I will tell you a story that is both inspirational and worth reading.

The Legacy of a Father: Adauri Figueiredo da Cruz

I will tell you a story that is both inspirational and worth reading.

     Today would be my father’s birthday. Adauri Figueiredo da Cruz, a tortured child by his father, for being born biracial. My father passed away when I was 17 years old, December 17. Since then, the holidays lost their beauty and excitement. He was my world! And I’m very much like him, in many ways. Growing up, he played with me, told self-created stories for hours, before bedtime.  My mother told me many times that when I was born, she did not breastfeed me. When I cried at night, my father alone would take care of my needs. She offered me words of rejection, while my father was my safety.

     My father was kind, generous, intelligent, and hard-working, among many other good and some negative qualities. After all, he was a hurt human, much like most of us. My father overcame homelessness and severe abuse as a child and as a teenager. When tired of the beatings, he ran away from home to never look back. Somehow, he traveled across the country and end up in a little city in the interior of my state of Parana. There, he found a kind family who welcomed him like their own sons—my dearest uncles and aunts. To the day of his death, he was called brother. And into this day, I am niece and cousin. This was a big family who shared with others all they had. They were not wealthy, but they had in abundancy what my father needed the most: patience, acceptance and belongness, as well as love. Off course. It takes special loving hearts to embrace a deeply traumatized teenager and raise him as one of their sons. This family holds some of my best childhood memories! I remember each one with a huge smile in my heart! Christmas celebrations with the whole family was my favorite holiday. I couldn’t wait to meet them all. As a child, I never realized that my father was not formally adopted or even adopted at all. He was just their brother. I cannot stop thinking about how similar my father’s story is to the story of the love of my life—who came to me from another continent. Worlds apart but shared similar traumatic experiences. They were both born fighters! To these two there was no such thing as giving up! Danny’s experience with homelessness, abuse, faith, and adult adoption mirrored my father’s.

     My father taught me kindness and community service from the moment I was born.  It was an extension of his character.  His connection with others was fluid. He volunteered by feeding the homeless and helping the community in many other ways. I remember when I was about 12 years old, I asked him if we could donate some chocolate baskets to the homeless people who were in our community, daily. It was Easter and he went with me to give the chocolate baskets. He came to chaperone me, since I was a young girl, but he gave me enough space that I understood that my giving them chocolate on Easter was my initiative. That day, he planted a seed of kindness. I believed to be born to inspire, influence, and transform the world, to which I belong! This seed was nourished within my heart; it came to define my very identity. As I interacted with the homeless, that Easter, I wanted to bring genuine smiles to their faces. They had not eaten sweets in a long time. As I gave them the baskets and paid attention to their stories, while my father watched me, with his protective sight. Like a professional teacher, my father decided that it was time to move on from the modeling stage to the hands-on life practices part of his lesson plan. These were life transforming lessons, through which I learned to develop an action plan to positively impact someone’s life, even if one at a time.  There is nothing more gratifying than witnessing an exciting smile on the face of someone who hadn’t smile in a long time. Although adults, their eyes sparkled like little children! Their mood was lifted; they felt accepted. The simple chocolate gave them back their sense of dignity, even if for a short period. The magic of empowerment is a human resource, passing on through generations and communities. It is a mathematical mystery of how much we influence others and wonder about the test of time. The chocolate baskets did not cost us much money; but their impact on the people we gifted was transformational!

            Now, moving back to my father’s funeral. It was the most incredible experience and amazing gift of comfort to my pain, throughout my life! I was at the funeral, near my father’s body, trying to avoid the horrific reality of his death. The reality was that at the very moment my father died; I became the adult of the house. I took care of my father funeral, getting his body out of the morgue, choosing his final attire, and other traumatic experiences. I had to go to the Brazilian Federal Police to discuss my father’s case.  This happened because my father did not die at the hospital. He died on my mother’s arms, while paralyzed on the back seat of a taxi.

