A Farewell

Joshua Micah Marshall writes today at TPM of his dad who died two weeks ago. It's a fabulous piece of writing, not only sharing with us who exactly Alan Cohen was but who his son is.

On a personal note, I can empathize greatly with Joshua, though I still have one living parent. The fear he describes is one I've walked with myself for over a dozen years:

Perhaps because of my mother's sudden death twenty-five years earlier or my father's health problems, I had feared and dreaded this moment my whole adult life, like a bird flying over me as I made my way in life. I'd built a protective wall around myself trying simply not to be caught off guard again. But when it happened, it came out of nowhere like a bat swung into my forehead or dull knife ripped through my brain.

Two months before my own mother died one of her best friends made a remark--that mom later relayed to both of us--saying that she expected that my father would pass not shortly after my mother, whenever that might be. They were one of those couples; so inextricably linked that one wouldn't live long without the other.

After mom died that stuck in my head for months and has never fully receded even though God has blessed my dad with a loving wife of 10 years and a new life since then.

I've never agreed with much of anything Joshua Micah Marshall has written, politically speaking. But that's okay. At the end of the day, he is a man, like I am...with a wife and a family and all the attendant joys and heartaches.

That humanity, most of all, is what comes through this masterful post about his dad today. If perchance he comes across this, please know I'm praying for you and your family.