Why I do it

My mom went first. Pancreatic cancer.

I asked her doctor if there was anything we could do and he said, "We can make her comfortable."

She would have wanted a better line than that. When I told her years earlier that I was going to be a magician, she said:

Well, just make sure you still get health insurance. Mom

That was Mom. Practical right to the end, and funny without trying.

My dad went five years later, from lung cancer. He was not a talker. But once, after I blew a trick on stage as a kid and came off ready to quit, he said:

Son, if you didn't ruin something, they'd never know you were there. Dad

I have thought about that line every working day since.

Losing your parents as a grown adult still leaves you standing in midair. Nobody warns you about that. And nobody tells you that the thing that gets you through is not answers, it is other people showing up, and laughing at the strangest possible moments.

My nephew asked if he could take Mom's ashes to the zoo, so she could visit the monkeys one more time.

That is the whole talk. That is why it exists.