Tom and I were reading the paper on a Sunday morning in my apartment in East Dallas. The phone rang in the bedroom. I sat on the floor to answer it. It was my father. “Oliver…is dead,” he said, his voice breaking. He kept talking, but I said I had to get off the phone. I hung up and wailed. Tom ran in and held me.

I was leaning over my desk at The Dallas Morning News, jotting something on a legal pad. Waltrina came over, leaned in close, and said quietly, “Stan passed away this morning.” Whatever I was writing trailed to a scribble.



I arrived at the hospital to visit Kevin as I had every day since he went in. As I reached for the door to his room, a young orderly stopped me. “You don’t want to go in there,” he said.




Tom picked me up at the airport after my trip to London and we went straight to the hospital. Russell’s friends and family were gathered around his bed. I stood near the foot of the bed, between Tom and Russell’s young niece, whom he adored. We all had hands on Russell. I don’t recall the ventilator being turned off but Russell hung on a minute longer. “Let go,” I whispered, and his niece turned and said sharply, “What?” I guess she thought I was talking to her. A moment later, it was over.

I was sleeping on Monte’s couch when my cell phone rang. I got up to answer it, knowing what it was. “Mom died this morning,” my brother said.

My brother, his girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch in my parents’ apartment watching a Saturday Night Live special. My brother’s cell phone rang. It was the hospital where my dad was. I met my brother’s eyes. He nodded.

Labels: memoir