Today I attended a funeral for my great uncle Jean. who had, and who continues to have, a defining impact on my life.
He wasn't rich in terms of money and he wasn't famous or entrepreneurial, but he is the man who taught me what it means to live a life guided by your soul, your principles defined by your heart and the meaning of honor, conviction and loyalty.
Whenever I believed that the world was cruel I remembered him to help me through it, whenever I faced a moral crisis I thought of his example.
A very young uncle jean fought as part of the resistance in France against the Nazi's in world War 2 and cared for his siblings as best as he could as well. The heavy burden was thrust upon him when nazi trucks separated him and his siblings from his parents (he never saw his parents again). A kind hearted French soldier whispered that they should run and Jean led his siblings into hiding.
Near the end of the war, when the Nazi's decided that they needed more workers in Berlin, they told jean's entire company where he worked in france that they had to all come the next day ready to move to berlin - they were told that if they did not show up, their boss would be killed. Despite the likelihood of being found out and killed, jean appeared the next morning out of loyalty to his boss and out of honor.
Jean showed that same honor in his service as part of the French legion, as a volunteer in so many communities and in the love, joie de vivre, class and grace that glowed outwards from his smile. That was not easy when not all of his family members survived the war and there were many struggles in the journeys thereafter.
Jean was always humble, gentle, found humor in everything and had an inner happiness and appreciation that only those who have been severely tested seem to fully achieve. There was no problem without a solution for jean. When I spoke with jean I always knew that he was listening intently-he always paid that respect to those he spoke with, looking into their eyes and really engaging with them.
He was the kind of man who obviously drew his pleasure from helping others: from taking the time to go to the airport and record planes taking off to play on cassettes in his car as he drove to entertain kids, to games, riddles, constant jokes and laughter, and helping those who needed it.
The world is poorer without you, but far richer from your lasting spirit and the effect on those that you have known. To know you was to love you uncle. I hope that I am never tested in the ways that you were tested, but if I am, I hope that my actions make you proud. I have and will always feel a sense of pride in being from a family that had you as a member - it makes me believe in myself and that I can live how you did as well.
I don't like to reveal my emotions much in public and so I thought that it would be better for me to pen this letter to you and let my heart pour out to an anonymous audience. I hope that somewhere you can hear these words and that you know that although I never had the chance to say them to you, I truly mean them from the bottom of my heart.
Goodbye uncle.
