Christopher Buckley writes:
It’s tricky, trying to channel your father’s ghost. Hamlet tried it. I think I won’t. But I miss WFB’s takes on—everything that’s going on. Often, I’d find myself flailing aimlessly or circularly about some issue, trying to sort it out in my own head. Then I’d ring him and he’d nail it for me in two or three neat sentences that left me laughing and shaking my head, for the thousandth time, in amazement. Even if I suspected he might be wrong, he was always elegantly wrong.
He died at his desk in Stamford, Connecticut, while working on a book. He’d been ill for many months, worn down by emphysema. His wife of 57 years had died ten months earlier, and he missed her desperately. A DVD had been made of her memorial service, with a PowerPoint slide show I’d assembled of dozens of photos of her through the years. He watched it again and again, tears streaming down his face. I understand now, the business of long-time mates not outliving each other by long.
My father was a man of devout, unflinching, sometimes exasperating Catholic faith. He believed absolutely in heaven and hell. I lost (or misplaced) my faith, but I find myself on this anniversary hoping that I’m wrong, and that he’s there, correcting God’s grammar. I have on my desk an editorial cartoon showing him arriving at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter whispering to an angel, “I’m going to need a bigger dictionary.”