Whenever I awake on a morning this cold...

...I think of how my father was homeless for two years as a child when the Nazis occupied his family's house and how he and his father survived in a lean-to in the woods during this period. (My father's mother had already died from tuberculosis by this time. Dad's last memory of his mom is of her screaming his name as the paramedics dragged her away to be quarantined. Summarily, his two younger brothers were sent to live with other family members.) Then, of course, Greece had a civil war immediately thereafter.

I remain forever in awe that my father's humanity and intellect and wit have persisted intact.