The Running Boy Is Inside Every Man,

Tell Me About Your Family," I Said. And So She Did. I Listened Intently As My Mother Went Through Each Branch Of The Tree. Years Later, After The Funeral, Maria Had Asked Me Questions About The Family - Who Was Related To Whom - And I Struggled. I Couldn't Remember. A Big Chunk Of Our History Had Been Buried With My Mother. You Should Never Let Your Past Disappear That Way.

Kids Chase The Love That Eludes Them, And For Me, That Was My Father's Love. He Kept It Tucked Away, Like Papers In A Briefcase. And I Kept Trying To Get In There.

All Parents Damage Their Children. It Cannot Be Helped. Youth, Like Pristine Glass, Absorbs The Prints Of Its Handlers. Some Parents Smudge, Others Crack, A Few Shatter Childhoods Completely Into Jagged Little Pieces, Beyond Repair.

Parents Rarely Let Go Of Their Children, So Children Let Go Of Them. They Move On. They Move Away. The Moments That Used To Define Them - A Mother's Approval, A Father's Nod - Are Covered By Moments Of Their Own Accomplishments. It Is Not Until Much Later, As The Skin Sags And The Heart Weakens, That Children Understand; Their Stories, And All Their Accomplishments, Sit Atop The Stories Of Their Mothers And Fathers, Stones Upon Stones, Beneath The Waters Of Their Lives.

As You Grow, You Learn More. If You Stayed As Ignorant As You Were At Twenty-two, You'd Always Be Twenty-two. Aging Is Not Just Decay, You Know. It's Growth. It's More Than The Negative That You're Going To Die, It's The Positive That You Understand You're Going To Die, And That You Live A Better Life Because Of It.