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I composed this PhotoThought several weeks ago when I was feeling in a creative mood. I started with the quotation from Van Gogh, then I selected an image to support his thought. I can still remember the day that image fell into my camera, but otherwise I made no particular association with this PhotoThought.

When I decided to post this today, one association came immediately, surprisingly to my mind. Two people very close to me have died since my father died; my grief for them is much fresher. Yet it was my father who leapt into my consciousness.

I continue to learn about love’s eternity. As I hold the image of my father in my mind right now, I realize that I love him no less now than I did the day he died five years ago. When I compare our life together with other fathers and sons I know, I do not believe the two of us were unusually close. We were different in so many ways; my other two brothers had much more in common with him than I. Yet Dad and I had an abiding appreciation and a deep respect and, yes, a very sure love for one another.

One aspect of our relationship has unavoidably changed: we cannot meet physically. We cannot share ideas and memories and stories as we once did. We cannot kid one another. Yet the changed physicality of our relationship has in no way touched our love. I love him in the same manner, and for the same reasons, and to the same depth that I experienced as we grew older together. And I believe, though I cannot see him these days, that he still loves me too.

Every fiber within my being, many of which came from him, resonate with Van Gogh’s wisdom: the aspect of a significant love may change, but its very essence lives on, undiminished, unvarying. I am grateful that life has shared this lesson with me.