I think that my father would find it so confusing that people want to imitate him. Not because he didn't have confidence in who he was, but because he never imitated anybody. He was his own person.
The most ethical way to deal with an unethical situation would be to simply say: 'We did something wrong.' But nobody in a family like mine would ever respond like this.
I'm part of the tribe who have said goodbye to one parent and are feeling a sense of responsibility for the one who remains - in my case, my mother. How do I make her time smoother, happier? How do I try to ease her, a widow, away from the dark well of grief without dishonoring the necessity of that grief?
I certainly support anyone's prerogative to hire or not hire whomever they choose, and I definitely don't want to work for someone who doesn't want me.
I would not call myself a veteran conspiracy theorist. Or an obsessed one. I pretty much peaked on the whole conspiracy theory thing in the '60s, with the grassy knoll, who really killed JFK, and who ordered the hit on Lee Harvey Oswald.
I have a feeling of reverence about my father being in his 80s - a feeling that I want to whisper, take soft steps, not intrude too much. He's like a stately old cathedral to me now.