Dear A -

Many years ago (when you were less than two), I started to write down some stories that I thought might amuse you later, when you could read them for yourself. It is now time for me to get them onto some sort of medium where they will survive, and I felt that a blog would do the trick.

I do this because I felt a great deal of anguish when my mother died, and I realized that she had shared many stories with me about her childhood and later life, and I had not listened closely enough. Of what she had written down, I only had some fragments - the rest had been destroyed by life's continuing alterations of circumstance. This feeling -that I had missed an opportunity to capture part of an important contribution to our temperaments (yes, I see her in you)- led directly to my efforts to write things down for you.

Perhaps you will not read this. I am at peace with that possibility too. It is, after all, despite a parent's most fervent wishes, your life, and yours alone. That is the hardest lesson of all for us to learn, and nearly impossible for a parent to transmit. Your choices are yours to select, yours to carry out, to regret, and to rejoice.

I hope you enjoy these. Some will be dry, some might make you cry, but most of all, I hope some make you wonder and laugh.

Love always,

Your father,

Paul