12 January 2006--day for night

I have variously mourned and celebrated Daniel's achievements, failures, and passing for more than a year now. Nothing but continued life would have seemed like a just recognition of his virtues--what do we want more than more life, if we are not sick at heart or in body past endurance?--but I have at least offered him the respect of wearing black for much of that time, and given him that tenuous hold on life that remembrance is.
When I began this public-private journal, I intended it in no way to be a continuing memorial--but here we are. Journals are a little like photographs: in their seizure of a moment, they at once arrest time and remind us of its passing. At my left elbow now is a photograph of my father on the eve of his entry into the Army. Is it 1943? 1944? When I first saw this photograph, years ago, I was startled by its unfamiliarity--was he ever so young? I see now the features I know well--the barrel chest, the broadening nose, the heavy hands, the pale blue eyes. But this Jack, of course, never changes.