with my mother's touch from my future fears. We look happy and connected, but someone is missing, and that is the curious part. Where is my father? Psychologically this is disturbing, even though I know the picture was made for him as a birthday present to put on his desk. A family picture without a whole family? My father indeed was often missing from my life. He was a doctor, busy at work making house calls and aloof from the daily activities of our household. Prophetically he would die young, and I would grow up feeling I hardly knew him.