My father speaks slowly; his sentences are deliberate, exhaustive and eloquent. His ability to describe every step of a mechanical process – with absolute clarity and precision – amazes and inspires me. His need to depict every emotional nuance – with absolute clarity and precision – infuriated me. I was getting so impatient arguing with him; I was fuming, and he was going through the plot of our conflict, going back not only to the flashpoint incident, but even further back to the underlying principles that he understood, and that he wanted me to do, and that I wanted to burn. My mother can explain everything too, but she knows when I want that. She knows how to answer yes or no questions. She knows how to give clinical details and technical terms, then define, elaborate and translate for the layperson. She knows how to listen to understand what I think or feel, without feeling hurt by the fact that I don't think and feel like her. She knows when to agree (when she agrees) and when to disagree (when she disagrees); my father knows what seems morally sound and challenges, pushes back, or blocks out any other noise. My mother can sit silently and read, while the rest of the family fusses around her, while my father tries to maintain order with a look of hurt and dismay. My mother babbles on about gardening, promo codes, recipes she hopes I'll try, or books I'll love later, while I try to sit quietly and read. I wish I hadn't yelled at him. Awesome value and power belongs to those who have their feet both in writing and in certain esoteric fields, such as astronomy, computer programming, medicine, ecology. My father fixes things. His carpentry comes home: small Japanese trucks filled with surplus wood from hospitals and schools that he has...... middle of paper ...... stuck, when his voice became hooked, I even helped him end this eulogy. One day I'll probably deliver one to each of them, and one day I'll probably sit down with my own kids and teach them how to type. I'll tease them about poetry that I know my mother would like, and I'll shout at them the rule I learned not from but for my father: "Be fucking succinct!" » Resources: Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemings of Monticello. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2008. Print. Brodie, Fawn M. “Jefferson's Great Taboo.” eighty. The American HeritageSociety, June 1972. Web. March 26, 2014.Pascal, Blaise “Les Pensées de Pascal”. Gutenberg.org. Project Gutenberg. April 2006. Web.March 26, 2014Monticello by Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson Foundation. nd Web. March 26, 2014. Wiencek, Henry. “The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson.” Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 2012. Internet. April 18. 2014