My father died today. It is with mixed feelings that I see him go. His last 5 months were absolutely miserable – painful in all aspects – physically and emotionally. First with my mother being sick and then with his own struggle and grappling with his own disease. I am so so sorry that I could not do anything to make any of this time pass easier. Lord knows, we all struggled with the decisions we made and the promises we didn’t keep. But we knew, we knew where this was all going. It was inevitiable… Dad was old school. He was a man’s man. He loved golf. He loved most sports. Baseball, football but really golf. Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, they were his kind of guys. He used to play sand lot when he was a kid. Probably was full of glass and nails – because that is old school. He spoke heroically of the mythical 12th street where he grew up. He worked hard. In a crazy hours kind of job. On his feet all day. He wasn’t so different than his father. He could sell and he could run a business. He was practical and he provided a very comfortable life for his family. And we’re not so different than him. I don’t think I saw my dad much when I was growing up. Or that is what it seemed like. He worked on weekends away. What can I remember? He changed my position in little league from second basemen to catcher to get me into the majors. I can remember him hitting ground balls at me at what seemed to be 100 miles an hour and just 5 feet away in the backyard full of dirt. I remember him playing third base scooping up everything in sight with an incomparable arm. I remember the trips to maine and the visits at kohut – sitting in the back of the giant Riviera. I remember the torture on the golf course – him trying to get me to slow my back swing down. I can’t tell who it was more painful for. I remember eating chuck steak from a fry pan full of butter down at the market after standing on my feet for 12 hours and thinking “wow, this is delicious”. I remember him listening to stories I told about work and never being sure if he understood – but always knowing that he got something out of it and was proud of me. I remember the conversation we had in the back yard, (me in the Jacuzzi) him listening to my plans to move to California. And him being so surprisingly supportive. I always wanted my dad to be proud of me. That is what I think I cared about most in our relationship. He used to say things like “pound for pound you’re the greatest”. My dad was not a doctor. He was not a lawyer. He was an old school dad. He worked hard. And got satisfaction out of life’s pleasures that came his way. But Golf was his pleasure. If golf was his pleasure, my mother was his love. People tell me about my parent’s love for each other. As a kid, you never really see it. But as an adult in your own marriage you understand it. you know that they were meant for each other. That they were meant to be together. If you look at their pictures and movies you feel it. you feel the journey they shared. The love that they had to share and the experiences that they sought together. My parents story is one of millions. But it is theirs and ours. We love it as much as we love them. They are physically gone. But they will never really be gone. They live on in our minds and our hearts. They live on in our children and the way we raised them. And they will live on in the stories and parenting of our children’s children. While this is goodbye for now. I don’t think the conversation will ever stop. It just won’t be vocal. It will be thoughtful.