Last week I attended two funerals. They affected me. I have been thinking about the afterlife – just as I have been, “coincidentally,” reading at bedtime each night about the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and their outlooks on death and beyond.

I have been talking to my dad, who is somewhere with “The Force” since leaving us, “coincidentally,” twelve years ago last week. I do call The Force “God” and, when I send my thanks in that upward direction, I seem to alternate between saying “Thanks, Dad,” and “Thank you, God.” In fact, they are almost the same to me, because I see Dad sitting at the “right hand” of God and, at the same time, being one with him.

Today when I actually saw how I had hurt my dad’s feelings back in 1985, you can imagine how I felt. I’ll tell you how this came about, rather “coincidentally,” of course.

It started three weeks ago. I was looking at some of my old video moments that were in files on my Mac. The video file – from 1985 – that I had chosen to watch, suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from my computer. I spent most of today trying to restore that video file by first trying to “rip” the information from CDs that contained that video file. When that did not work, I tried to use my iPhone to video the video of the file. That, too, did not work. While I was watching the 1985 video on my computer screen, I was shocked to see a scene where I was rude to my dad. I was holding Dad’s video camera, and Dad was making a number of suggestions concerning what shots I could take. I must have “snapped,” because when he pointedly asked me, “Why don’t you take a shot of _____?” I responded, “Because you asked me to!” I gazed at his image on my computer following my remark, to see if I had hurt him. I couldn’t easily tell from his expression, but I know I must have hurt his feelings.

No, it was not the first time I ever hurt Dad’s feelings, but this time it was most telling to me. With emotions I haven’t felt for a long time, today I told him how sorry I was. I know he forgives me. One way I know: I got a phone call from someone in the late afternoon who mentioned something that suddenly reminded me I could use my backup hard drive to locate the file I was missing all along. Thanks, Dad, for so passionately reminding me to be aware of other people’s feelings.

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at Robertebsen@hotmail.com