b'HAPTER2CSimply Being Kind I n addition to the grief and sadness, funerals are often learn-ingexperiences.Myfather,andlifelongfriend,diedin February 2007 after a fierce but relatively short bout with bladder cancer. His memorial service in a small east Texas com-munity church was part of a day to get through. After speak-ingattheserviceandhearingthespontaneous,unexpected, beautiful tribute offered by my son, Rusty, I was spent. Then I learned something more about Dad.As I shook hands and received hugs in an impromptu recep-tion line after the service, I saw a man from the local grocery store, wearing his work shirt and name tag, approach me in tears. My dad was in that store all the time. So often, in fact, that we made jokes about it behind his back. What could he be doing in there? After all, a seventy-five-year-old man can only buy so many apples and so much orange juice and milk. Once a day was a light day! Our jokes stopped the day Dad left for the store, which was a mile or so from his home near Tyler, and was found disoriented in a post office parking lot in Arkansas because of cancer-induced dementia. My brother and I had been trying to wrestle the keys away from him, but he had a stubborn streak.I did not know this man who approached me after my dads service,butwhathesaidthroughhistearsmadealasting'