A Daughter Says Good Voyage to Her Father

At about 1:30 a.m., the caregiver called and I ran next door with Peter. She simply said, "There's a change." On the way, I noticed a full moon and vibrant stars overhead, light at night like I've never seen it in Kenwood, where the evening sky is often inky black.

I got to his room, where he had laid for two days. Now he was peaceful—breathing irregularly, but more calm. I sat down beside him and tried to call him, but he did not open his eyes.

I started to tell the story again, the one that I've been telling him all week. "I'm building you a beautiful boat," I kept saying, "filled with every flower you've ever grown. When it's ready, you can leave." This time, I ended by saying, "The boat is ready now, it’s time to leave." Peter and I called out that we loved him, and Dad took another breath.

And there it ended, without a cry or a shout. He completely relaxed, yet he still seemed alive. I looked at Peter, who said, "It was only one breath. He's not exactly breathing." I looked down and saw the terrible exactitude for myself and faced its ultimate result, as he might say, "not the penultimate.” This is it, I remember thinking, footprints that disappear in mid-air, the devastation of love that disappears into the night we do not know.

He lived as he died, in Kenwood in a worn pensioneer's cottage, with green life all around him. He was nearly 97 this morning. He lived through two world wars, two major conflicts, and may other kinds of wars. He loved telling stories and writing. He was a remarkable gardener. As mother once said, “he could spit on the ground and it would grow.” My father raised sunflowers and admirers wherever he went. He never had an enemy that I knew of, and helped everyone he could.

But he was tired and lonesome for people like him who still darned socks and used a telegraph key for fun and taught themselves languages to pass the time. He was the kind of guy who liked to fix things. In the last few years, his repairs were misshapen and, at times, bigger and uglier than what was broken in the first place, combining nuts and bolts, nails and duct tape, with a dash of WD40 to keep it greased.

Life was changing faster than he could. Dad hated the sound of cell phones and answering machines, preferring a telephone bell to a beep. He was born in 1909, a poor Irish tenant farmer’s middle son. He outlived his entire family (of which there were many brothers and two sisters.) Like them, he was loving and had wonderful humor and required a fine ale at supper and dinner. Please join me tonight in a warm thought of Glen Smith, who used his ingenuity and innate curiosity to travel the world, living in China, The Philippines and Japan, finally ending up in Kenwood, CA—a small village of 400 or so souls, with homes of uncertain design, a village so much like the little town where he started out.

There will be a memorial service this spring. I will contact you to let you know more in a few weeks.