Last Saturday, May 30th, marked the tenth anniversary of my father’s passing.

Sadly, the date flew completely under my radar.

I’m usually mindful of these milestones, but I was busy. Golf, writing, deadlines, life—whatever excuse you want to call it.

That’s what time does. It quietly alters your perception of what is important.

When my dad was alive, there wasn’t a day that passed without me talking to him, working with him, or at least thinking about him. Today, not nearly as much.

My father, Neal Webber Jr.—”Jerk” to those who knew him best—was considered a pillar of the community. He was a successful businessman, philanthropist, employer, and friend. Most people who met him liked him immediately. Few knew his first name was actually Albert.

To be honest, Dad and I weren’t on the best of terms when he passed away. That’s one of the complications of working in a family business, a dynamic that can only truly be understood by people who have lived it.

You’ll never have a tougher boss than your father.

It was always his way or the highway, which may help explain why our company is now approaching its eightieth year in business. (It may also explain why I’ve never been particularly fond of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.)

Even so, his death hit me hard—much harder than I thought it would.

For fifty-nine years, I had lived under his tutelage—and occasionally under his thumb. Suddenly, I was the one expected to make all the decisions. Nearly 300 employees across five states depended on me, along with customers, vendors, and several banking institutions.

Dad handled many things himself. He loved specifying and purchasing trucks, a process he kept largely to himself right up until the end. I wasn’t mechanically inclined like he was. He would be horrified to see what we pay for new trucks now.

If nothing else, Dad was as reliable as the sunrise.

He lived in Chebanse nearly his entire life, spending the last fifty-five years in the same house. I’ve lived in more houses during the past two decades than he did during his entire seventy-eight years on earth.

For the last thirty-five years of his life, he split his time between Illinois summers and Florida winters. When he was in Illinois, he was at the office by 8:00 every morning. When he was in Florida, he called me every afternoon at precisely 3:30.

The schedule never varied.

His final 3:30 call came only days before he died.

Life wasn’t always kind to him.

His father, whom he loved deeply, practically disowned him over politics. He was expelled from high school two weeks before graduation while the other boys involved escaped punishment. He later earned his GED while serving in the Army.

In 1978, he lost a daughter in a car accident, a loss from which I don’t think he ever fully recovered. It’s a comforting thought to believe they may be together again in the next life.

People took advantage of his generosity. He broke his back twice. When I graduated from high school in 1975, he attended the ceremony wearing a body cast that stretched from his neck to his ankles, sitting for hours in a building without air conditioning.

Yet through all of it, he remained remarkably stoic and appreciative.

Earlier, I said I don’t think about him as much anymore. That isn’t entirely true.

The truth is that I still rely on him all the time.

Dad never lived to see COVID, PPP loans, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, the George Floyd riots, sky-high truck prices, or many of the other events that have reshaped business and society during the past decade. He also never met eight of his great-grandchildren.

Yet every time I faced one of those challenges, I found myself asking the same question:

“What would Dad do?”

The answer wasn’t always obvious. Sometimes I even disagreed with what I imagined it might be.

But his voice was always there.

His influence remains.

Maybe that’s the real legacy of a parent. Not the business they build, the money they earn, or the reputation they leave behind.

It’s the fact that long after they’re gone, they’re still helping us make decisions.

So while I may have missed the anniversary itself, I suppose I haven’t really forgotten him at all.

Not even close.

Love you, Pop.

And I miss you still.