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Be a good listener. Be in their shoes. Be understanding. 

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Call me crazy, but I swear, I can’t help but see the entirety of my childhood reflected in your face. When I look at you, I can’t help but feel a little homesick.

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But I’m not there anymore. I left the palms behind.

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You are the sweetness I want to end each day with.

And some part of me knows I don’t.

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My to-do list is getting longer and longer.

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Someday I hope you’ll see me.

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At dinner at the Grand Canyon, Dad asked me why I was staring at him. “You’re grayer,” I said, not telling him that he reminded me a little of Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman. “I got old,” Dad said. “At my next birthday – I can hardly believe it – I’ll be 69 years old.” Dad remarked that the block we were on had been his territory when he worked for that private investigating firm while he was still in high school.

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Together, we were the perfect storm.

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Maybe I’m too insensitive and hard-edged, but I learned early on here in Brooklyn that if I was ever going to make it, I couldn’t be any “softer” than I could help being. Of course, Justin’s from Connecticut, which is why he only mildly complains about a driver cutting in front of him on West Street while I yell out, “You bastid! Doncha know how to drive?!”

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Like everything in life, you can focus on the beauty or the pain.