What he said amounted to: if we find ourselves in a difficult situation where we would want his advice and we can imagine what he would tell us if only he was around to say it, then he has done his job as a parent and isn't gone from our lives, not really.

Writing that sent me spiraling, briefly, on a couple of dark tangents, one of them being about my frequent battles with Mike Flanagan Disease and how being able to imagine what a dead parent might say if she were here (and that's her secret, Cap) isn't always a comfort.

The main character's dying mother says this in a Diane Duane novel and I've found it to be really true. Sometimes it's painful, other times it's a comfort.

That’s excellent.