On October 27th, my father died.

He was 91, in good health the month before, and then gone. He went in the best way possible under the circumstances. He was at peace and said repeatedly that he was grateful for the life he had been given and had no regrets. We were able to spend lots of time with him in the week before his death.

The last six weeks have been a blur of hotel rooms (shout-out to the retro glories of the Howard Johnson in Tillsonburg), hospital rooms (a sincere shout-out to the Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital for amazing care), meetings (lawyer, funeral homes, bank, Service Ontario etc, etc, etc), deciding where to eat, deciding where to walk, trying to find some beauty in the glory of an Ontario autumn while knowing it would be the last my father would ever see, and managing so many feelings, not all of them my own.

We spent a lot of time in the hospital room with him, my brother and I madly writing down stories as he told them. I wrote a speech for the Celebration of Life and I thought it was pretty good. But I want to write something really good and that will take time.

His ashes are in a cherrywood box in a velvet bag in my living room, amidst a pile of boxes of photo albums that I need to go through.

Sometimes, I say goodnight to him on my way to bed. Sometimes, I kiss my fingers and give the box a pat.

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Goodnight.