Four years ago today, my father (Butler Shaffer, for those who don’t know him) left this earth. I still haven’t fully accepted that he is no longer here, and there is a part of me that doesn’t believe it at all.
It is snowing today here in Lexington, just a little, and so I am going to post this passage, from Essays in Idleness, the Tsurezuregusa of Kenko, because I think my dad would have appreciated it:
One morning after a pleasant fall of snow I sent a letter to someone with whom I had business, but failed to mention the snow. The reply was amusing: “Do you suppose that I shall take any notice of what someone says who is so perverse that he writes a letter without a word of inquiry about how I am enjoying the snow? I am most disappointed in you.” Now that the author of that letter is dead, even so trivial an incident sticks in my mind.
Your father was one of my favorite authors. When I discovered his columns on lewrockwell.com, I went back through them and read them all. I then ordered several of his books (Boundaries of Order is my favorite). He was a brilliant thinker and writer.
I'm sure he is as proud of you as you are of him.
It is the trivial incidents that stick in our minds.