My dad turns 86 next month. He never thought he’d live so long – or see as many Father’s Days as he has – because his parents both died far too young.

A stroke claimed his mother when she was 69 – the same night Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente’s hurricane-relief plane went missing.

It was the first time I’d ever heard my father sob.

My dad’s father was only 34 when he died in 1937. My father, then just 3, lost half of his universe. His dad h...