Lessons Our Parents Teach Last a Lifetime

My dad has been dead for 12 years. Last Saturday would have been his 93rd birthday.

My mom's birthday is Oct. 8, and would have been, well, I'm not sure. She was 39 when I was born and by some miracle was 39 when she died in 1995.

I guess I never aged her.

Well, that's definitely not true.

She would have been 90 if she were alive today. Sixteen years ago Monday, she was passed away. I was lucky to have my dad for 39 years and my mom for 35 years.

That's the math part of the column.

One thing I didn't inherit from them was math skills. My sister got all that. I might not have learned math from them, but I learned a whole bunch more.

I'm the beneficiary of Rocky and Sylvia Hardman's blueprint for life. These days, I'll be delivering words of wisdom and catch myself in the middle of it. "Hey, my dad sounded like that." Or I'll be making a tough decision and I'll check myself. "What would Rocky or Sylvia do?"

It wasn't like my dad or my mom were great philosophers or scholars.

They were just normal people. Nobody would ever write a book or make a movie about Rocky and Sylvia.

My dad dropped out of high school to work, while my mother was a high school graduate. She joked that she’d graduated from Tufts University, which was true, because in those days, Somerville High School held its graduation there.

She was a talented artist and could have gone to college, but it was during the war, and she went to work instead. Women didn't have the post-high school options they have these days.

While not exactly rich, both made sure my sister and I were educated and went to college.

They both worked hard until cancer prevented them for doing so, taking care of their family and stretching nickels into dollars to pay bills. That was the deal for them.

Basically, you just did it. Both had hard times growing up in the Depression. My dad lost his mom when he was 12 and lived with family members in West Virginia, while Mom's dad scraped around for any work he could find.

Working on a farm while growing up, I worked with both my parents in the fields. It was very difficult to keep up with them, but you learned never to complain about it. "You have a job do. They are paying you good money to do it."

I heard that a lot.

If you were told to work eight hours, you worked eight hours. Laziness wasn't allowed.

My dad was in World War II as a young man, but he never talked much about that. He was honored for his bravery in battle, but any discussion of that was quickly tossed aside. "Wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

Don't brag was another rule. You didn't get it done alone. Be humble. They could brag on you, but you couldn't brag on yourself.

From my mom, I learned charity and the value of giving to others, but was also very confused about our religious beliefs.

I was baptized a Methodist, but we spent a lot of time in the local Catholic Church, helping out with fairs and raising money. I even learned to pray the rosary.

It got to a point where the priest asked my mom why she wasn't ever at Mass. "I'm not Catholic, Father," she answered. "Why are you helping out then?" he countered. My mom loved to knit things, and they were a popular sale item at the church's bazaars.

Besides, her friends were involved in it.

We also went to temple with our Jewish friends for lectures and films. "You'll learn something," my mom said when I asked why we were going. I learned a lot about the religion and the culture.

In fact, I don't think there was a church or temple I didn't go to growing up.

Before I was born, aunts on both sides of my family died, and my cousins came to live with my parents. They were a very young couple and suddenly were raising children who were elementary school age, who had just lost their mothers.

That couldn't have been easy, raising their sisters' children as their own, but there was no complaining about that

"Your family comes first," my dad would say. "It's your responsibility to take care of them."

My dad never had trouble sleeping. He could sit in the chair and fall asleep at the drop of a hat. He called it a "clear conscience." "If you live your life the right way and are honest, you don't have a lot of things on your mind to keep you awake," he would say.

It wasn't like it was a 24/7 indoctrination of the Hardman Family Philosophy. They both liked to hear jokes, to laugh, drink beer and hang out with friends.

They were both affectionate people and gave big-time hugs.

I sure miss them, but in some ways, it's like they never left my life.

I still hear them every day, providing guidance, like always.