FA21-FYS-10102-64
Professor Oswald
4 March 2021
The Importance of Uncertainty in a Life Well Lived
	As most of you know, my name is Ryan Fahey.  We gather here today to celebrate the life of my father, .  He lived an extraordinary life.  He achieved many great things.  He made the world a better place.  And he was aware of his flaws.  But what is most important to me - and was also most important to my father - is that he cared deeply for others.  I’m reminded of a time my father was on an important business trip and had a day in between his meetings in New York.  Instead of spending the day relaxing in the city, he took a 3 hour train ride all the way home just to make it to my piano recital.  It was this complete devotion to others that made him so special.
	I’m going to start with what I believe he would want me to focus on for a far longer time than I am willing.  His faults.  By his own admittance, Brendan was not a perfect man.  Until his later life, he struggled to show his love and stay in touch with others.  In his later years, he liked to repeat the line of Father Greg Boyle.  He would say the showing of love to others “was not so available to me in my own Irish Catholic background.  You knew people loved you, but words never brought you to that knowledge” (“Chapter 8: Jurisdiction” by Father Greg Boyle - Moreau FYE Week 7).  This is a skill he struggled with his entire life.  For instance, during his first year, he lost touch with many of his friends from home whom he loved dearly.  He would always have to find something to text them about, rather than just asking how it's going.  This is something that my father worked hard to ensure did not pass down to me.  Additionally, my father always dogged himself for his lack of assertiveness (“Moreau Week 5 QQC by '' - Moreau FYE Week 5).  He shied away from confrontation.  Whenever we would decide where to go to dinner, he would never speak up - even when you could tell he really did not want pizza from Papa Johns or Dominos.  Perhaps it was part of his drive to put others first.  He did not let these limitations get the best of him though.  He actually used them to his advantage.  In the days leading up to his death, he told me how he learned to live that way.  He showed me the story of Dr. Jihoon Kim (''5 Minutes” by Aria Swarr, Grotto - Moreau FYS Week 6).  Dr. Kim was a man who was paralized while snowboarding.  While many would have given up following such a disaster, he had not.  Hearing of that experience gave my father the motivation to keep fighting, and inspired by him I strive to do the same.
	But now that I’ve talked at length about his shortcomings, I’d like to focus on what made him a great man.  I’ll start with what I believe made him aware of his shortcomings - his ability to reflect.  Every day after dinner, he would disappear into his bedroom; door locked.  For many years, I suspected that he was continuing to do work, or just watching TV by himself for some alone time.  However, I later realized that he was simply reflecting on his day, and how he could improve himself.  He later told me that due to the speed and excitement of everyday life, we’re never caught up with our lives (“Why we need to slow down our lives” by Pico Iyer, TED - Moreau FYS Week 1).  To him, it was incredibly important to take a few minutes every day to just stop and reflect. He spent long periods of time doing this throughout his life, and I believe this is what made him so aware of his own strengths and shortcomings.
As I grew up, instead of talking about trivial things such as my grades in school or what toys I wanted for Christmas, I got to learn more about who my father really was.  During the summers of my late childhood, we would go to Phillies games and spend hours less than focused on the game going on in front our eyes.  He would tell me about when he was my age, and what struggles he went through.  One time I asked him who his role model was.  Without a second of thought, he said Father Theodore Hesburgh.  He was the former President of my father’s alma mater, the University of Notre Dame.  What my father said he admired so much about him was that he believed in mankind (“Hesburgh” by Jerry Barca and Christine O’Malley - Moreau FYE Week 2).  He believed that everyone was worthy of equal treatment, and that only through working together and compromise can we achieve what we want to as a species.  My father embodied this spirit in his work and home life.  He spent his entire life serving this cause within the government, traveling the world to forge cooperation and strengthen bonds.  And at home he did the same.  I remember a time where I was fighting with a friend over a nerf gun.  Instead of punishing or yelling at either of us, he sat us down and taught us how to deal with our disagreements with words.  To him, it was through cooperation and empathy that we can do great things, and I think his life's work perfectly embodies that spirit. 
	My father was also always there for me when I was unsure about something in life. During my freshman year in college, I, like many, was uncertain about what I wanted to do with my life.  I remember sitting in my dorm room late on a Thursday night, just having gone to a major discernment meeting, feeling beaten down.  Despite all the effort I had put in, no career spoke to me.  After a few minutes of sulking, I decided to call dad.  He immediately picked up, and upon asking him about his discernment process, he told me his story.  He recalled that during his freshman year at Notre Dame, he was just as uncertain as I was about what he wanted to do.  Moments of certainty for him were short lived.  Every time he felt confident in what he wanted to do, he would realize the problems with a major or discover another interest.  Jumping from political science to journalism to architecture to marketing in one year, he was completely lost.  He was even nervous to look further into a major because he feared further examination would add yet another interest to the soaring mountain of discarded passions.  With this experience, he offered me some advice - your major does not determine where you go in life (“Navigating Your Career Journey”  by Meruelo Family Center for Career Development - Moreau FYE Week 4).  He told me that no matter how daunting this decision might appear to be right now, you will find the right career eventually.  His readiness to pick up that phone and be vulnerable to me when I was feeling vulnerable is one of things I cherished most dearly about my father.
	I think the trait or knowledge that led him to care so much for others and be such a great role model was his acute awareness of his own mortality.  He told me the story of a nun named Sister Aletheia who kept skulls on her desk helped him stay grounded in the reality of the finity of life (“Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die” by Ruth Graham, NYT - Moreau FYE Week 3).  He knew that his time on this planet was limited, and he therefore wanted to spend as much time as he could doing things that he loved.  I think that's why he took that train home all those years ago.  He loved us, and did not want to miss a second of time that could be spent by our sides.  
	As I stand here today, in the shadow of my late father, I  think back to how I can carry on his legacy through my actions.  He knew exactly what a life well lived was.  He had a distinct purpose in life.  And I want to be just like him.  I want to follow in his footsteps.  In doing so, I hope to live a life well lived, just like dad.