Al Kinspel died yesterday at the age of ninety-four. Years ago he had been a cab driver in San Francisco and then retired and moved to Long Beach to sail his boat. He had no children and his wife died sixteen years ago. He played the piano and the stock market, was a passionate liberal democrat, was Jewish by birth but didn’t believe in religion or God, gave generously to a lot of charities, had wonderful stories to tell about his days as a cabbie, and drank two martinis every evening of his life. He was tall and good looking, smart and funny and kind.

He fell in love with my mother at the Breakers retirement hotel when she was 84 years old and he was 79. He told me that he had thought his life was over and then he saw my mother playing the piano in the lobby. “She was so beautiful!” he told me many times. She loved him too but didn’t want to marry again. But what a romance they had.

When she was dying twelve years ago Al sat in the hospital with me and held my hand. He called me his stepdaughter and he became part of my family. This man whose only next of kin was his cousin George, a professor at  Berkeley (the smart one in the family, Al would say) suddenly had a family of step grandchildren and step great-grandchildren – all sixteen of us, plus my brother. One Thanksgiving when the house was filled with family he played all the tunes he knew from the forties and Emma’s great-grandmother knew all the words and sang along with him.

Two years ago he began to suffer memory loss, but was able to stay in his little apartment at the Breakers.  A year ago we called in Hospice but he kept going – drinking his martinis and getting down to the dining room on his own for meals. Hospice finally left.  But while I was on my trip Al stopped eating and Hospice returned.

I got home just in time – within hours – to be with him at the end.  He’d always told me he didn’t want machines or tubes or a hospital – and it was the kind of death he had wanted. His caregivers, in tears, came to see him one last time, the view of the Long Beach harbor from his window glittered in the sun, music played. At 12:23 pm he died peacefully in his own bed.