The Last Flight

I am Dick's daughter, Deborah.

With great sadness, I am putting up the final post for this blog.

My father died last Sunday. My Uncle Bob learned earlier last week that Dad hadn't been feeling well, and several attempts to contact him by e-mail and phone went unanswered. On Sunday, my husband and I decided to drive down to Fullerton yesterday to check on him. We found him dead.

He passed away in his bedroom, of natural causes. He lived the last several years of his life exactly as he wanted: safe at home, with his books, his computer, his cats. He had few relationships, but those he had were strong and lasting. I last saw him on Christmas Day, and he was cheerful and optimistic. The encroachment of Parkinson's disease was obvious, and to me his death means that he escaped the worst that disease can do. Though his circumstances were much reduced, he felt a sense of plenty most of us would not have maintained in the face of similar challenges. I grieve his loss, but I am glad for him that he did not live to see that sense diminished.

My brother and I are going to have him cremated as soon as possible, and we're not having a viewing or a service at this time. Later we may decide to hold some kind of private memorial.

Thanks to all of his blog readers for their virtual companionship with him over the last couple of years. As you all know, we are all on this flight together.

I'd like to close this final post by relating an observation I posted on Facebook on Tuesday, when I was musing about what impression I would offer by way of explaining my father. This one came to mind:

Through the entire duration of the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, every week my father would carefully read the names and the biographies published in the L.A. Times of the Americans who died there. The important fact about this observation is that he did so apolitically. He read each entry with great concentration, respect, interest and sorrow. Though his critics might conclude that he was looking for evidence of the legitimacy of his political beliefs , they would be wrong. He was simply paying attention, something he thought was the obligation of a thoughtful human being and a responsible citizen.

I can't think of anything my father did in his life that speaks better of him than than the quiet attention he paid to the value of human life when no one was looking, and the curious way he maintained his optimism despite what he read in the newspaper.