Padre is a a memoir that spins off the death of my father, and also that of my mother, who pre-deceased him by about a year. While their deaths were sad, their lives were remarkable. They were both fabulous, and very much exemplars of The Greatest Generation. But, also, this book is about me, or rather about people of my age, who now confront the passing of their parents and other older relations. It is about, alas, our own education, as we make the transition to a new role. We are now responsible. We are now the mommies and daddies, and the grandparents. And that is a fundamental rite of passage which is not always comfortable, but which cannot be escaped.

Lastly, though, this book is about death--not, though, in a tragic sense. Rather, it is about the art of dying, the business of dying well.And how, sometimes, it is a gift.given, in this case, by my father to me.I am, I trust, appropriately grateful.