My dad spoke eight languages and loved to travel the world, which instilled in me a desire that has taken me to 37 countries around the globe. But I’ll never forget my trip to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro. It was a rare trip without the entire family, and I would be the first of us to visit Africa.

I’d just finished my first gig producing a tv program, so I chose to fly through New York to visit my parents. The show aired while I was with them. Afterward, my dad turned to me:

“Now I understand what you do.”

He’d been nervous about my leaving a corporate entertainment job to pursue a creative path, but now he swelled with pride. The next day I flew to Arusha, the gateway to Kilimanjaro. As we started our climb, I heard stories of people who collapsed before the first summit and vowed not to be one of them. After four days, we reached Kibo, the last stop before the final climb. At 15,500 feet, I felt lightheaded from the altitude, but not nauseated.

A group of German tourists in traditional hiking lederhosen were drinking beer and whooping it up. The Americans were much more subdued. At 3:00 am, we started our ascent so we could trudge slowly through the volcanic shale and reach the base of the summit by dawn. It was eerie moving through a darkness that our headlamps couldn’t pierce. Finally, we arrived and the rising sun revealed the steep upslope. Uh-oh. My guide encouraged me to move past the hikers who had given up out of fear or exhaustion.

Scrambling, I reached the first summit, Gilman’s point at 18,885 feet. And I wasn’t done yet! Next was a trek to the ultimate summit, Uhuru Peak, at 19,341 feet. Only four of us accompanied the guide; we sank into the powdered snow blanketing the glacier as we moved across the alien terrain. When we made it, I signed the book in the metal lock-box. I’m sure my name’s still there.

After the descent, I felt as though I could do anything. When we returned to Arusha, everything changed. I got word that I had a phone call. When I got on, I heard my mother’s voice sounding strangled:

“We’re gonna get through this.”

My dad had died suddenly at age 66 from a pulmonary embolism. One minute he was watching tv with my mom, the next he was gone. It had happened four days earlier, but I was unreachable on the mountain. In the Jewish tradition, you bury a person within three days, so I’d missed the funeral.

The next day, at a stall in the Arusha market, I heard a radio playing Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” To this day that song brings me to tears.

I was once asked if I’d sensed the precise moment when my father had died. No, but my feeling of independence did coincide with his untimely demise.

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