ongoing, but neither complete nor consistent

And happily so. I'm always finding new aspects and dimensions.

After Dad died we did a lot of house cleaning, the major part of which was trying to decide what to do with shelf upon shelf of books. Some Mom wanted to save for herself, others were clearly items that only a professional library might want. From the rest, my sister, brother and myself chose want we'd like on our already cluttered shelves, marking them for later distribution with our initials.

In the end what I have of Dad's on my shelves reflects only a couple of aspects of his diverse personality. When my eyes fall upon a particular book of his, still marked with my initial on the spine, or when I take one down from the shelf, much less frequently finding inside an ex libris we later prepared for the books, I'm establishing a connection. But I can't fool myself. This isn't a connection with Dad. At best it's a connection with a particular picture I have of him, a picture that is at least as much one that I've chosen to create from the materials available to me as it is of him as he "really" was.