Edward Maurice Schiff — affectionately known as "the Pa" — passed away at the ripe age of 96 in Boca Raton, Florida. He was born in Boston, MA on February 29th, 1928, the son of Martha and Frank Schiff, of blessed memory. His mother had the hospital forge his birth certificate to say February 28th, so he would not be deprived of an annual birthday.

He attended Boston English high school, and sang in the choir, or more accurately, didn't sing in the choir. His voice was so bad, the choirmaster told him to merely mouth the words. During the final concert, the rebellious young Edward delighted in belting out the tunes, badly out of tune, but with great zeal.

He left high school early to join the service in the mid 1940's, trying first to enlist in the Marine Corps, but he failed the physical — flat feet and bad eyesight. Two weeks later, he went to enlist in the Army, thinking it might be a different physical standard or at least a different examining physician. Turns out, same standard, same physician. The doctor recognized Ed and said, "weren't you here two weeks ago," and he said yes. "You really want to get in that bad," and he said yes. And Ed was in the Army.

After the service, Ed attended the University of Alabama. He left college after two years, eager to get on with his life, and later regretted not finishing his education. One of the few regrets he would ever express. He became a lumper in the schmatta business, then a traveling salesman, and much later, went into the lumber and gunite business, but the biggest sale he ever made was when he met Sherrill Glovsky. She was smart and beautiful and charming and five years younger and lived in western Massachusetts. He was in Boston, and therefore he was, as she described him, "geographically undesirable." Candidly, he was probably financially undesirable too. But undesirable or not, Dad won her over and they married in 1956.

Ed was loving, generous, strong, and stoic. And he was a salesman, in a family of salesmen. He treated others as he wanted to be treated, with respect, affection and an openness that was rare for his generation. His stoicism took the form of a forward-looking positivity. He didn't dwell on the past or on mistakes. For every problem there was a solution, and the solution was often quite simple.

If you told him, you really wanted something, "then buy it." If you didn't want to go somewhere, then "don't go." If you told him, it hurt your knee when you ran, then "don't run." When one of his employees didn't smile and lacked self-confidence because of decades of poor dental care and his decayed teeth, Ed literally bought him a new smile.

He was stubborn. "What's the point of being a Schiff," he would say, "if you can't be stubborn." But he was also stubbornly devoted to his family, his friends, his employees, his partners — his wife. When his wife was older and ailing from years of Alzheimer's, he cared for her at home until weeks before she passed away. No one never heard from him a word of complaint. Never a hint of burden, only a big-hearted, compassionate, committed, and literal labor of love.

He was a good man, and a great example. He adored his parents, deprecated himself — any intelligence his kids possessed was inherited from his father, Frank, his mother, Martha, or his grandparents, or his wife or her parents — but never himself. He marveled at how far the family had come, just a few generations from the shtetl. He loved to tell stories, especially about his parents and aunts and uncles and his favorite, Uncle Leon Schiff, now almost 99.

He was not didactic but taught his sons to be good men by showing them how. Still, he had certain aphorisms. He was keenly aware of how "we stand on the shoulders of those who went before," and how "an education is the one thing they can never take away."

"You can't judge a person until you step into their shoes and walk around for a while," he would say, in an expression his family thought he invented, but was probably borrowed from the Talmud or Atticus Finch. "If you're good at what you do," he told his boys, "there will always be a demand for you." It was a liberating idea. His kids did not need to focus only on what would make money, as his generation had to, but what they had a passion for, if only they would do it well. What else could account for his two sons, a playwright and a politician?

He was grateful for everything he had, for his wife, and for his kids, and for the grandkids that he adored and who gave him such joy, for his great granddaughter, beautiful Maya, for the life he was privileged to live, in a paradise like Boca, at a club like Broken Sound. "My cup runneth over," he would say, as he counted his blessings. "My cup runneth over."

Ed's father, Frank, died at 64, and Ed never expected to live long. He certainly never expected to outlive his wife, but he did and by almost 16 years. And perhaps because he didn't expect to live long, he lived a carpe diem kind of life, never postponing until tomorrow, what he could enjoy today. The only person more surprised that the Pa made it to 96 was the banker who gave him the reverse mortgage.

He was so much larger than life that his family cannot believe he is gone. They will miss his bear hugs, and how he bit his lip as he squeezed just a little harder, just a little longer. They will miss holding his hand, one of those big, beautiful paws, as they sat in matching red reclining chairs and dozed off after a Thanksgiving meal.

He was a constant, loving, supportive, eccentric, delightful, maddening, wonderful, colossus of a Pa, whose life was peachy, and grand, just grand. And when our family thinks of him — as we do constantly — our cup runneth over.

Ed is survived by his sister, Judy Sokoll, his uncle, Leon Schiff, his two sons, Daniel and Adam, his daughters-in-law, Amy and Eve, his grandchildren, Rachel, Frank, Lexi and Eli, and his great granddaughter, Maya. At the request of the family, the funeral and shiva were private. Gifts may be made in his memory to: Health Center at Sinai Residences, 21044 95th Avenue South, Boca Raton, FL 33428.