I felt an allegiance with the loneliness of Bucky Abeshouse, a lion whose mane was always draped around my shoulders. As a writer, I felt the kins.h.i.+p of the solitary pursuit. With an output of four academic articles a year, a book of popular history, and his collection of epitaphs, Bucky Abeshouse sacrificed himself to the calling of words. My mother remembers him sitting in the den every night, surrounded by three radios and a television set, all tuned to different sporting events. "You could walk in at any time," she said, "and he could tell you the score for every game."

I must say, it sounds familiar. He would have felt right at home in my office, with three news sites open on my computer, stacks of books on my desk, and ESPN on the flat-screen TV.

Even deeper, Bucky was clearly drawn to epitaphs because his profession exposed him to mortality. He described this feeling in his opening essay as "walking in the footsteps of death." But he also must have felt the lure because of the loss of his own father. Perhaps spending so much time in the company of ghosts drew him closer to his dad.

His searching certainly drew him closer to me, especially when I also felt the pull of death-and the loneliness that comes with it. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of getting sick as a young person is the profound isolation that comes from thinking about dying when so few people around you are doing so.

Standing at his grave, in my own year of epitaphs, I felt for the first time that Bucky Abeshouse wasn't just an untouchable portrait on the wall. He was real. In our shared pa.s.sion for language and our joint interest in mortality, I had finally found in myself the part of him that was there all along.

And I was reminded of the common message that both my grandfathers seemed to be sending: Don't disappear, don't withdraw. Turn away from the briefs, the records, and the pages and turn toward the people who are just out of view.

.16.

CHRONICLES OF THE LOST YEAR

volume V

February 3

Dear Friends and Family, Relentless torments of snow and ice have battered Brooklyn in recent weeks, leaving the streets and sidewalks a chalky, salty mess, and our creative ways of keeping kids occupied while indoors tapped out long ago. But even as winter slogs toward its halfway mark, if you look outside in the late afternoons, you can begin to detect that the light lasts a little longer, hinting that relief is on the way.

There are very few days in one's life that you know, in advance, are going to be momentous. December 23 was one of those days for me. I awoke before dawn and arrived at the hospital at 5:45 A.M. A.M. for the beginning of what would be a fifteen-hour surgery to salvage my left leg. An orthopedic fellow arrived to sign my thigh, and at 7:30 for the beginning of what would be a fifteen-hour surgery to salvage my left leg. An orthopedic fellow arrived to sign my thigh, and at 7:30 A.M. A.M. I was wheeled down the longest hallway I had ever seen. (I later determined that the world's longest hallways are probably all outside surgery rooms, and I learned that this hallway, long even by hospital standards, has been nicknamed "The Green Mile.") I was wheeled down the longest hallway I had ever seen. (I later determined that the world's longest hallways are probably all outside surgery rooms, and I learned that this hallway, long even by hospital standards, has been nicknamed "The Green Mile.") Inside, the OR was a mix of high-tech television screens; a swarm of nurses and attendants; a man with a large, astronautlike gla.s.s bubble around his head; and a twelve-foot-long table overflowing with knives, scalpels, and p.r.o.ngs. There was enough equipment to cook a state dinner, though in this case the only thing being carved was me. In the last minutes before the anesthesia kicked in, my surgeon, Dr. John Healey, appeared over my table to tell me that the latest scans of my leg suggested that the tumor had been wiped out by the chemotherapy. "It's dead," he said. As he later told my family, "I wanted Bruce to go to sleep with a smile."

As I drifted into sleep Dr. Healey went to work, while Linda, my mom, and my brother waited anxiously outside. At 12:15 P.M. P.M. a nurse let them know that Dr. Healey was still resecting the cancerous material from my femur and thigh. At 2:50 a nurse let them know that Dr. Healey was still resecting the cancerous material from my femur and thigh. At 2:50 P.M. P.M. they got a similar report, and at 4:50 they got a similar report, and at 4:50 P.M. P.M. another. At 6:10 another. At 6:10 P.M. P.M., Linda, Andrew, and my mother were escorted into a room where Dr. Healey joined them five minutes later. "He's doing fine," Dr. Healey said. "I'm fine. That says it all."

In his patient, arresting manner, Dr. Healey spent the next forty-five minutes outlining what he had done. First he removed twenty-two centimeters of my left femur (just shy of nine inches), as well as about a third of my quadricep. The amount of muscle resected was less than he had antic.i.p.ated, and he was especially pleased that he was able to save a key artery he had expected to have to remove. "Bruce is going to love this," Dr. Healey said. "The artery is called the profunda."

