Heather Angell

And then he said, well, don't expect me to walk you down the aisle at your wedding.

And we'd never discussed that.

But he knew if anybody was ever gonna walk me down the aisle at my wedding, I would want it to be him.

So I gave him the cold shoulder for a few months.

And then his daughter, who started calling me her little sister at some point in the early aughts, found out what happened and read him the riot act.

And he called me.

He's like, I'm sorry.

I'll walk you down the aisle at your wedding if you ever need me to.

And then pretty soon, he invited my girlfriend to the famous farm Christmas parties.

And it carried on like that.

And they sold the farm in their mid-80s.

And they retired to a condo where they grew tomatoes on their porch.

And if you've ever loved a 90-year-old, as these years went on, you hold on to every moment.

You know that you can feel the moments passing.

And he would leave me these long, kind of sarcastic missives, voicemails with his lyrical voice, asking me, where the hell have I been?

And I saved all of them.

I listened to a bunch of them today.

And a few months ago, his daughter called me and told me that the end was near.

He'd been sick for a while.

So I took the back road to the hospital and drove past the old farm.