"I write because I am afraid I will die before I am finished. I lie awake in the quiet night, thankful for the quiet, because you all have so much to say, afraid of the quiet because it is then that I think. I lie awake and ashamed, because I did not listen, because I did not teach you anything enduring on this day, because I forgot, again, that the end comes without relent. I write because I hope you will find something of me in these words, one day, and smile. I hope you will know from these words how sometimes, when I hear you breathing in your deep childhood slumber, my chest fills up and I think to myself that heaven must be something like this, like listening to your babies breathe and dream. I hope you will know how I repent when I have failed, that I fail because I’m weaker than you thought, that even when I am a passable father it is only with great struggle. I struggle to be meager so that you have the chance to be great. Know this too."