Dr. Healey then installed the specially crafted t.i.tanium prosthesis into the gap in my femur, attached the device to the remaining bone, and screwed the entire contraption into place. Though we had expected this prosthesis to mimic the shape of the femur, it's actually a series of tubes, cubes, rods, and rings that appears more akin to a shock absorber, though without the ability to expand and contract. (My brother thinks it looks more like the handle of a light saber from Star Wars Star Wars.) Dr. Healey was encouraged that the prosthesis fit snugly into the good parts of my femur and likened the gap to that between a boat and a dock: the closer one is to the other, the easier it is for the healthy bone to make the leap and grow into the prosthesis. Overall, Dr. Healey said he felt emboldened by the positive developments and pushed himself to take even more chances and be even more courageous. Asked if there were any surprises, Dr. Healey said, "Bruce has a very big leg!"

Though Dr. Healey's work was mostly done, mine was not. While Dr. Healey was briefing my family, the plastic surgeon, Dr. Mehrara, went to work on my lower leg. Dr. Mehrara removed a little more than nine inches of my left fibula, grafted it to my remaining femur, then screwed the fibula into the prosthesis. In order to keep the fibula alive, Dr. Mehrara removed four blood vessels from my calf and relocated them to my thigh. When he told my family about all this at 11:30 P.M. P.M., he, too, was upbeat. "Good bone; good vessels; no problem," Dr. Mehrara said. Dr. Healey returned near midnight to provide an exclamation point to this magnum day. "Believe it or not, I'm ecstatic," he said. As promised, Dr. Healey was the last man standing; as foretold, he was the hero of this war.

And then: the recovery. I woke up the next morning in a fog of narcotics, tubes, drains, and incoherence. I had thirty-one inches of st.i.tches up the side of my left leg and no clue what had happened. Even more confusing, during the time I was on the operating table the doctors had forcibly shut my eyes with what must have been duct tape, and I woke up with a scratched cornea. No one could explain why such a high-tech operation had been marred by this low-tech methodology. An eye doctor arrived that evening-Christmas Eve-to test my sight; he stuck a miniature eye chart about six inches in front of my face. In my state, the whole thing appeared to bounce up and down like a trampoline. "I think you need gla.s.ses," the doctor said and thrust a monocle in front of my eyes. "I don't need gla.s.ses," I said desperately, "I don't need this test." Then I promptly threw up on him. Unfl.u.s.tered, he declared my scratched cornea the worst he had ever seen and ordered me not to open my right eye for three days!

Within days my sight had improved, I weaned myself off the morphine drip, and began to take stock of my body. In effect, I had two different wounds. The first was the thigh, which was grossly swollen, had two drains to reduce the swelling, and seventy-five st.i.tches that stretched more than a foot and a half from my hip to my knee. The second was the calf, which had its own drain, was wrapped in a splint to prevent movement, and had thirteen inches of dissolvable st.i.tches. The ortho team was responsible for the upper wound; the plastics team for the lower; and each side strenuously avoided commenting, inspecting, or even looking at the other wound. But they did continuously blame the other team for keeping me in bed. For a time it seemed as if my leg had become the United States before the Civil War-with my thigh the North; my calf the Confederacy; and my knee was the Mason-Dixon Line. The frustrating standoff needed Lincoln to restore the Union.

On the seventh day, Dr. Healey (after protesting that he was not as tall as Lincoln) finally broke the stalemate and provided a surprising diagnosis. I had eased past the possible complications of surgery more hastily than they expected, and my leg was simply not ready yet to begin rehabilitation. "I'm afraid you recovered too quickly," he joked.

Finally, on Day Eleven, I was allowed to sit up for the first time. "Your leg will swell; it will fill with blood; and it will turn purple," Dr. Healey warned. "Your head will throb; you'll get dizzy; and you'll faint." He was right! Over the next twenty-four hours I slowly made it out of bed, into a wheelchair, and into my new life. On Sat.u.r.day, January 3, twelve days after I arrived, I was finally sent home. It took an ambulance, a fire truck, two crews, a stretcher, and a near overdose of painkillers to get me out of Manhattan, into Brooklyn, up a flight of stairs, and into my bed. The girls came upstairs and swarmed around me. We had reached the end of phase two of our yearlong war.

