Everything is fine... until it isn’t.

My phone rang at 5:30 Saturday morning and I knew it was either a wrong number or "it isn't". Noah told me "‘I am so sorry mom, your father died." & instantly my world dimmed and lost stability.

My dad was an anchor: we shared so many core beliefs, and we often disagreed, in fact we reveled in our disagreements, but he always brought me back to earth with a strong gravitational pull.

As I flew here last Sat here are some of the thoughts & memories that flooded over me:

Growing up my dad, even then, spent lots of time at his desk writing his Phd. He did not want to be interrupted but always had time to teach me stuff: math of course, why the sky is blue, how to wiggle my ears, & I would stand on his feet so he could show me how to dance the fox trot & waltz. I do remember the one thing he would not teach me was how to french kiss.

When Micah was 4, he was so disgusted that the family lied to him about taking a family photo, that he walked across the street and sat under a tree for hours until his brother cajoled him to come home. Jerry was so taken by his reaction to the false pretense, he bought him a small parcel of land high on a hill where he could go to sit quietly under a tree when he needed to collect his thoughts.

When I first saw the wonderful 1997 ad campaign for Apple "Think Different" featuring great innovators like Einstein, Callas, King, Dylan... I thought of my dad. It seemed to me he always thought different and encouraged me to do the same. He was so supportive of my creativity, that it gave me the courage to be an artist.

When Micah was 5, he won a prize for his essay submitted to The Vegetarian Times. It began: "I have been a vegetarian my whole long life..."

Well, I have known my dad, my whole long life.

And he is so integral to the fabric of who I am:
From my dad I inherited, probably genetically, so many core values and my love of learning... and he was so happy to know these continue to his grandchildren. He also passed along his love of informed discussion & debate.

I knew it would be traumatic for me when Noah left to go to college, so I cleverly arranged our leaving first for a year working in Toyko. Well, I hadn’t really thought it through... the fact that someone actually had to take Noah and move him into his dorm room. Jerry, not feeling all that well, flew to Chicago, took him, via Costco to get him all the stuff he needed, and settled him in to start his freshman year. When I told dad how grateful I was, he said "don’t be, taking Noah to college was a gift to me."

He and my mom created a close, loving, supportive family where we can always always depend on each other. That strong foundation enables me to go out and take chances in the world.

They showed us all the value of a strong work ethic... and that the fruit of our labor tasted much sweeter when earned. He taught me not to buy what I could not afford & to pay off my credit cards every month... that one of the worst things was to pay unneeded interest to the nefarious big banks.

We share our love for ethnic spicy food & marmite, museums, Anslem Keifer, Henry Moore & Eva Hesse, Ferlighetti & A year of living Dangerously, changing Fall leaves & the copper colored cliffs of the Gorge at dusk, getting a good deal and then spending the money saved on charitable contributions.

When Paul & I moved to Philadelphia and I complained about being cold, he took just me to Hawaii that winter. We both love swimming and we snorkeled in the clearest water... together wondering if art could ever be that beautiful.

A Few years ago When Jerry bemoaned, yet again, never having spent time in Berlin, I took just him to explore that city. It was so inspiring, he forgot that he had trouble walking... at least for the first 2 days.

My last time with my dad was this past summer in Skamania & it was the best. We had almost 2 months together. Paul always gets there before I do, so when I eventually arrived he was happy to see me and annoyed that he no longer had Paul's undivided attention. He liked to play cribbage with me because he often won... & together we made one decent poker player. Jerry was always a bit of a 'dandy' and he thought the last haircut I gave made him looked particularly handsome... & it did. We argued about spirituality, opening the windows, and him not driving & we agreed he had the BEST grand boys ever. He had some scary falls... so we worked on balance and did chair yoga most days and by the end of the summer his physical & mental improvement was obvious. Every day I made a point of telling my dad ‘I love you’.