Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

by Margaret Renkl

Aren’t transitions always marked by tumult and confusion? How comforting it would be to say, as a matter of unremarkable fact, “I’m wandering in the mist just now. It will blow off in a bit.”

Blessed is the winking father who each day delivers his children to Catholic school with a kiss and the same advice: “Give ’em hell!” He will be summoned to few teacher conferences.

But as with all other matters in nature and in life, I entered this story in medias res: unaware of its beginning and owed no right to witness its end.