The Ballad of March Forth
Power. After a year’s unintended break, I am drawn back to The Year of Celebration . Today, on my late father’s birthday, I pored through emails, articles, photographs, essays, newspaper clippings and videos. I feasted on his life. The portion I spent with him and the portion before me. I don’t reserve that purely for his birthday of course, but on March 4 th I always celebrate him, because often I just can’t. Sometimes, even now, the pain is too great and to remember him is to remember that he’s gone. And when I lost him, I did everything I could to lose myself. I learn ed many things from my dad. He was my greatest teacher, both in life and in death. His life story rivalled the best of any Shakespearean drama, but if I could condense it into one soundbite, his birthday sums it up: March Forth. It’s not just a date in the calendar, it’s a direction – to do something, to go somewhere. My grief and depression following his death was the launch pad for The Year of Celebration