Mist covers the streets today; warm air is fighting the coming cold. Side streets look like
dreamscapes. Clammy air hangs about like damp sheets hung out on a line.
Many years ago today (although if truth be told it might have been yesterday) my father
died. Death came when his heart gave out. A fiercely independent man, someone we
would call self-reliant if we used the old language of the hunting and fishing books he
loved, he probably had been nursing his heart condition for many years. In the end he
died in the kitchen when a heart attack
My father died when I was 27 years of age. With his passing suddenly there was an
absence in my life, a huge hole really. The best analogy I can come up with is that I
looked to the sky to find the North Star to guide me and it was quite simply and quite
absolutely gone. My grief was great and I still feel the loss today.
Being alone can be a gift. With no one to sit in judgment of your actions means that you
must begin to judge yourself. You must come to terms as to those things you accept as
right and those you accept as wrong. Without a guide that a parent provides your errors
may be based on ignorance. Mistakes can be immense.
Alone you may focus only on your weaknesses. Alone all you may see is errors.
Eventually you have to learn to be a compassionate judge of yourself. Eventually you
have to become a realistic judge of yourself.
What I do not have that I need, I must pray for and wait. –Thomas Merton
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