Veritas

The chair on the left, with the red leather cushion is my father's "Harvard chair," with its logo--Veritas (truth). The chair on the right came from my mother's side of the family; it was one of six kitchen table chairs from her mother.

My father and I spent a lot of time in these chairs these past few days editing his memoir. He would sit with his notations on the hard copy, neatly arranged by chapter in two massive D-ring binders. I would sit at the computer, noting on the electronic copy all the changes.

Occasionally I'd cajole him to write more, clarify, amplify, to linger in a scene or to be ruthless and cut cut cut. Some times he'd resist and we'd have a dialogue about what worked, or why the reader needed more, and in the discussion we'd find the compromise we were seeking. It was a lively and exhausting three days with lots of laughter, shared secrets, and active discourse on a variety of subjects related to what we were reading and working on.

Mother was patient with these two hermits in the study, sitting on their chairs, taking a journey.