I know people who aren’t proud of their fathers. I’m lucky to have a father who I’ve always admired. It made me think of a poem that Lewis Campbell wrote in memory of the physicist James Clerk Maxwell:

And so thou wast made perfect! Not a friend
Might step between thee and the sore distress
Which thou with strong and patient godliness
Enduredst uncomplaining to the end.
Heroic saint! Bright sufferer! Thou dost lend
To science a new glory. Midst the press
Of boasters, all thy meek-eyed fame confess,
And worldlings thine unworldliness commend.

Shine on, pure spirit! Though we see thee not,
Even in thy passage thou hast purged away
The fogs of earth-born doubt and sense-bound thought
From hearts that followed thine all-piercing ray.

And while thou soarest far from human view,
Even thy faint image shall our strength renew.

Dad is a tough act to follow, but he would want us to persevere. We are all doing our best.

I prefer to think of him not as lost, but as temporarily misplaced. I look forward to seeing him again someday.