And we did so on a high of positive news. The day before releasing me, Dr. Healey had paid an unannounced visit to my hospital room. Linda and I were eating a mushroom and anchovy pizza she had smuggled onto the seventh floor. Dr. Healey had just come from the Tumor Review Board, he said, and had some news. The pathology showed that the chemo had been astonis.h.i.+ngly successful, and the kill rate for my tumor was 100 percent. This result substantially increases the chances that the chemo killed the invisible cancers in my blood that have been our primary concern since July and likely improves my overall prospects. The normally reserved Dr. Healey could not contain his enthusiasm. "This is not a small skirmish," he said. "This is victory in a major battle." He then reached out and shook my hand.

Even with this burst of momentum, the following weeks proved extremely challenging. Back at home, the pain was intense, the inconvenience enormous, and the progress of regaining my strength and mobility far more tedious than I had feared. My days became consumed with drug regimens, bedpans, sponge baths, physical therapists, and my pitiful attempt at exercises designed to regain even nominal movement in my left leg. The simple act of turning over in bed would often leave me howling; going outside to visit the doctor required three people to a.s.sist me, including someone elevating my leg as I b.u.mped down the stairs on my rear end like a toddler, out the door, and down the icy stoop. My orders call for no weight at all on my leg until Valentine's Day, followed by six weeks of 50 percent weight on my leg, then months of physical rehab to help me learn to walk again.

And to make our lives significantly more complex, ten days after being discharged from the hospital, I began three months of postoperative chemo. Suddenly I layered all the miseries of last fall-nausea, weight loss, low blood counts, and mental anguish-on top of the pain in my leg. I've been hospitalized once since that time and on more than one occasion found myself just crying out unexpectedly, "I don't want to have cancer anymore!"

But, of course, I don't have cancer anymore. We must live with the threat that it could return at any time, but for now, at least, I am cancer-free. The one strategic decision we made last summer was to delay the surgery for half a year in part to tell if my body would respond to the chemo. Boy did that decision pay off. The news from phase one was as good as we could have hoped; phase two, the surgery, also appears to have been a remarkable success. We are now well into phase three, and we do so with momentum and firmly focused on the future.

So how did everyone else bear up? Linda braved this unimaginable ordeal with more grace and good cheer than almost anyone else I can imagine. Our families rallied in extraordinary ways, kept the girls occupied, and spent all hours of the day and night, first at the hospital then at home, moving necessities to within arm's reach. My mother even sacrificed a few afternoons of vigil to beat me in Linda braved this unimaginable ordeal with more grace and good cheer than almost anyone else I can imagine. Our families rallied in extraordinary ways, kept the girls occupied, and spent all hours of the day and night, first at the hospital then at home, moving necessities to within arm's reach. My mother even sacrificed a few afternoons of vigil to beat me in every single game every single game of gin rummy we played. of gin rummy we played.

On one memorable afternoon five days after the surgery, we brought the girls to the hospital for a visit. I had worried about this occasion for months, eager not to traumatize them. I persuaded the nurses to unhook me from my IVs, ditched my gown for civilian clothes, covered up my wounds and all the scary equipment with sheets, and welcomed the girls into my bed. We had scripted the event down to the nanosecond. The girls gave me a gift, I gave them one, I read through Curious George Goes to the Hospital, Curious George Goes to the Hospital, then we whisked them away before they could take in too much information. Tybee was especially excited to meet Dr. Healey near the elevator, and when everyone got outside, Eden announced, "Thank you for taking us to the hospital, Mommy." Upstairs, I wept like a baby and proud father all at the same time. then we whisked them away before they could take in too much information. Tybee was especially excited to meet Dr. Healey near the elevator, and when everyone got outside, Eden announced, "Thank you for taking us to the hospital, Mommy." Upstairs, I wept like a baby and proud father all at the same time.

With the pa.s.sage of time, our lives have once more settled into a routine. With such a long lag since my pre-Thanksgiving chemo, my eyebrows and eyelashes returned in force, along with my military buzz cut, and the unwelcome addition of my first-ever five-o'clock shadow. The girls excitedly tracked my leg's evolution from st.i.tches to scar and have come to relish their late-afternoon ballet performances in our bedroom. (The one mandatory note: tossing pretend flowers for the "grand finale" and pretend candy for the "encore.") Our little family once more is a unit-hobbled but moving forward.

We fully expect February and March to be challenging months. Linda is headed first to California, then later to India; I am surely heading back into the hospital. But I have promised the girls I will begin to walk about more freely by their birthday in mid-April and that my hair will grow back by this summer. On some days, these landmarks even seem close.

