Abstract:
Why this book?

In 1981, days after my father’s death, I wrote a poem, “Second Thought”, with these lines:

“’My father died a stranger to me’,
was my first thought…he had never told me the story of his life…”

But on “second thought”, I recounted a litany of the life lessons my father had taught me, and had the revelation that I knew “the very essence of the man”. I did not need “the details of his mere existence”.

Why this book?

To share with my children the essence of their father, rather than the details of my mere existence.