Ron Zajac
Uncle Leonard
To me, Leonard Borysiak was "Uncle Leonard".
It's a bittersweet recollection. Some kind of ugliness haunted the Borysiak clan... which is a common enough story.
But Uncle Leonard inhabits an interesting "space" in this kind of dynamic. To me, his memory will always be redeemed by a simple openness; an intuitive ability on his part to be light and funny and oddly spiritually "free".
One way this expressed itself was in how there was a simple understanding about his character... and that was in how he could be trusted. For me, personally, this was in how he could be trusted to take care of his nieces and nephews in babysitting stints.
He taught me in this way: I learned from him that there was no greater expression of one's personal integrity than to take one's responsibility for kids both seriously *and* lightly; to be both trustworthy *and* FUN. His example was operative in my own life when I became a family man and had charge of my own kids. Bless his memory for having perhaps unknowingly imparting this lesson to the next generation.
It's a bittersweet recollection. Some kind of ugliness haunted the Borysiak clan... which is a common enough story.
But Uncle Leonard inhabits an interesting "space" in this kind of dynamic. To me, his memory will always be redeemed by a simple openness; an intuitive ability on his part to be light and funny and oddly spiritually "free".
One way this expressed itself was in how there was a simple understanding about his character... and that was in how he could be trusted. For me, personally, this was in how he could be trusted to take care of his nieces and nephews in babysitting stints.
He taught me in this way: I learned from him that there was no greater expression of one's personal integrity than to take one's responsibility for kids both seriously *and* lightly; to be both trustworthy *and* FUN. His example was operative in my own life when I became a family man and had charge of my own kids. Bless his memory for having perhaps unknowingly imparting this lesson to the next generation.
