Letter to His Sister

"But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate in my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain me in my dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, that is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother."

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Miss you.

"Dead, I tell you..."

Ok, so this is a little bit overdue, but my dad had a birthday a couple of days ago (yes, it's just two days if you're in the central time zone). "I was dead! Dead, I tell you, dead, and now I'm alive!" Or not. Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you once again, dad, for being such a good example of a godly man to me.

He earned his love

Through discipline

A thundering, velvet hand

His gentle means of sculpting souls

Took me years to understand

I thank you for the music

And your stories of the road

I thank you for the freedom

When it came my time to go

I thank you for the kindness

And the times when you got tough

And papa, I don't think

I said "I love you" near enough