This book is the end result of the author trying to "get a handle on" her father who died when she was thirty-three. Beginning in her mid-forties she attempted to understand him. Endlessly calm and smiling, undisturbed by the yelling of his wife and the small spats of his children, he was like no other father. He was calm, fair and a man of integrity. This was remarkable since he had lost the use of his legs before three of his children were born...