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Show Danny nodded slowly. Brian clapped him on the shoulder and led him from the room. "Come on . Let's go s i t down." Then Brian cleared his t h r o a t and said perhaps the tenderest words he had said to any man since Vietnam. "You know, you gotta pull yourself together, Danny. If you f a l l apart, who do I have to lean on? And how could I get along without my best friend - my brother?" After driving through the bleak, dark night, the familiar faces of my family seemed radiant even in sorrow and grief. Sad smiles were beacons of hope; tearful eyes gave reflection of my own mixed f e e l i n g s . We half-laughed, half-cried as we hugged, confused in our joy at being together without him. Had our love been sustained by something beyond his influence? Or did we merely meet in one l a s t explosion of tenderness like a bursting flower which will quickly diffuse i t s withered petals? Xj3.VonEL When I saw Aunt A I knew that our bonds were stronger than anything death could erode. Her cheeks were streaked, her glasses fogged but still I could see the refining touch of loneliness that the years without my father had etched. She had lost him long ago and now bore with us in our loss. She had known of his clay feet before I had. Around us were those who reeled with shock, who still believed somewhere in themselves that he couldn't die, who yet believed that at any moment he would appear in our midst and begin healing again. There was a cry from the foyer. My little nephew's finger need stitching. "Where's Daddy?" his mother murmured, tears spilling for she had remembered even as she spoke that he m |