As promised, here are nine lessons I learned from my father, as described in my eulogy for him. Since many readers of this either attended the memorial in Tacoma or saw the eulogy later on DVD, I won't go into the detail of the lessons here, but I do have a couple of comments, which follow the lessons below.

1. Have a great mother.
2. Love your job.
3. Have empathy for others.
4. You can find religion or spirituality wherever you want it.
5. Marry a great person.
6. Think for yourself and be who you are.
7. Bridges are not for living under.
8. Education is critical and worth the sacrifice.
9. If you are proud of your children, *let them know.*


Note on lesson #7:

As many of you may recall, lesson #7 related to a conversation I had with Peter many times, most recently a few days before he was killed. Peter expressed an "animal fear" of being forced to "live under a bridge" after "losing everything" as a result of his on-going child support dispute. I told Peter several times in that last conversation that my brother Jed and I would never let him live under a bridge, but it wasn't clear if that message was getting through to Peter. Now I know it got through, after Peter's attorney sent me the below transcript.

As soon as I hung up with Peter, I called Jed to express my frustration with the situation. Peter was also on the phone again as soon as we hung up--he was calling his attorney to leave the following message on his voicemail.
The Monday hearing Peter mentions in the first sentence is why, in my opinion, Nancy picked that day at 3:00am to kill Peter.

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Subject: Peter Hartman left a message at 9:31 PM yesterday, 3/1

"Oh, hi, Jason Benjamin, this is Peter Hartman. I'm looking forward to the hearing on Monday. And I have great news. My sons have informed me that they will not allow me to live under a bridge. They said that they would support me if it came to that. So that's great news and wonderful news. It's not teepee time. Okay. I just wanted to let you know. Okay. Goodbye."