Remembering

My sister in law to be and her family are spending today making funeral arrangements for their father. How unfair. Fifty three is too young to die. Luckily, having him as a dad at all was such a blessing that I have the utmost faith they'll be just fine.

He was a force of nature - the kind of person who owned a room the moment he entered it. This, combined with his supreme friendliness and generosity are among the qualities that made him hugely successful in his business, as well as very, very popular in his personal life. The family home was always full of people, even while he was ill.

Such an enormous number of people will miss him, and will cherish their memories of him. I count myself as genuinely lucky to have known him. He is someone who taught me a lot about life and how to live it in the few years I knew him.

A story, in parting, to sum up the kind of guy he was. A couple of weeks ago, while he was gravely ill and at MGH, my sister and I went over to visit and to take the girls out to lunch. On my way there, I stopped and picked up a little stuffed puppy for him, because I knew he had a soft spot for puppies. When I got to his room with the gift bag in my hand, I asked him how he was doing that day. He eyed the bag in my hands and said, "I'm a puppy away from being happy." I said, "Will a stuffed puppy do?" He thought it would do just fine, and said to his wife, "I told you I was getting a puppy," smirking away. No matter how ill he was, no matter how grave the prognosis, he could always find something to smirk about - some way to have some impish fun. I admired that quality from the first, and it'll be among the things I'll remember.