Until then, we take comfort that so many of you are taking this journey alongside us and know that even in the face of your own setbacks, standoffs, snowstorms, and heartaches, you'll take an afternoon with someone you love, think of the many blessings you've sent our way, and use our struggles to help you persevere a little more easily through this season of challenges.

And, of course, please take a walk for me.

Love,

.17.

BEN THE SECOND

Live the Questions

BEN S SHERWOOD WAS PUs.h.i.+NG ME in a wheelchair around the seventh floor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital, looking for a place to talk. A month after surgery and back under twenty-four-hour care for a depleted immune system, I was haggard, immobile, and scared. I was in the one place I least wanted to be. in a wheelchair around the seventh floor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital, looking for a place to talk. A month after surgery and back under twenty-four-hour care for a depleted immune system, I was haggard, immobile, and scared. I was in the one place I least wanted to be.

And Ben was where he had been from the beginning.

He was present.

From the moment of my diagnosis, Ben had peppered me with e-mails-two, four, ten times a day. He called from traffic jams, television studios, backyards playing catch with his son, treadmills where he was trying to lose weight through diet, exercise, and compet.i.tion with me, even though I had an unfair advantage, since I was losing mine through chemotherapy. He flew from his home in Los Angeles to be at the hospital at 5:30 A.M. A.M. on the morning of my biopsy. on the morning of my biopsy.

He was, as he liked to say, a soldier in my army.

We found an abandoned conference room. Ben rolled me to the head of the table and pulled up a chair. Though Ben was one of the first dads on my list, he was about to become one of the last to know. The reason: Ben is the friend who questions. He challenges a.s.sumptions and picks apart flaws. If some friends are cheerleaders, bulwarks, and backstops, Ben is the inquisitor. He's the drill sergeant making sure every decision is thought through and every emotion pure. Push it! Push it! Just one more round. No pain, no gain! Push it! Push it! Just one more round. No pain, no gain!

I had to be prepared.

I exhaled and read my letter. Will you tell them what I would be thinking? Will you be my voice? Will you tell them what I would be thinking? Will you be my voice?

Ben choked up as I was reading. Tears streamed down his face. He was caught unprepared. "Oh, Brucie," he said.

Then he caught himself. "But I completely reject the premise," he said. "And I hereby tender my resignation."

It was a cla.s.sic Sherwoodian thrust: Bold. In-your-face. Attacking the foundation.

But I knew it was coming and quickly parried. "But Linda wants you in my Council," I said.

He knew he could no longer resist. "In that case," he said, "I know the perfect place to take you."

ONE SURPRISING OUTCOME OF creating the Council of Dads was I unintentionally gave six men carte blanche to voice their opinions. Not so much about child rearing-my experience is that men are generally less judgmental about that (or at least less vocal with their judgments)-but about the Council itself. creating the Council of Dads was I unintentionally gave six men carte blanche to voice their opinions. Not so much about child rearing-my experience is that men are generally less judgmental about that (or at least less vocal with their judgments)-but about the Council itself. The Council has to meet The Council has to meet. The Council should never meet. We should take the girls somewhere. We should leave them alone for now. The Council should never meet. We should take the girls somewhere. We should leave them alone for now.

We should go fis.h.i.+ng!

I hadn't really thought through these issues, and I was reluctant to prescript a set of rules. I was more interested in creating a well-balanced cabinet and letting life take its course.

But I quickly realized that part of the Council's magic was it put six men together and let them be, well, men. Their purpose was to help fill the Dad s.p.a.ce in the girls' lives. And for all the heavy breathing about my generation's equal parenting-Jeff's cuddling; Max's 2:00 A.M. A.M. diaper changes; David's biscuits-most people still think a father should perform certain functions. These have to do with boundary drawing and expectations setting, prodding and enforcing, listening and embracing. Whatever else they do, Dads these days are still expected to push, to shape, to voice a code of responsibility. diaper changes; David's biscuits-most people still think a father should perform certain functions. These have to do with boundary drawing and expectations setting, prodding and enforcing, listening and embracing. Whatever else they do, Dads these days are still expected to push, to shape, to voice a code of responsibility.

And in my Council, no one pushes harder, shapes more thoughtfully, or has a stronger voice than Ben Sherwood.

Ben is big. He has a big family-the larger-than-life grandfather, the towering father, the path-breaking older sister. He has a big resume-the high school debating trophies, the Rhodes Scholars.h.i.+p, the multiple Emmys. He has a big body-the "unusually large, and misshapen head," as he puts it, the Kennedy cleft chin, the six-foot-four frame. If I were his his height, I'd be in the NBA. height, I'd be in the NBA.

