I walked along Fort Myers Beach with Michelle and the children late Saturday afternoon at sunset. It was a trip I'd taken with and without a girlfriend, or kids, almost every other Sunday night in the four years I'd been divorced.

I had my cell phone in my pants pocket and stumbled for it as it rang. I missed the call, but caught the number with PA area code and called back. It was Franny, my dad's 85-year-old girlfriend, asking me to convince my dad to stay with her and be safe while my sister and her boyfriend were at the New Jersey casinos.

I spoke to him, telling him about the cool beach breeze and what the children had been doing and my ex, soon to remarry. The children each spoke to him also, shouting in the phone above the waves and seagulls and kids shouting. I spoke to him too, telling him I loved him and he should stay with Franny. Finally he ended the call first as he always did, saying, "All right Anthony, I'll let you go." We said our goodbyes and hung up.

I have to thank Franny, and the Lord Himself, for those few moments on that beach in what had been an ordinary Saturday afternoon. It would be the final time I'd speak with my dad, who passed away last night after two major heart attacks in an afternoon. He died two weeks short of Father's Day (as my mom died a week before Mother's Day, 15 years before.) He also died two months short of his 80th birthday, the final member of his family (parents, two brothers, one sister) to pass on.

I will miss Dad the rest of my life and owe so much to him for shaping who I am as a man and as a father. It all seems distant for me, missing him here in SW FL and looking at past pictures recent as this Thanksgiving. Michelle met him that magical weekend for the first time (and he told my sister, "She's good for him," nothing I didn't already know.) The children lost a grandfather and will miss our outings when I'd bring them to see him in August, taking care of stray cats drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes on his back porch.

I can't begin to describe here how much he meant to me, especially the last 15 years of his life after my mother passed on. Franny and my sister Gerladine deserve and need my prayers, for they took care of him those years and saw he went where he needed to, was fed and kept comfortable in his home. My dad didn't die lonely, and they are to thank for that.

Tomorrow I fly to Philadelphia and begin the long, painful process of viewing and funeral and luncheon, plus estate and the dreaded red tape. The hardest part will be walking into our home, the one I spent half my life in, looking for him lying in his bedroom or coming out of the hallway, and not seeing him. May God bless my dad and everyone who loved him.