The last time I saw my father alive, I was saying our goodbyes. I was standing, he was sitting on the sofa. I kissed him. We are kissers, my dad was, my brother is.

I said “Love you Dad.” He gave his soft, little semi-contented “hm” of 93 years, and said “I love you too Steve.”

I turned to leave. He said, “Don’t lean on people.” I looked him in the eye, contemplated a response when Harvey cut in with a command ‘door’. I gave him a gentle smile, and turned to the door.

Those were the last words I ever said to him, and he to me. “Don’t lean on people.”

The second wisest thing my father ever said to me regarded becoming an attorney. “They will brainwash you. They have to. You have to learn how to think like an attorney to become an attorney.” I asked him what I should do. He said “I don’t know.” A preacher by trade, he didn’t need the Randall Knife.

He idolised his father, Mr. Jobs's father. My living mom, Amy, opened his eyes to his hero worship. Dad did what he could to prevent me from idolising him by warning me of how he had idolised his dad.

Amy and I reunited after a long absence. No one sees into your soul like your mother.

I suggested to her that I don’t think Dad wanted kids. Squirting seaman into a vagina to make more is what we have been doing for aeons, and, one would expect, will do for aeons. My dad did his duty. Wanting kids, stopping after one, were not thought that came to that generation as much as mine.

Further to my recollections of his initial responses to my law school preparations, Dad reminded me that my grandfather, not his dad, rather my biological mother’s, had been an attorney. Dad told me they would brainwash me. He was right.

I did what I could. I can do more.

While I was studying for the law school entrance exam, he went golfing with a buddy. He proudly, perhaps too proudly, told his buddy I was going to be an attorney. He said the buddy replied, “Great, just what we need, another attorney.”

My father was quick. Once he told me he greatly admired Tony Redmond, an attorney across the street. One of several admirable traits of Tony’s he mentioned was Tony’s quick wittedness. Tony’s wit was quick. My dad might have been in the same league, but what my dad lacked was Tony’s ability to see the lie in the moment, to discern the mistruth or dis-truth and, through subtle means, exploit or expose the lie. Tony saw the hypocrisy of the entire system.

My dad and I can see that lie, but we can’t see it in the moment the way Tony, and I suspect Mark, his son, can.

I miss you Dad. Not a day goes by when I shouldn’t thank you for tolerating me. You made mistakes. You were, as I think back now in the comfort of a chapter closed, a saint, and you will always be one of my gods.