I Take Almost No Notes When I

Perhaps That Is What It Means To Be A Father - To Teach Your Child To Live Without You.

She [my Mother] Was The Force Around Which Our World Turned. My Mother Was Propelled Through The Universe By The Brute Force Of Reason. She Was The Judge In All Our Arguments. One Disapproving Word From Her Was Enough To Send Us Off To Hide In A Corner, Where We Would Cry And Fantasize Our Own Martyrdom. And Yet. One Kiss Could Restore Us To Princedom. Without Her, Our Lives Would Dissolve Into Chaos.

I Know There Is A Moral To This Story, But I Don't Know What It Is.

One Of Us Had Loved The Other More Perfectly, Had Watched The Other More Closely, And One Of Us Listened And The Other Hadn’t, And One Of Us Held On To The Ambition Of The One Idea Far Longer Than Was Reasonable, Whereas The Other, Passing A Garbage Can One Night, Had Casually Thrown It Away.

I Forced Myself To Picture The Last Moments. The Penultimate Breath. A Final Sigh. And Yet. It Was Always Followed By Another.