My father died on Monday, August 28, 2006, after a brief struggle with liver cancer. I had a sad, mad, spiritual, beautiful, terrible few days in Boston, culminating with his funeral and service at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery on Friday.

I have written several protected posts (dated 8/26, below, and 9/6, above) detailing a few things about my dad that I don’t want to share with the world at large. You are welcome to read it: the password is my middle name [7 letters]. If you can’t remember it, email me and I’ll send it to you. Subsequent private posts will use the same password. Also, if you have a flickr account, tell me and I’ll make you a friend. There are many interesting pictures there.

My stepsister Caroline read this at the service:

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body,
I am life without boundaries,
I have never been born and I have never died.
Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies
All manifests from the basis of consciousness.
Since beginningless time I have always been free.
Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out.
Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.
So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye.
Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.
We shall always be meeting again at the true source,
Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

— From the Anguttara Nikaya (translated by Thich Nhat Hanh)