So much in Halley's blog that rings true with me today and yesterday.
First I was thinking of encouraging her to do another exercise post as I notice my own exercise decline the past couple of weeks, wanting to resist the slide to winter inactivity. She beat me to it. (My friend Jeff -- Mr. Ponton -- in Rochester competes with a fictional Steve as he does his morning jog even though I've told him he's a much more consistent exerciser than I).
Second, a dream last night of my father, one of only a few I've had (remembered, anyway) about him since he died not long ago. In the dream we were running around a campus, leaping over railings and stuff, and though he was in a weak condition, he was right there with me. I felt remorse that I was putting him through this strain, but knew he would rather do this than be inactive. My dad was truly like this with his illness -- resisting it uncomplainingly except for the wistfulness of not being able to do what he'd done before.
And third, the effect of a hymn -- an effect that rained fully on my wife Marielle and me last week when we went to church last week. It was an old hymn, one of the kinds my father loved, and we found ourselves suddenly and simultaneously in tears, there at the start of the service.