A post about my father.

My father was a let down to me on many levels. He was never really there when I needed him when I was growing up. My brother used to call him "the opera singer," because everything out of his mouth was "me me me." Oh yes, I am an obstreperous cuss and always have been. Maybe it was me. But that's besides the point, I suppose.

However, in the almost eight years since my father died I've noticed bits of him coming back now and again, bits of wisdom really. The little things parents give you along the way that maybe you don't notice until your kids are grown and about to go off to college or enter the workforce.

Over my father's desk for as long as I knew him was a small stanza from Ralph Waldo Emerson. He had typed it on his old manual typewriter, the e's filled in, the letters un-evenly hued like typing used to be. I quote it often. Think about it oftener. And pass it along here to you for what it's worth.

"On Anxiety"

"Some of your hurts you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of grief you endured
From the evil which never arrived."