Op-Ed: Last words for Father’s Day

The cartoonist Roz Chast wrote this about the similarities between her and her father: “We were both only children, and less used to the constant emotional tumult between people than my mother, who was one of five. Also, we were both dilly-dalliers and easily distracted by, say, an interesting word, thereby missing the larger point of what was being said. He often kept me company when my mother was doing other stuff. We watched ‘Twilight Zone’ together. I’m sure he thought it was dopey, but he knew I loved it, and that I was too scared to watch it alone.... He liked me as a person, not just because I was his daughter.” George Chast died Oct. 17, 2007, at age 95. His daughter’s latest book, from which the following is excerpted, is about her parents’ final years.

Roz Chast, an American cartoonist and staff cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1978, is the author of the graphic memoir “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” Website: rozchast.com