My father, Dr. Derek Brackman, passed away in his sleep in the fall of 2004. His passing was very sudden and totally unexpected; I was shocked and devastated. Dad was a person who knew what he wanted. He knew that he wanted to become a scientist from the age of twelve. By age twenty-four he had a Ph.D in molecular chemistry and started a career in industry researching plastics. He made a number of discoveries and published numerous academic articles. I recall as a child walking with him in a park that had an outdoor public swimming pool, pointing to the solar energy collectors on the roof of the building adjacent to the pool. Dad said, “See those solar energy collectors? I designed them.”
Dad was thirty-seven when he married mum and they had nine children over a nineteen-year period. I am number five. My dad was an exceptionally creative person who besides being an intellectual was very good with his hands. He often felt that if he could create it himself there was no reason to spend money on buying it. He designed his own double-glazing for the house. Transformed the garage into an office – all by himself. My parent’s home was full of little contraptions that he had designed, like the Shabbat friendly indicator he designed to light up downstairs when the upstairs toilet was engaged or the ingeniously designed indicator that reminded him to take his daily vitamins.
My dad was always up for a challenge and when he saw something that he thought needed fixing he felt that it was his responsibility to try and rectify it. This brought him into contact with the local Member of Parliament and many other local officials. Dad was actively involved in trying to make the local area more pleasant for its citizens – with some considerable success.
The Sunday before Dad passed away we were sitting and having a long chat in his dining room. It was during this chat that he said to me that the amount of time he had left in this world had been playing on his mind over the past Rosh Hashanah. He said that he felt that maybe he did not have to much time left to live. He than became very philosophical – more so than ever I remember before. He started saying that every thing is so transient and we cannot know what things are really worth. He started to question what he had done that he could leave as a legacy to his children. And then he said that he was very proud that at the age of seventy six he still had the vigour to make the Sukkah. The Sukkah that my dad was referring to was indeed very special. When my parents moved to the house I grew up in some twenty eight years ago my dad build a wooden structure in the garden with an innovation – a sliding roof. The structure had a dual purpose. It was a green house during the year but served as a Sukkah on Sukkot. It was always a big job to clear out the green house and reconvert it into a Sukkah for Sukkot. But my dad took great pride in doing the Sukkah.
I remember as a child going with dad to cut the Sechach, and the whole experience of helping dad make the Sukkah was sheer joy. And on that last Sunday of his life in this world, my dad said to me that he felt that his biggest accomplishment was creating the Sukkah. At the time I could not comprehend what he meant. My dad was an accomplished inventor who over the years had invented products that were very successful. Dad had a Ph.D and even in his later years after retirement he still had quite a few other accomplishments to his name. Why did he see the creation of the Sukkah as his biggest achievement?
After giving this much thought I am convinced that he was giving me a message. He was saying that indeed everything is transient. My dad got his Ph.D in a field that was very popular at the time but by the time he had reached retirement it had become old fashioned. His major inventions of twenty years ago had long been overtaken by much more advanced technology. Even his Ph.D while cutting edge when he wrote it was now outdated and not useful. The thing that he felt he had used his creativity for but was not transient was the Sukkah. He was saying that Mitzvos never become outdated and the same Sukkah that he created with his bare hands twenty-seven years ago is still used for a Mitzvah till this very day. He was telling me that his greatest accomplishment, beyond any past scientific achievement was the use of his creativity for a Mitzvah. Because Mitzvoth are not transient: they are timeless. May the merit of building the Sukkah each year with such pride and joy, together with the merit of all the countless other acts of Chesed (kindness) that he did for others stand my dad in good stead in the current stage of his journey.
He Lives On By Example
As a child, the first time I was confronted by death was at the age of ten when my grandfather passed away. I remember being completely shocked by the finality of it – I would never see my grandfather again. Indeed this is what makes death so painful: we know that it will never be the same again because something irreversible has happened. As I approach the first Yahrzeit (anniversary of the passing away) of my dad, Dr. Derek Brackman, I have come to a new understanding of death. I have realized that although death brings irreversible loss in its wake, it also creates new opportunities for personal enrichment.
After the passing of a loved one we tend to reflect on their life and learn more about the person we knew. After an entire year of reflecting about dad I feel not only enriched, but also privileged to have had him as a father. And when I reflect upon dad’s life I am inspired. When I compare myself to him I notice the many things we have in common but simultaneously I recognize how far I am from the achievements and values that he personified.
Indeed I could write an entire book about dad’s life. However, for now I would like to point out three of the areas in which he was extraordinary. Firstly, dad consistently pushed himself to achieve his maximum. He endeavoured to develop every talent that he thought he might have. So besides using his inherent gifts as a scientist, he delved into art, poetry, philosophy, gardening, building, carpentry, inventing and cooking. Dad constantly strived to reach the best he was able to be using his own set of God given talents.
Secondly, dad never wasted time. “Why don’t you do something constructive?” was his nagging question to us as we were growing up. As kids dad would only buy us games that also had educational value. He felt that having fun was not an end in itself but should include an educational goal too. Dad taught us that every thing we do should always have a constructive element to it: sitting back doing nothing was never an acceptable practice to him. Retirement for dad did not mean relaxing on a beach. He continued to develop his talents and abilities and indeed, just before his passing he had completed a two-year university course in astronomy.
Thirdly, dad never did anything out of ulterior motives. He was an independently minded truth seeker and nothing he did was out of concern for what others thought. If dad did something it was because he thought it the correct thing to do. He never sought public office or any type of recognition; he simply had no desire for that type of acknowledgment – that was not what motivated him. He had received numerous certificates in recognition of his academic and other achievements, all of which remained stored away and were never on display. When I asked him why this was he simply said that he had no desire to hang them on the walls. I wouldn’t say that this characteristic was due to inherent modesty, although that existed too. It was because dad understood what was really important in life. He realized that self-aggrandisement and ulterior motives place constraints and limitations on the potential of the individual. As a person who consistently strove for truth in every aspect of his life this type of external constraint did not sit easy with him.
These three characteristics – developing all our talents, using every moment of our precious time constructively, and not being influenced by external pressure – are all fundamental in order to achieve in this life. The example set by dad in these areas
will be with me always, and the more I reflect upon them the more they take on a reality in my life. In this manner dad’s passing has enriched me and in this way too he lives on.