A Man Who Builds His Own Pedestal

[after My Mother Died, I Had A Feeling That Was] Not Unlike The Homesickness That Always Filled Me For The First Few Days When I Went To Stay At My Grandparents'' House, And Even, I Was Stunned To Discover, During The First Few Months Of My Freshman Year At College. It Was Not Really The Home My Mother Had Made That I Yearned For. But I Was Sick In My Soul For That Greater Meaning Of Home That We Understand Most Purely When We Are Children, When It Is A Metaphor For All Possible Feelings Of Security, Of Safety, Of What Is Predictable, Gentle, And Good In Life.

I Sometimes Think That Courage Is The Thing That You Need More Than Any Other Thing. It's Fear That Cripples Us. It's Fear That Accounts For Racism, It's Fear That Accounts For Sexism, For Xenophobia.

I Learned To Love The Journey, Not The Destination. I Learned That This Is Not A Dress Rehearsal, And That Today Is The Only Guarantee You Get.

I Conveniently Forgot To Remember That People Only Have Two Hands, Or, As Another Parent Once Said Of Having A Third Child, It's Time For A Zone Defense Instead Of Man-to-man.

One Of The Interesting Things I Discovered, Talking About Your Grandmother, Is I Did A Search Of My Uses Of The Word "elderly" In My Copy Over The Years, And You Will Not Be Surprised To Hear That The Older I Got The Less Often I Used The Word Elderly In Print.