Daddy and me, ca. 1962.

Folklore that says violets are about a love that is delicate.

Delicate, I think, like life, like a beating heart.

I think if my father were alive, people would have acted differently. These last five months of loss and heartbreak would have been a different five months altogether.

Perhaps it is essential that authority be removed and that we, or maybe just I, experience life in this mean world as it is, without the shield of protection that was my father’s care. Perhaps this is what growing up really means. I wonder if, when Nietzsche said “God is dead,” he had lost his father.

Daddy’s funeral was two years ago on Fat Tuesday, and here it was again yesterday, and today Lent has begun again.

This year, I will give up the habit of mourning lost things – looking back with regret at that which will never be again. This year, I will spend 40 days looking outward and forward, one moment at a time.

There is always everything to be done.