He has got three wonderful kids ranging now from 12 to 16 years old, whom I truly love.

I brought lovely Suzanne my acoustic 12 string guitar for her twelveth birthday.

That was the last physical connection I had left with music and I could see undisguisable envy in both Leonard’s and Nick’s eyes. So I embraced my elder nephew close as we watched her open the guitar case and I whispered.

“You’ve got to be patient while teaching her, I won’t be around much anymore. And don’t be jealous, you’ve got in all 18 strings…”

He smiled back at me and squeezed my arm around him as if to make that embrace last.

As to Leonard’s, well, it is far more complicated… His envy now had already shifted to me hugging Nick. And the whispering, of course.

“How is it with the old man? You should give him a break…”

We cracked laughing. Suzanne joined our hug at the same time Leo Jr. crossed the open front door to the sound of his falling bike.

I turned around in time to catch a glimpse of Leonard trying to avoid Claire’s hug, which at that time might have sounded as a consolation prize.

He might as well have taken it.