And he has a big heart.

On a gloomy morning in Los Angeles, he invited me to the backyard of his childhood home off Sunset Boulevard, to sit underneath the family's sycamore tree with white camouflage bark and broad, pea green leaves. "This tree is where my father and mother courted," he said, "where my sister and husband were married, where Karen and I were married, and where we gathered fifteen years ago to have a memorial service for my dad. My sister and I played here. My son plays here now. It's home base."

Place looms large in the Sherwood family tree. The flats of Beverly Hills were to him as the dunes of Tybee Island were to me.

"My grandfather, Ben the First, was a jeweler," Ben explained. "He wasn't educated, but he was a dynamic, charismatic, life-of-the-party figure who tormented family members with practical jokes, needled people, and pushed their b.u.t.tons. I certainly inherited some of that."

His father, d.i.c.k, was quite different, a soft-spoken, studious man who would have preferred to be a professor or foreign service officer but whose father demanded that he pursue a professional degree. He became a litigator and eventually argued before the Supreme Court. But in a manner resonant with my own dad, Ben's father directed his deeper pa.s.sions into what was known at the time as "building the inst.i.tutions of the city." He was a cla.s.sic, late-twentieth-century Wise Man.

"My father was a gentleman and a gentle man," Ben said. "But he was not his father. He was distant, uncomfortable with the direct expression of emotion. He was stoic. I remember being shocked the first time I saw him cry. I came into his bedroom after his mother died, and he immediately tried to compose himself."

He was also focused on family. "Dad's parenting style was to be present as much as possible, given the demands of his life. That meant he was here for breakfast and dinner, during which time it was expected that we would have a serious conversation about the world. My dad had a voracious curiosity. He ran a famous clipping service in which he dispatched yellow envelopes from his law firm with articles on some obscure topic from some esoteric publication, pertinent to someone's work or family. We all got them. In college I had stacks of unopened envelopes because I just couldn't keep up!"

At times d.i.c.k Sherwood's bookishness collided with his parenting, as when he played baseball with his son, using a mitt that had never been broken in and clumsily tossing the ball into the bushes. "Image: Dad, at the Roxbury Park Little League, in a sport coat and tie, reading the New York Times New York Times in the bleachers. When it was my turn to bat, the paper would come down. When I was done batting, the paper would come up." in the bleachers. When it was my turn to bat, the paper would come down. When I was done batting, the paper would come up."

Above all, d.i.c.k Sherwood led by gentle inquisition. "Dad's part was constantly testing our hypotheses. He would question every decision. He would make sure our ideas had been stress tested in the modern sense of 'Do you have answers that stand up to rigorous thought?'"

He even turned his pa.s.sion into sport. "We often played a game called Box," Ben said. "He would ask a question, and at the end would be a box." Ben made a rectangle with his fingers to represent the ideogram. "He would say, 'In the United States, we have a president. In England, they have a...BOX.' He had this wonderful deep voice, so it came out BAAAWWWXX. And you had to fill in the box.

"My friends in college loved it when he showed up and boxed them," Ben said. "They would say, 'My topic is Mexican trade policy,' and he would say, 'The first president of Mexico to initiate trade with California was...BOX.' And my friends would be stumped! Barry Edelstein is the only person who ever reverse-boxed my dad, and my father couldn't fill it in. It was one of those amazing moments. 'Oh, my G.o.d, you've just knocked down the champ!'" (The question: "The original Sweeney Todd on Broadway was played by...BOX?") "So what's the meaning of the game?" I asked.

"It's a way of thinking about things. A way of knowing things. A way of learning to ask questions about the world."

The game worked. Ben became a broadcast journalist, rising meteorically through prime-time news, nightly news, then morning news. In 1993, while working in Was.h.i.+ngton, Ben got a call one Friday evening from his mom. "Something has happened to Dad," she said. d.i.c.k Sherwood had been standing, reading the Financial Times Financial Times at his secretary's desk, when he collapsed. He got up briefly, then collapsed again, at which point he was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles, where doctors determined he had suffered a ma.s.sive brain hemorrhage. He was sixty-four years old. at his secretary's desk, when he collapsed. He got up briefly, then collapsed again, at which point he was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown Los Angeles, where doctors determined he had suffered a ma.s.sive brain hemorrhage. He was sixty-four years old.

