TRYING SO HARD: summer songs

August, die she must.

As long as I have lived, August has been hot. And the heat was never as relentless as it felt the summer of 2012, when I spent the first two weeks visiting my father at the hospital in New York City, and the last two weeks planning his funeral. In and out of funeral homes, subways, churches, restaurants and malls — all blasting air conditioning — all re…