Going up Sixth Avenue in a taxi, your grandson said, “Mommy, aren’t there so many amazing things in the world? Aren’t we so lucky to be alive?” That’s you in him, Daddy. He’s so like you, full of extremes and heavy on the dream space. Both kids put their fists up for each other and I know that would make you happy.
[…]
My children may never see me hunched over a checkbook and sense my mounting panic, or come home late and find me in the street armed with a shovel as I take the driver of a car by the neck when liquor is smelled on him. They will watch me make much of their victories and hold a grudge until my last breath if someone treats them cruelly. This is your family I am running here. I can’t take credit for more than remembering to point to you when I do something right and for continuing to put one foot in front of the other when I lose heart. We all miss you something fierce, those of us who wouldn’t exist had you not kept walking when an ordinary person would have fallen to his knees. To convey in any existing language how I miss you isn’t possible. It would be like blue trying to describe the ocean.
[…]
Most of all to you, Daddy. That’s you in me, the far-off gaze. The poems are you, as are the good deeds and the jars of candy I hide everywhere. You are what makes me indomitable and how I know to keep walking when I feel crippled in every conceivable way.
~ Mary-Louise Parker, ‘Dear Daddy’ from Dear Mr. You
I bought this book yesterday and I’m finding it hard to put down.
“A wonderfully unconventional literary debut from the award-winning actress Mary-Louise Parker. An extraordinary literary work, Dear Mr. You renders the singular arc of a woman’s life through letters Mary-Louise Parker composes to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today.”
See NY Times Book Review: In ‘Dear Mr. You,’ Mary-Louise Parker Writes to Men, With Lust and Rue. “That Ms. Parker’s book is so seriously good seems like overkill. But it is…”
Live & Learn 
“…..aren’t there so many amazing things in the world? Aren’t we so lucky to be alive?” I want to remember this, especially today.
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Yes!
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Definitely a I.Must.Read.This. What beautiful excerpts and thank you for putting this right in front of me this morning.
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I’m halfway, and still turning… thanks Bonnie.
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I need a good book, to inspire my thinking of memoir again…before I fall back into cycle of afraid of failure but, uncomfortable with success.
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Smiling. Forward Lisanne. Forward.
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wow. those snippets packed some power. ….looking around at so many others, I think to myself, yes, we are the lucky ones.
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We are…
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beautiful –
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“To convey in any existing language how I miss you isn’t possible. It would be like blue trying to describe the ocean.” Well, that brought tears. Isn’t that the most we can ask for in our time here on earth? To have done such a wonderful job that we are remembered with such love.
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Yes. She captures it simply and beautifully.
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