I want to tell about the man I have most loved, respected, and admired-my father. In many respects, he wasn't unusual. I had to learn how to love, respect, and admire. His integrity was, in my perception at least, absolutely and essentially intact. His kindness, generosity, gracious judgment, empathy, love of the good and of the vulnerable, capacity to forgive and trust again, eagerness to rejoice with those who rejoice and to grieve with those who grieve, all such qualities of mind and heart that might be considered weak and naive, all of it, worked against his success. Maybe so. I loved him for it, though I did not always rise to his example. God's blessing, I pray, on those of us who try.
