Live long enough and you will collect hurts, pains, scars; things will break
and mend imperfectly or not at all; even genetically errors accumulate. The
passage of time is stamped molecularly on the meat we inhabit; it is stamped
in the pathways of the brain; in the compacted memories that are the
fundament of our prejudices. Live long enough and do enough living and you
accumulate debts of kindness that can not be quantified, cannot be repaid,
that are necessarily transmuted into gifts....

There are some hurts so deep, so broad, so devastating that language fails
irretrievably, irremediably: nothing can be said and yet everything that is
said is part of a deeper communication of sympathy for truly no man is an
island.

I am appreciative at a continually surprised level by the consistency, the
depth, the breadth and warmth of the caring and consideration of so many
that gradations of gratitude become entirely meaningless: I am used up.

If you have thought kindly of me; of us, the family, this is written to you
and about you.

As inadequate as it may be, my language allows me no more: thank you.