When I was 15 a homeless man came up to my father and asked for some change. My dad gave him five bucks. The man smiled & walked away.

I said, “Dad, why’d you give him so much?”

He said, “I just made his day for five bucks. How often can you make someone’s day for five bucks?”

Another story: One day when I was in high school, a man knocked on our door. He was selling some kind of subscription service and when my father said we weren’t interested, the man became agitated. He was a big guy, and there was a kind of threat in his voice - an instant anger.

My dad slammed the door in his face and all we could hear was, “Sonofabitch!” echoing down the street.

My dad said, “He just got out. That’s a program for ex-cons. He probably doesn’t know how to act yet.”

I could see the thought working on him.

Like my father, this man had done time in prison and was struggling with adjusting to life on the outside.

My dad walked out and returned a few minutes later. His had face softened. He’d caught up w the man and told him he’d been in prison too and that he had no hard feelings.

He told the man, “You don’t have to threaten everyone you meet out here. It’s going to take you some time but you’ll get there.” The man apologized.

My dad gave him our phone number and they planned to have lunch.

That’s the kind of man he was. Always looking for the good.

When he died, my world fell apart. It was as if the laws of nature had changed. I didn't understand it. People don't tell you that about grief. Everyone knows grief is sad, no one tells you how BAFFLING grief is. How much it feels like the universe will just swallow you whole.

I wondered why it hit me so hard. On the outside, we were so different. I was the straight-A student. He was the ex-con with an eighth grade education.

We both carried a wound. I'd lived in an orphanage as a child, he hardly knew his dad & was raised by a single mom hotel maid.

But when he got clean, he decided that no matter what else happened in his life, he was going to be a good father.

We would spend long days at Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood, my brother and I leaning against the rail as we screamed for the horses with our dad.

We'd bet the ponies and talk about odds (that's how I learned fractions: from betting odds on a racing form), and he'd reason with us about our lives, school, our friends and family.

There was never a pressure, never anything expected except that I be honest, that I work hard.

This was the decision he made about who he was going to be in the world. And it changed my life, probably saved my life.

In his whole life, he never had a luncheon in his honor, never won an award, never even had a proper wedding.

But he was a wonderful, loving father.

One thing writing a memoir has taught me is that memory itself is a place. I imagine it as a racetrack.

Maybe in your memory, it's your grandmother's house or a day at the beach, a moment where the sped up feeling of now -- the stress and anxiety of this moment -- is gone.

And all that's left are the peaceful thoughts of happy children playing in the sand.

And our parents are still alive. Our grandparents. Those who loved us and protected us. And we can talk to them. We can go there like lost children looking for home in a strange part of town.

For this reason, Father’s Day is a bittersweet time for me. Bitter because he’s gone. Sweet because I feel so lucky to have been given so many gifts - a lifetime of examples of how to be a father myself.

I can still hear his voice in my head. Even now.

In this way, a chain was broken and a new path was set for my family. All because this humble man with an eighth grade education decided he wanted something more for his boys and the way to give it to them was to love them with all his might.

So I just want to say Happy Father's Day to all the fathers and sons, mothers and daughters out there, working, hoping and lifting the people they love with all their might.

You are doing more than you will ever know.