To be liked is to be enjoyed, but to be loved is to be freed. That’s one of the things about life that my dad, who passed away last September at the age of 75, taught me. My dad was a rags-to-riches example of the American Dream. And although our country today is seemingly full of division, and there is a constant cacophony of murmuring about the ills of society, today you are still free to live out the American Dream. I know that because I knew my dad.
Dad was born Francis Paul Bramble in Pimlico in June 1948. He was raised in a loving household and had a simple upbringing. He told me many times about his lunches of pasta and peas. He remembered it all affectionately. He remembered his parents giving him opportunity and freedom to live his own life. He felt this freedom most during his cherished four years at the Catholic boys’ high school Calvert Hall. These experiences helped forge his virtues. He was persistent, yet pragmatic. Loving and kind, but forceful.
As he grew older, my dad began to emerge on the Baltimore banking scene. He once told me that in his mid-30s he really felt that he began to be free and able to make things happen his own way. He had an extremely successful business career in banking, becoming head of two of Maryland’s largest banks, and later as a leader and benefactor for Catholic schools. He earned numerous awards throughout his career, and for his work toward the end of his life, he was made a Knight of St. Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI.
If all that makes Dad great by the world’s standard, a true liver of the American Dream, he was an even better father. From a young age, my dad taught me that family matters, to take it easy, to never give up, and to put my heart and soul into my work. I carry those lessons with me every day. My dad was a humble father, and he cared about what I thought, even when it came to strategy for our little parochial school basketball team at St. Pius. When I struggled and realized I wasn’t good enough to live out my hoop dreams at Calvert Hall, he invested in my other interests, including golf. We had so many fun matches out on the golf course, and he always put me in a position to succeed.
But he also always gave me the freedom to do things my own way. When I didn’t think I wanted to practice and play golf as much as he really wanted me to, he let me. Of course, dreamer that he was, he had visions of me becoming an academic all-American. But more than that, he had as a goal that I would become my own man. By giving me that kind of freedom, he let me grow up and be myself. All my mistakes were mistakes I emerged from stronger. He never put pressure on me to do what he wanted. When I decided to go to New York for college, he supported me. Later, when I started building my family, he never tried to make me do things his way. He always wanted me to succeed and to become strong enough to do things on my own. These simple memories offer one key truth: My dad always wanted to be his own man, and he always wanted me to be my own man.
Success of the kind that Dad experienced in the world sometimes makes people feel more important than everyone around them. And maybe Dad sometimes focused that sense of importance on me. But that was only to the extent that he liked me. My dad’s true love for me set me free. That was Dad’s great love for me. He always wanted me to be my own man and to try to be great my own way. I did not fully appreciate his love for me this way until now. He deeply wanted me to succeed in life in new and wonderful ways. And that is more than great. That is a type of perfection that we should all strive for. Indeed, that is the giving of true freedom, which I surmise is a hallmark of true love.
Greg Bramble lives in New York and is the son of Francis Paul “Frank” Bramble Sr., a prominent Maryland banking executive and Baltimore philanthropist who died in September 2023.
