It has been a very long couple of weeks.

My dad's funeral was yesterday.

Life goes on.

I will give my family credit for instilling that perspective of perseverence. I suppose I should give the Marine Corps credit for reinforcing it.

Going home to the tiny, rural farm community where I grew up wasn't hard. Not much has changed there in the 28 years that I've been away. Some of the faces are different in the familiar places, but not much else has changed. The town is now down to two stoplights. The third one, a block from the school, at the intersection of where the ice cream shop sits, has been changed to a four-way stop with a flashing light.

Not much has changed, other than once-familiar faces having been aged nearly three decades.