My father lived for 88 years. He was a man of sometimes limited patience who could spend years digging a boat ditch across a marsh by hand. Probably the least mechanically inclined person I ever knew, he somehow managed to build a house from the ground up, almost single-handedly.

He was a disciplined, hard worker. But once, when he and I were barely speaking. I asked him for a ride to the Massachusetts Turnpike so I could hitchhike to Indiana. As he drove me there, maybe five miles, I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were in Buffalo. Five hundred miles away. He dropped me off and had to head straight back. Just a nice little thousand-mile jaunt, when he probably had an office full of work.

My father used to tell us that we were descended from the Kings of Ireland. None of us believed it. He also told us that the constellation Orion was named for an Irish warrior. As far as we could tell, the only sign of nobility in the Maher family was that several relatives were royal pains in the butt.

My father's father was an immigrant. His mother cleaned houses and ended up owning five of them. Because of his parents' dreams and efforts and sacrifice — and of course his own—he got to be a Boston attorney, educated at Harvard Law.

A few years ago, I read the letter he'd written to his parents when Harvard accepted him. Not only excited and happy, but genuinely astonished that such a thing could be happening. Still, supporting a wife and kids, he had to work full-time while making it to graduation. He passed the bar, and within a couple of years, he lost two children and his wife and spent 13 months in the hospital himself. Later, he would lose other children. And he was not a man who handled death well.

He got to marry two wonderful women. Not simultaneously. And all told, he had 11 occasionally wonderful kids. Some more frequently wonderful than others. He might not have been a king, but eventually he got to buy his own castle, a drafty, impossible to heat mausoleum that represented the heights of success and accomplishment to him when he was a boy.

And he did for his own children what his mother and father had done for him. Providing for the 7 of us that made it past infancy, and providing for us well, even when the sheer numbers — and the mausoleum — could make slow business periods a struggle. I can't remember ever having the slightest feeling of financial insecurity.

Not once in my life did my father ever even allude to the fortune he spent on us. The massive medical bills alone were enough to make you wonder about the genetic legacy of that supposed Irish king. And education at whatever university we decided on. Setting the next generation up in life. We weren't always as grateful as we should have been. No. We were never as grateful as we should have been.

Then, after a lifetime of hard work, just when he'd finally gotten the last of the flock safely out of the nest — that one to M.I.T. — just when it finally might be possible to have a couple of spare bucks for a trip or two or a few dinners out, his own illness cost him his happiness, his peace of mind and any chance of being able to enjoy all he'd accomplished.

As a legal generalist, my father often helped others protect their estates. He once told me how disappointed he was that after a lifetime of work, he wasn't able to leave his children a significant estate. No, all he left us is everything we are and everything we will be.

My father's life can't be summed up in 700 words. The sum of his life is in his children and his children's children. And all that will follow. He filled his place in the chain and he filled it well. Few kings have done as well.

Check out Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon on Amazon. Sign up for his Substack at www.barrymaher.com.

To find out more about Barry Maher and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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