He's Dead, Jim

Lost another parent on the fourth of March. At this rate, I am out of parents already. I am the old man of the family now. Dad passed away on the walkway between the house and the garage in the late afternoon.

I was at work, and my phone was in my locker. When I checked my phone around seven, there was a missed call from dad, and from Becky. Both had left voice messages. I checked dad's message first, and the voice was Ruby, his roomy. She said that he had fallen and hit his head, twice. I covered my heart with my hand.

I called Becky right away and she wouldn't tell my what happened. "Is dad okay?" I asked. "Not really," she said. I thought maybe he was in critical condition, at some hospital, but was aware that he may have died.

After work, I sat in my car in the parking lot of work and called her back. "He's gone," was all I heard. That's not how it's supposed to happen! He's supposed to slip away in his sleep in about a decade!

At least we reconciled. All the kids shared their thoughts about dad at the service for him, as we put out of Newport Harbor. The air was damp and cool, and I appreciated how happy he must have been to live here, and how he deserved it by working so hard.

I recounted how his greatest gift to me, personally speaking, was his amazing power of forgiveness. There was no transgression too great that he couldn't forgive. I would receive the full measure of punishment - there was no escaping that. But somehow he knew that being separated from him was the greatest punishment of all.

As Sherry and I drove away from the dock after the service, the radio mumbled something that made me say aloud, "Zaphod Beeblebrox." Just at that moment, on 32nd Street, we passed a business with the serendipitious name, "Don't Panic."