Cathedrals
Consulting projects are rarely ever complete. There is a stream of activity that predates my involvement and continues after. The client invites us to, at the least, inform the flow and, at best, inflect it. I can rarely predict at the onset how much. Our work usually concludes before the actual undertaking begins. I don't understand "closure." For my own sanity, I abandoned trying to comprehend my father's particular logic years ago. Learning to accept without understanding is a muscle he helped me exercise. Relationships have a kind of one-sided purity after the other person is gone and there is no one to assert any alternative perspectives. My mind can rest comfortably in its conclusions. Caring for him those last few weeks required blind acceptance, of his pervasive drinking, desire to die, and absurd purchases, regardless of the impulses behind them. Maybe this is love, a state it took me decades to achieve with him and, ironically, was more possible when I knew it wouldn't have to last that long. To do my best work, I must love my clients, however clear their foibles. I become immersed in their purpose and potential and want to see them realize it all. Every project completion is a little heartbreak. We finished two undertakings recently, one whose impact is still uncertain, and another that exceeded expectations. There will be others, but only one father. In the end, I couldn’t save him. I don't know if it's love or foolishness to honor wishes that curtail or even terminate potential. Doing so runs counter to something fundamental within me, but I can, with some effort, respond to a different, perhaps higher calling—their desires, not mine—knowing the reverberations will continue to unfold and evolve within me.
