Resilience

“Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up.”  (Mary Holloway, resilience coach)

 My father was born in 1919, the middle of three boys. His mother died in the winter of 1925 when the three boys were all still young.  After her death, their father moved frequently, usually following some get-rich-quick scheme.  They moved from rental to rental in order not to have to pay the landlord.  When there was nowhere else to stay, the boys slept on park benches. Their teen years coincided with the Great Depression, during which time they had very little. Not only was poverty widespread, so was antisemitism. At 17 my father left home and moved to Dallas to take a job selling shoes.  Shortly thereafter his brothers joined him for the opportunity to earn some money.  During the war, my father flew 25 combat missions over Europe.  His brothers served stateside.

I was reading my uncle’s memoirs and his description of those times. The brothers faced loss and hardship without counseling, without support, and without financial assistance. Given the circumstances of their lives, I was particularly struck by one comment in the memoir.  My uncle said that neither he nor his brothers ever felt sorry for themselves. 

All three of the boys went on to lead productive and successful lives. None of them ever seemed bitter or resentful about the conditions of their growing up. To my knowledge, none of them ever had any serious mental health crises. None of them were users of drugs or alcohol.  My father became a restauranteur and later an antique dealer.  His older brother became a professor of English and later the Dean of Liberal Arts at a local university.  His younger brother became a mechanical engineer, spending most of his career working for the federal government.  By societal standards, they led conventional middle-class lives. Each of the brothers married and remained married.  Each helped raise well-educated and successful children.

I don’t want to over-glorify their accomplishments.  I know my father paid a significant emotional toll as a result of his early losses and hardships.  I know less about the emotional toll that childhood hardships took on my uncles.  By the standards of these times, my father and his brothers would be considered victims of significant trauma and neglect.

I am struck by how different the times were then compared with the times now. What for me is the most poignant aspect of their story is that they never felt like victims. They never acted like victims. I never heard them blame others. I never heard them lament life’s unfairness. I never witnessed my father or his brothers acting as if the world owed them something. They expected to have to work, and they did so. From the crucible of their childhood, they emerged self-reliant, and they emerged resilient. 

I respect and admire what all three were able to achieve. Perhaps it’s a son’s curiosity, perhaps it’s professional curiosity, but I can’t help but wonder. Against all odds, how did they do it?