No sooner had I learned that my wife and I were expecting a son, than did another revelation flit across my mind: “I’m having a boy... I’m having a son!—Hmm, I really need to get back into shape.

Eight years ago to this very day, February the 3rd, my family said So long to the dearest man in all the world.

I’ve never been much of a ‘morning person’. My father, by contrast, most certainly was. All the years I knew him, there was never a day wherein my father so much as even slept in. Not by my recollection, at any rate.