Page 16 - WhyAsInY

PrefaCe
It is sad to say, but images of Mom and Dad in their declining years have tended to dominate my memories of them from happier times. Hopefully, writing this book has helped to change my focus concerning them.
Danny, Peter, and Rachel will recall their grandparents having Sun- day night Chinese meals with them near their retirement community, and taking them out for Fishamajigs and Fribbles near Scarsdale after their mother and I separated, just as they’ll remember the evening at Mom’s assisted-living facility when, after a corned beef and pastrami dinner, her favorite, she treated them to an exhibition of the dancing that she loved to do when she had been a young woman. Hopefully, this book will help my children to remember and to learn much more about my parents.
And, just as I want Danny, Peter, and Rachel to have a better picture of my mother and father at their most vibrant, I do not want the most enduring images that my children will have of me to be from my later years.
Similarly, I do not want my grandchildren to think of me simply as the man with a cane and a large layout of model trains. I want them to know that I was young once and that I had to contend with growing up, just as they do.
And I want both them and their parents to be able to hear my voice. •••
This book is, I know, far longer than Warren’s, and one that will take some time to be read, as I hope it will be—someday. It’s long, not because I had more or better experiences than anyone else, but because, if you make the mistake of suggesting a project to me, I have a propensity to dive in, perhaps far deeper than I should.
As I came to learn, I’ve probably written this more for me than for you. Putting all of what follows on paper has been a very therapeutic exercise, one that I’m very happy that I undertook. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to read or enjoy it. (Believe it or not, some parts of it might even entertain you.)
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