A Stirring Portrait of a Gallant Father

* I am writing to commend you for publishing Jon D. Markman’s extraordinarily moving account of his memories of his father’s death and life (“Yom Kippur Evokes Mournful Memory of a Courageous Father,” Sept. 15).

It was almost too painful to read, yet the love behind the words was powerfully conveyed. What a terrible loss for the Markman family. What an immense comfort to them to have a son like Jon, to evoke so stirringly the good and gallant human being that his father was.

I lost my own father the day before my 17th birthday, and he has been gone now more than half my life. I never knew or understood him well. He was an aloof and troubled presence in the house I grew up in, yet I know my life was forever diminished by his loss, because I was denied the chance of ever reaching out to try to help him, to maybe vanquish the demons that tormented him. And, as I try to measure what small strides I have made in this world, I will never have the chance to see that glint of pride in my father’s eyes.

Fervently, urgently, I admonish my friends whose fathers are still living to appreciate them now, because a memory, however revered or exalted, to the human heart will not suffice. As Mr. Markman so eloquently wrote, “For even in pain, even at his worst, we felt he was better off alive with us than dead.”

GLORIA IRIS GLASSER

Agoura