A SON'S ADORATION IS A FLEETING THING

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A SON'S ADORATION IS A FLEETING THING

He had a loud voice, something that normally would have made me cringe. A loud talker on an airplane is always annoying. And when the loud talker is in the row opposite you? And the flight is nearly full and there is nowhere to run? This is a prescription for a long flight.

But this loud talker wasn't a business person on a cellphone, making sure you hear every word. Or some teenager bragging to a friend "So she was, like, amazing, you know?" wanting attention, wanting to be overheard. This loud talker was a boy of 8 or 9 who wanted the attention not of all the people around him but of the one person who mattered most to him: his father…

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SHAME ON ME WHEN IT COMES TO THANK-YOUS

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SHAME ON ME WHEN IT COMES TO THANK-YOUS

The thank-you notes arrived less than a week after I brought over two small presents to the twins who live next door. They are 8 and in second grade. The notes, one from Albert and one from Melody. were written in little-kid print and addressed the same way, carefully, in neat straight letters. I read them and thought that with all their mother has to do - she works full time and takes care of a house, a husband, two kids, and a recently widowed father - she did this. She bought the kid-friendly stationery, sat down with her children, directed them ("Do we have to do this now, Mom?" at least one of them must have said), then made sure the letters got stamped and posted.

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LET LEAPING DOGS FLY

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LET LEAPING DOGS FLY

Before, my daughter was the one begging. "Please, please, can I get a dog?" I was the one saying: "A dog is a big responsibility. You have to walk him and train him and be around every day to let him in and out. And dogs shed and get ticks and dig holes in the backyard, and when it rains they smell. You really don't want a dog." But she said: "Yes, I do, Mom. I need a dog. Please, please, talk Dad into it." And so I did.

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COUNTING OFF THE YEARS WITH A BOOK OF THE DEAD

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I haven't put him in my dead book yet. A hard word, "dead." A word you want to camouflage with softer syllables: deceased, departed, passed on. But dead is the right word because dead is hard, people you love not in the next room, or the next town, or on the telephone saying, "Do you know that I'm the only one in the world who can call you daughter?"

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