Today marks four years without my Dad. He died of cancer too young to be old. I won't say it gets any easier because it does not but I do think grief is like a caged tiger and sometimes, you have to just let it out and let it howl.  I was reminded of that today. I've been on a whirlwind family and work trip. I was supposed to have court in Orange County, NC this morning but we settled the case before the hearing  and so I spent the last couple hours before my flight home in Chapel Hill, the town where I was born and my Dad's self-proclaimed "second favorite town on the planet." (Go Heels). I grabbed lunch at Merritt's (Dad's favorite) and walked by the Old Well and sat in the grief a bit because that's important to do from time to time. Suffering is part of human existence and grief is something you live with and the fact you get to live with it is a blessing and means you have been deeply and immensely loved. There was an immensity to my Dad. To quote the poem, he contained multitudes. Part of enduring grief is telling his story, which is a huge part of my story, and knowing what a gift it is to be one of the few humans who can tell the story as well as I can. When I was walking by the Old Well today, I thought about how he talked about this place, what it meant to him, and how what he carried away more than anything was that his son's story-- my story-- started here, and that what I do with what he called the "remarkable chance to be alive" is up to me. Treating people with decency, conducting myself with integrity, being passionate and striving to do the many things I want to do as well as I can are things that were at the core of who my Dad was and who I hope to be. When he graduated UNC, he put an Emerson quote in his first suitcase. "The purpose of life is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."  Dad was all those things. He was a compassionate difference-maker, whether he was leading in his church or mentoring young financial leaders or simply stopping his car to move a turtle off the road at home in Jupiter, Florida. He was, in the words of a Fortune 500 CEO, "one of the last honorable men on Wall Street."  He was fun, with a self-effacing sense of humor and childlike wonder about a number of things, from the spectacular beauty of America's national parks to the size of his grandchildren's feet and hands which he would stare at intently to the frustrating inability of the University of Florida to hire a competent football coach in the post Urban Meyer era. He had range. He could command a room on investment trends or theological concepts or Florida football or Carolina basketball, sometimes seamlessly in one dinner or sitting. I miss those things but I carry them with me and on some days, like a Gator basketball or football gameday or a muggy morning in late September in Chapel Hill,  I feel him everywhere. Every inch of  the fabric of who I am is stitched in his color. I also feel his absence acutely.  That’s part of grief: the things the person who is gone doesn’t get to see. This goes beyond birthdays and holidays and Sunday phone calls.  It’s marrying my best friend and building a beautiful home and life with her. It’s 4 kids now, not just 2. It is a daughter starting high school. It is the chance to have a son . It is 3 Florida Basketball National Championship banners now, not just 2, and there are signs of life in the Swamp. It is making partner at a law firm. It’s Carolina hiring a coach out of the family. It is having a basketball story nominated for a national award when he’s the one who urged me to keep writing.  All the ordinary things that make a life you’re incredibly grateful and lucky to be living and the ache of them not being here for it.  It’s doing my best and hoping he likes what he sees. With love. - Neil