Their Fathers’ Deaths Left No Clear Answers

Mark Arax’s gripping account of his lifelong search for why his father was murdered (“A Grieving Son’s Journey Comes to a Crossroads,” Dec. 12) comes to an ambiguous conclusion that is more truthful than literary: Most such abrupt endings in life can never be fully understood.

I was similarly haunted by the mysterious events surrounding my father’s death--the bullet that ended his life came not from the gun of a stranger but from the one in his own troubled hand. How to explain a self-willed exit? It’s perhaps even more difficult than pinpointing the motives for murder.

In the end, however, there are no clear answers. My only ambiguous resolution, very different from Arax’s, was to realize that when my dad died, a part of me had to have died too.

Arax luckily was twice my age when he lost his father. May he savor all his wonderful memories of an obviously good man.

David Lewis

Piedmont, Calif.