"That's me singing," Charlie says."That's me playing the water drum, too.If you know my song, you know Charlie.Everyone has a song.God gives each a song.That's how we know who we are.Our song tells us who we are.
I am not sure at what point I realized that the man whom I had seen as my all-powerful and invincible father not only wanted me as I am, but also needed me to stand by him through the long journey into his own death. My father needed my friendship. It still seems to me to be an astonishing gift of God's grace that in the last years of his life I was able to stand with him as his friend who was his adult child.