My father was once hard to reach. As he aged, the words began to flow.

When I was a child, the strongest presence I felt in our house in Brooklyn was my father’s absence. It clung to his possessions and places, like the drop-leaf desk at which he worked when he was home, and the cellar where he had built the desk. Only my father used the cellar, with its massive table saw, tools hanging in neat rows, and shelves holding baby food jars with nails and screws sorted by size.

Source: WP