When Ben arrived the following day, his father was in a coma. "The doctor said to me, 'You need to hope that your dad does not recover from this, because if he wakes up, he will not be who he was.' And I remembered having a conversation with my dad, six months earlier, in which we talked about the brain, and he said that what gave him an advantage in the courtroom was that, in basketball terms, he was a half step ahead of everybody else. And that half step, that tiny increment, was what gave him the greatest joy in life.

"So I realized," Ben said, "that the next five days were not about his recovery. They were more about the family coming to terms with the fact that we would eventually have to unplug the machines, which we did."

"Did you say good-bye?"

"Yes. I was with my sister. I stroked his face. Kissed him good-bye. Said we would take care of Mom." He paused. "One of the peculiar things is that he was very much there. His heart was pounding. He had a beard from a week of not shaving. But, of course, he wasn't there."

"What do you most miss?"

"I don't miss the questions," Ben said. "He taught me how to ask those." His voice grew strained and thin, as if each level deeper of emotion sounded an octave higher.

"I miss his voice." He inhaled deeply. "I can still hear it." Ben was sobbing now, like a boy. Watching a man of such measure reduced to such essence offered a glimpse into the private conversation the two of them had shared over the arc of the question marks.

"He had a wonderful voice," Ben said. "The timbre. Which is why your project struck home with me, Brucie. Because if you weren't here, I would want your girls to be able to hear you and your voice. And not in the saddest moments. That's not when I miss my dad the most. In the happiest moments. The times of greatest joy are the times that are bittersweet because my dad's not here to enjoy them. To witness them. And to add his voice."

WHEN I I MOVED TO MOVED TO New York in 1997 I started a weekly happy hour with two friends. We weren't joiners, so in a bid to save face we called it the No Name Happy Hour. It became a place for writers, editors, and television types to beat the city. About a year in, a friend announced, "I'm going to bring somebody new next week. You're going to either love him or hate him. His name is Ben Sherwood." New York in 1997 I started a weekly happy hour with two friends. We weren't joiners, so in a bid to save face we called it the No Name Happy Hour. It became a place for writers, editors, and television types to beat the city. About a year in, a friend announced, "I'm going to bring somebody new next week. You're going to either love him or hate him. His name is Ben Sherwood."

Ben in those days cut a particular swath through New York. He was tall. He was successful. He was single. He was stiff. He worked for NBC News all day; he wrote romantic novels all night. The onetime champion debater seemed uncomfortable in social situations unless there was a prescribed set of rules-the eight-minute constructive speech, the three-minute cross-examination, the four-minute reb.u.t.tal. He would have been ripe for a send-up on s.e.x and the City, s.e.x and the City, and, considering he went on a few dates with a writer for the show, he might have been. and, considering he went on a few dates with a writer for the show, he might have been.

His first impression of me was skeptical. "I thought you were an intense talker, with a big personality, big hands, and big stories. I believed you were always on output, so it took me a while to realize how intensely sensitive you are to all the feedback around you. To recognize that you're also on input. I doubt we would have become the friends we are today if we both didn't listen intently."

Ben and I quickly formed a sort of round-the-clock running commentary about politics, girls, media, the Page Six creatures we wanted to puncture, the men we wanted to become. The only thing missing was sports. He sadly inherited his dad's disinterest in athletics.

Above all, we created one of the hardest things to create: a close male friends.h.i.+p later in life. And as he courted, married, and became a father, I watched the once starchy caricature morph into a warmer, fuller man.

What never changed during those years was his heart, or his mind.

He never stopped asking questions.

And it's that voracious, sometimes relentless, curiosity I wanted him to pa.s.s on to the girls. The commitment to unveiling the truth behind the spin. The thirst to acquire information, then rearrange it into something surprising and fresh. "If something happened in the news," Linda said, "and I wanted the girls to have an unexpected view of it as you would have given, I would send them to Ben."

Ben would teach them how to think.

Which is why it was no surprise, sitting under the tree, when I asked him what message he would share with my daughters if I were no longer alive, he pulled out his BlackBerry.

"I would share with them this quotation from Rainer Maria Rilke," he said.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.

"It connects to BOX," Ben said. "It connects to my way of seeing things. It connects to who you are as a traveler. There's an African proverb that the man who asks questions is never lost. And I think that's very much your approach to walking the world, which is that you can be in the absolute most foreign place, most exotic place, most unrecognizable place, and if you ask questions you'll always be able to find your way. Confidence comes from the questions. So I would tell the girls to live their questions. Throw themselves pa.s.sionately into the quest for new perspectives, just like their father, who would go anywhere in search of answers to his questions."