And then Daddy cried. He didn't say that he was glad Brother wasn't mad at him, or that he was sorry for their fight. He just sat there, looking at his plate and chewing on a bite of corn bread, with tears running down his cheeks. I could have cried myself. Brother was gone, and he wouldn't be back. And things that had been so before never would be so again. We were the way we were; nothing could make us any different, and we suffered because of it. Things happened to us the way they did because we were ourselves. And if we'd been other people it wouldn't have mattered. If we'd been Mushmouth or Jig Pendleton or that dog with the roman candle tied to his tail, it would have been the same; we'd have had to suffer whatever it was that they suffered because they were themselves. And there was nothing anybody could do but let it happen.
Wendell Berry, Nathan Coulter
