A Mile Down (30 page)

A life can be like a work of art, constantly melted away and reshaped. The imagining and remaking is itself a form of satisfaction, especially when I'm dreaming together with Nancy. And this is what I wish my father had known. Many of his dreams ended in ruin, but his mistake was in not waiting for the new dreams to arrive, and in not realizing that those dreams were to be shared. He could have been nearly anything, his life reshapeable in thousands of ways, none of which he, or those of us who still love him, will ever know.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank all those who were so generous to me, as described in these pages, and I'd like to apologize to all I failed.