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He passed away eight years ago, but there are times I could swear he's still here, hovering over me, patting me on the back or whispering in my ear like a guardian angel. My father is my father forever, even if I cannot see him.

When I'm having a bad day, dealing with a tough problem, I often wear his jewelry, a Jewish star and a chai on a gold chain. They make me feel closer to him. I touch them and I feel that "I can get through this." I think of what he would have done in the situation. Often it is not what I would do, so I push myself to do it his way.

He lost his mother when he was 5. She fell out a tenement window while hanging laundry on a clothesline. My father and his two little sisters saw this happen. As a result, whenever we moved to a new apartment when I was little, the first thing he did was have bars put on all the windows.

After grandpa remarried, four more brothers were added to my father's family. When grandpa died, my father became the leader of the family because he was the smartest and the most levelheaded. He became the advisor and peacemaker for my mother's family as well.

When I was born, he was out of work. He and my mother rented a cheap summer bungalow, supposedly until the fall when things would be better. When fall came, all the summer people went home and we remained there. My father still did not have a job. He learned what it meant to struggle to put food on the table and this affected our lives forever after, even when he made a decent wage. Many times, during Sunday evening dinner, he'd sit there adding up the restaurant cost of our home-cooked meal, calculating how much we had saved by eating at home.

My earliest memory of him is bath time when I was quite small. I had very few toys and certainly not toys for the bath as most children do today. He told me that if I slid back and forth in the water, I could make waves and the floating washcloth would be my boat.

When my brother was born, I was 7. In an effort to avoid sibling rivalry, my father took me out every Sunday while my mother stayed home with the new baby. By bus or train, he took me to parks, museums, and amusement centers. He even tried to teach me to catch a baseball, but succeeded only in giving me a black eye with the ball. My mother had a fit.

He worked two jobs, coming home at 11 at night, always working Saturdays. This did not mean he was unavailable to me.

"I'm always ready to talk to you if you want to discuss something," he said. "Stay up till I get home."

And I did. We talked about anything and everything. I learned how to put my deepest thoughts and feelings into words, never fearing ridicule or disapproval.

He was a word person. He read a lot, belonged to the Book of the Month Club, had several dictionaries and wrote a thoughtful gossip column for his lodge newspaper. I didn't know the people he wrote about, but was impressed with his byline.

When I was in school, I got excellent grades. If I brought home a 97, he'd jokingly ask, "Why didn't you get 100?" He had confidence in my abilities and showed me his pleasure in having me reach my potential.

In middle school, I ran for president of my class. He was my campaign manager, helping me with speeches and preparing flyers with campaign slogans.

Throughout my high school years, he made sure that we maintained open communication, but differing opinions flared up. At his instigation, a rare bargain was struck between us. I agreed to listen to everything he would say, politely, but I did not need to take his advice unless I chose to. He, in turn, would do the same with me. This turned out to be the best thing he'd ever done for me. I was not so pigheaded as to refuse his advice if I knew it was better than my idea.

In later years, as he aged, we sort of switched places. He found himself often taking my advice. Did we get angry at each other? We sure did from time to time. We'd end a bad phone conversation with "Look, I'll have to talk to you tomorrow." Never fearing that a big disagreement would affect the love we felt for one another, we'd table the hot topic for a day.

When I met my husband, my father loved him from the first handshake. My father insisted that you could tell a lot about a man from his handshake. A dispute about the wedding threatened to break the engagement altogether. My father was not going to let that happen. He decided that he would make the wedding that would satisfy all parties. Years later, I learned that he was flat broke after that wedding but he was willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen.

Throughout my married life, as I raised my family, my father was always there with guidance, approval, advice, compliments, and help. My husband and children adored him. He had a wonderful sense of humor, delighting them with April Fool's pranks and corny jokes. To this day, they groan at bad puns and label them "grandpa jokes."

As a parent and grandparent, I try to do what he would have done but I find his ways a challenge. It's wonderful to have him as a role model but he is such a hard act to follow.

Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.