Thoreson: A dad worth remembering

In her Main Street column for the Coeur d’Alene Press, Kerri Thoreson remembers her father, the late property tax activist Ron Rankin, who died on this day 12 years ago:

Oct. 12, 2004, was a Tuesday, a beautiful bonus summer-like blue sky sunshiny autumn day. It was a day I will never forget — not the sunshine or the sounds or the words that came out of a doctor’s mouth as I stood alone in the “quiet room” at Kootenai Medical Center waiting for my mother to arrive. “We tried to resuscitate him but he was already gone.”

Poof! With a single sentence my world tilted on its axis. Before 8 a.m. on that beautiful sunshiny morning my father was dead at age 75. My daddy, my friend, my hero, my touchstone. Most of the rest of the morning was a blur of calling family and helping my broken hearted mother navigate the details of what must be done in those first few hours. More here.

Question: How did your father impact your life?