Losing A Father

Ann Coulter really brings home the pain of losing your father in a witty, emotional, and spot-on column:

John Vincent Coulter was of the old school, a man of few words, the un-Oprah, no crying or wearing your heart on your sleeve, and reacting to moments of great sentiment with a joke. Or as we used to call them: men.

When he was moping around the house once, missing my brother who had just gone back to college, he said, "Well, if you had cancer long enough, you'd miss it."

He'd indicate his feelings about my skirt length by saying, "You look nice, Hart, but you forgot to put on your skirt."

Of course, he did show strong emotion when The New York Post would run a photo of Teddy Kennedy saying the rosary. I can still see the look of disgust. I saw that face in "How To Read People Like a Book" and it was NOT a good chapter.

Your parents are your whole world when you are a child. You only recognize what is unique about them when you get older and see how the rest of the world diverges from your standard of normality.

The Old Man stormed off this mortal coil five years ago this March. I cannot believe how much time has passed. The ache hasn't really dulled---I still find myself from time to time musing "The Old Man would've really dug this" or "The Old Man would hate that."

Naturally, every time my brothers and sister get together we swap stories of The Old Man. I can't imagine a time when we won't.