I have always liked change... 

and, I've always deeply felt the good byes that are so often associated with them... 

The sad moments are further apart and the rational side of me is ready to default to action. 

Death is like wound... It hurts acutely when it happens.  And, the depth of the wound depends on the closeness of the relationship and the level of the surprise... 

This is why the end of a young life cuts so deep, and the death of your own child can meaningfully alter the trajectory of your joy and your life... 

My mother and father suffered two of those... I need to keep reminding myself of that. 

Wounds heal... some leaving only a scar... some leave you permanently in pain.

I am healing well.   

I didn't want to be one of those guys that spoke critically of his father when he was alive, and then glowingly when he died. 

My father was a complicated man, and too often an unhappy one.  He lived meaningful disharmony in his life... and because I knew the difference, and felt it before I even knew it... I adopted, unnecessarily, the weight of his disharmony. 

In order to protect myself from his disharmony, I distanced myself from him emotionally.

I was so deliberately protecting myself from feeling and owning his disharmony... 

but he lived to share it... 

Sharing his disharmony actually gave him harmony... 

He was always looking for me to share his disharmony so that he would not feel so alone in his IS... 

If he could convince me to "wish" with him that his life was different, that people were different... then somehow that satisfied his momentary WANT. 

But, I wouldn't... I couldn't.  At no time in my life would I let him off the hook. 

For his whole life I tried to push him into harmony... 

I reminded him of his blessings...  

I reassured him of the many people that loved him... 

I reassured him of his own worth... 

in the past few years, I reassured him of how much I loved him and how grateful I was for him... 

I never told him that he was a great father... 

I told him that he was a good, kind man. 

I told him I saw all that he had given me. 

I reassured him that I loved him... 

I hugged him... I really hugged him and held him... always feeling his discomfort with intimacy and with his own worthiness. 

It is not that in death my father will become a saint in my mind... 

It is that in death... 

I can see him so very clearly... 

In death, I no longer fear his disharmony...(I stopped fearing it a few years ago, because I stopped owning it)... 

In death, I appreciate him even more and I see more clearly how much loving him and struggling with him defined me. 

I see what an amazing impact he has had on my life... and so much of it, from trying to live my life and see those around me and see myself... differently than he did. 

And, I see so much of his approach to life that I would be foolish not to aspire to and attempt to emulate.

I have always loved change... and I have always hated goodbyes, 

Change is discontinuous learning... 

It is an opportunity to introduce a new and better version of ourselves. 

In this case, hopefully, a humbler, kinder, gentler, wiser, more loving, more open minded, more tolerant, more patient version... 

I think of him continuously... 

I feel my hand on his as I would drive. 

I see myself walking into his room, leaning over his bed and kissing him on the forehead. 

He was always so deeply happy to see me.  

I could feel him absorb my love in every moment I was conscious in giving it to him. 

I was lucky to have him... and have him with me as long as I did. 

We had a difficult relationship... but one that grew and evolved so very beautifully... 

In death, I will not pretend that my father was not flawed... 

I will simply be more conscious that I was equally flawed... 

And, in this new version of me that will emerge as this transition progresses... 

I will be a better son... though he won't benefit from it...

But doing so will make me

a better man. 

In harmony, 

Nestor