My sister, Jay, passed away on Saturday afternoon with her son, Dale Allen Lane, at her side. She suffered a stroke on Monday night and was gone six days later. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, she did it her way. She had left behind a living will and detailed directions, including no hospital visitors and no flowers.

In other words, during that difficult time, Dale didn’t have to make any decisions on his own. All he had to do was carry out the decisions his mother had already made, and he did that to a T. Good for him—good for both of them.

Dale has recently retired after years of working as the Head Flyman at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle after a career in theater production, and he was already doing that back in the eighties when I was working on Beaumont #4, Taking the Fifth.

The word ‘fifth’ in the title has nothing to do with amendments to the United States Constitution and everything to do with Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theater. Since a good deal of the plot in my book has to do with the inner workings of the theater, I asked Dale if he could give me a personally guided backstage tour which he did.

That’s why, on the dedication page of Taking the Fifth, you find the following words: “For DAL: If all the world’s a stage, then God must be the head carpenter”. That turned out to be prophetic since he eventually spent several years as the Fifth Avenue’s Head Carpenter.

Several weeks ago I wrote about my struggles with the current Ali book, Smoke and Mirrors. For some reason, the characters and I weren’t on speaking terms. They just wouldn’t DO anything! One of the characters was named David, but he remained as bullheadedly silent as everybody else.

Then, one night, sitting here in my writing chair, I gave my David character a middle name—Leon—and suddenly, in a goosebump moment, I realized he had just come to life for me. You see, David Leon Lane was the name of Jay’s younger son who passed away from cancer at age 44 in 2001.

After changing the character’s name from David Holbrook to David Leon Holbrook in the Smoke and Mirrors name file, I went straight to the dedication page and wrote: In memory of David Leon Lane. Then I sent Jay an email letting her know what had just occurred. She was thrilled to hear it and passed the news on to both David’s widow, Mary, and his brother.

At the time I thought it was silly of me to be telling her about the dedication so early in the game. Generally, that information remains on the QT until the book is actually published. It turns out, however, that that uncharacteristic hastiness on my part must have been a moment of divine inspiration. Telling Jay about the dedication the very day it came to me was an early but also just-in-time blessing for both of us.

It was the last and best gift I could ever have given her.

As for my fictional David Leon Holbrook? He’s turning out to be a fine young man despite having been raised by his somewhat prickly grandmother because his mother was in prison for most of his childhood. Will he turn out to be as good a cook as David Leon Lane? That I don’t know. It’s still too early to tell, but legend has it that the real David Leon first attracted the attention of the woman he would eventually marry by bringing Evie Busk’s green chili casserole to a work-related potluck supper.

Was that another bit of divine inspiration? You tell me.