No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

LOSING A PARENT

Americans are increasingly forced to grow up faster than ever. A lot of the reason for this is the divorce rate, with the realities of tough stuff coming so early in life. Then you mix in the pressure of the technology revolutions swirling around us; not a lot of real childhood is available to the young, certainly little or no time for contemplation or playground pleasures.

My father grew up in New York City and was orphaned at 11. He was bounced from relative to relative, never going to college. He went directly to Wall Street, and just as he was starting to get somewhere, the Great Depression hit, and he was unemployed, feeling cursed. Losing his parents colored his entire life and set the pattern for his behavior, which was conservative and risk averse. Economic hard times made it worse.

But here is the lesson for you: he constantly gave me advice and counsel about what to expect in life, which he learned the hard way. Realism was his major message. Some of the lessons that he hammered into me were:

• “Remember, life is really hard, punctuated by moments of brilliance.”
• “Life is work, whether you want to hear it or not.”
• And a poem fragment by Thomas Gray: “All that beauty, all that wealth, ere gave, / Await alike the inevitable hour, / The paths of glory lead but to the grave!”

Heavy stuff.

Heavy, but, repeated often enough to take root in me. Lessons that have served me well, that taught me self-reliance and never to take myself too seriously. ...