And there in the sunroom I stood, one afternoon shortly after my father had died and we had moved into a new house and my life was all jumbled up beyond recall, with the light of the dying day filtering in through the tree outside, tears welling up as I honked through a requiem for my father with the instrument I knew best how to play.
The rule of law is a fine thing, when it’s not stupid law. Amnesty would eliminate one kind of stupidity. And my law-abiding ancestors would take no offense at modern immigrants getting the same deal (show up and come in) as they did.
However, for sheer guillotine-like intensity and definitiveness of severance, nothing in our society, short of divorces and funerals, begins to compare to the moment when parents leave kids off at college for the first time.