A ‘father’ who shaped me

Murray Williams pays tribute to the man who taught him “what’s really important”.

On Friday, I received a WhatsApp, which read: “Hi Murray. I am sure you have spent much of this week thinking about what is really important. Thinking of you all at this time.” I read the message once. And continued my day.

But the words have kept returning to me –”what is really important”.

The message was sent to me because someone had died. Someone important, really important. I had spent the week mourning.

I tried to answer the question: “What’s really important?”

Maybe it is these:

To be humble.

To stand tall with purpose.

To fight for the dignity of others.

To be gentle.

And to live with exuberance.

Are these “really important”? Are they my “most important”?

And where did they come from? How did they come to be mine?

The answer probably lies in my childhood, I quickly realised. For it was as a child that my character was forged.

And so I thought about my childhood.

I reflected on a few memories: I remember my first Argus Tour. I was just 10 years old. I remember my determination up Chapman’s Peak, in the heat, on my four-speed Peugeot racer. My exuberance at crossing the finish line.

A particular person rode with me, always by my side. Another memory: I remember rising in the cool before dawn, climbing on the back of a bakkie with my friend. The bakkie went from house-to-house, and we leapt off the back, dropping anti-apartheid pamphlets in residents’ post boxes. A particular person had recruited us, to play our small part, to help change our world.

I remember watching the film Chariots of Fire. Watching those men run along that beach. They trained with such passion, such camaraderie, such optimism, such hope. A particular person took me to see that life-changing film. I remember my primary school assemblies, which started every school day. Learning to sing hymns at the top of my voice. From the man behind me, a teacher who sang with a rich, beautiful baritone, which soared like a mountain range. I hoped I could sing like that, one day.

These memories of mine may seem unimportant – a bicycle race, a leaflet-drop, a film, some hymns.

But, actually, they were my foundation. The bedrock of the person I now am.

And in each memory above, the same person was central. The person who taught me “what’s really important”.

Normally, a man who helped shape a child so profoundly would be one’s father.

Biologically, this man was not my father. But in the African tradition, one has more than just one father.

And now he is gone.

Goodbye Ed Coombe.

You were my father.

And, boy, did I love you…

* Ed Coombe served as a Methodist minister, a teacher in many disadvantaged communities of Cape Town, an adult educationalist, political party organiser and author.

** Williams’ “Shooting from the Lip” column appears in the Cape Argus every Monday.

Cape Argus