school. He drove one hundred-fifty kilometers, dropped me gently at the school - in many occasions he stayed with me until he saw I had my spirits - and the drove the one hundred-fifty kilometers back. Most of the times, we drove in silence, he was concentrated on the road, I was too absorbed by my ghosts to say anything. This went for weeks and weeks, in the first semester of 1989, his Sundays afternoons fully consumed by the back-and-forth trips between the cities.
Slowly but surely, I got more and more used to the new life. By the end of the first academic year all the depression was gone, and I was launched in the world.
***
For many years, I had the impression all that effort was partly because of me, and partly because he did not want to loose face by that situation. I never mentioned it, but I felt my success was his success too, and he didn't want us both to give up on that.
His gentle strategy of not confronting me but supporting me; the silences we shared in the car without judgment or admonition; the fact this story was barely mentioned after that year; everything points to what it was: my father doing what he judged best for me.
In fact, after years thinking about that year, I think understand why father was appreciated by his father-in-law. My father valued his presence in this world, he was both physically and mentally in the action. Those traits were a perfect complement for a cosy, intellectual, book-loving family culture. That strong push by my father allowed me to finish off that period of my life. Years of study effort would have been wasted if had given up.
This is his transmission, and the piece that is untold when he gave the credit for my achievements to my mother. Nowadays, that first school year, his year with me, is an inspiration for whenever I need to put my will to work, when reason itself is not sufficient for me to act. Those Sunday afternoons in the car are with me when I need that extra, gentle push.
.
10 July 2014
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