       Feeling numb, I looked at a very particular and quite long line of people, waiting outside the building because of their numbers.  They came to share with me stories of how my quiet, reserved, and traumatize father found in himself the desire and strength to bring support, education, and a mentoring presence to their lives.   These were people from all walks of life, diverse in their various stages of life. At that time, I did not know all about my father ‘s volunteerism and community support. My father did not like attention; but his mentees were like an army, walking together, synchronized, and with the authority of who was given a purposeful path.  His mentees, most uneducated men, offered me powerful words! Words of healing and purpose when facing life and death. These simple people, some of them walked miles to the funeral location because they lacked transportation. They offered me words of wisdom and life, in a moment of personal darkness and death. They walked those miles, while hungry and unable to purchase food for themselves. Unafraid of how others would react to their smell, clothing, or even their language. Guided by gratitude and loyalty to my father, they accomplished the task God had placed within their hearts. It is about impossible to describe how I felt at that time.  While sinking into the darkness of a shattered teenage world, in my fear and grief, I felt a supernatural-like light shining deep in my heart.  I came to understand that something special and transformational had taken place that evening. What a master class it was!

      Maybe my love for storytelling was influenced by those urban storytellers that evening.  Tellers of their own life foreign to many of us. Life experiences different than my own, but just as deserving of respect like any other. One-by-one, they shared stories about respect, dignity, acceptance, and kindness expressed by my father. More empowering than money is the gifted of being seen and of belonging to a community.  The negative assumption of one’s value and character based on their temporary circumstances is dehumanizing.  Judgement is the poison of relationships.  Because my father was so reserved, I learned a lot about him that day and night, at his funeral. That day, I had over 100 teachers, people in absolute poverty that my father had helped, over the years. Some of them were still in poverty, while others had managed to get their lives together.  They explained to me that the greatest impact my father had on their lives was his kindness, acceptance, and ability to see them as equal in value, although diverse in background. The simple act of treating everyone with respect and dignity has saved many lives. These very unlike teachers, using their own unique forms of expression. My father was sensitive to the needs of others.  My father followed his promises with action.  As homelessness, their lives are in constant chaos and uncertainty.  When people promise assistance, or even a snack, but does not follow up with action their already chaotic world becomes more destructive than before.

Again, discussing the funeral, this beautiful people, some who smelled strongly or not dressed appropriately—not by choice, but already guilty of laziness or craziness. To me, it did not matter what they were wearing or the reasons of their circumstances. That moment, we were one. And we were honoring my father ‘s life together, as one broken hearted family, grieving a loved one. To this day, I cannot think of another message and delivery format more radical and inspiring than this beautiful experience. Amid total darkness I saw beauty!

      My father, Adauri, was not a perfect man. He was broken by abuse and suffering, but he was not defined by his pain. Some people don’t need long lives to shake the world around them, inspiring a movement of positive change. That funeral was a surreal experience! The pain, the fear, and the anger I felt by losing the only parent who protected and respected me. Regardless of temporary circumstances that forced us to live poverty, my father never allowed those periods to become our new reality. I knew that my father was a hard-working man using his intelligence to overcome his circumstances. In life, my father achieved his big dream of being a cattle farmer. Because of government of the time, my father lost everything he had built from ground zero.  I cannot remember one time hearing my father wanting to give up. He was creative and unique in his approach to business. I learned from his achievements, but I learn even more from how he faced his losses and failures, without self-pity or questioning his ability to bounce back and reconstruct his dreams.

      Finally, my final memory that I have about the influence of my father in my academic career is one that I keep as a tradition. I wanted to go to school before I could go to preschool. My father took me to an office store and gave me all the materials I would need had I been in school and more.  My father would play school at home with me. While playing, I learned my literacy skills.  I learned to read quite early; but it was my writing that was advanced.  I loved this tradition so much. It lasted my entire childhood and most of my teens. My love for those events was based on our interactions, while shopping and later when he would teach me reading and writing.  Today, I still have that fire and joy when buying office and school supplies. A new pen or mechanical pencil brings happiness to my heart. My father was self-taught and valued education. He did not attend elementary school, and later, as a teen, after escaping his abusive father, he found himself living in the streets of a dictatorial Brazil. He was always in danger. When given an opportunity, he taught himself literacy and mathematics. Like me, he loved to write.  At this moment in my life, I wish I could have his untiring and amazingly resilient spirit of fight and survival.  What a remarkable man!

Final Reflection

The most important legacy my father has left me is one of awareness to the need of others, kindness to support without judgement, and the knowledge that everlasting love is real. It is a matter of choice. Like forgiveness, everlasting love grows from daily decisions that prioritize the need of others, rather than only our own wants and needs. It has been 26 years since my father’s death; however, as I age, I came to understand him and his reasoning to why he could not express love freely, at times. He lives in my heart. His legacy shaped my dreams and belief to the purpose of life.

Lu Hawkins