My dad would stop and scan the headlines while delivering the Boston Herald and his local Lowell Sun along his paper route in the factory city as the world tore itself apart.

He told me about being fascinated by the evacuation of Dunkirk like it was yesterday. That memory was from late May of 1940 when he was 12 years old.

He volunteered during the Korean War to rush wounded soldiers off helicopters flown in from M*A*S*H units at the hospital in Yokohama, Japan, where he was stationed. His college business courses kept him off the front lines. He never said much about it, but he was determined to help.

He was a high school teacher, a professor, an author, a veteran, and a counselor ready with sage advice. He let us all stay up late while he was studying at the University of Illinois to watch the moon landing in July of 1969. It was a teachable moment I’ll never forget.

Roland “Al” Dwinell died last Thursday night while in hospice care. His funeral will be held on his 95th birthday. I was lucky. I spent time with him over these past few difficult weeks making sure he was comfortable.

“You putting out the paper?” he asked through tired eyes as I clicked away last week into the night on my laptop near his bedside.

That paperboy curiosity never left him. It was infectious.

This is his story. He was calm yet determined, like so many others of his generation. He earned so many degrees I couldn’t keep up. He was a Red Sox fan to his core. He enjoyed the Celtics, Patriots, books, eating out, his cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee with our mom, and telling stories.

But in his last days, he thanked us for being by his side.

The nurses, along the way, suggested what to say to our dying dad. “We’re keeping you comfortable” was the refrain until the moment he slipped away.

“I love you,” were the last words he spoke to me. The morphine couldn’t stop him from being generous. God created a true teacher. He was a great listener and never critical.

When I became an editor, he gave me his “Organizational Behavior” textbook he was teaching in college to help me out. I had my own tutor on call 24/7. His economics textbooks came in handy, too – he preferred Paul Samuelson’s work and “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith.

“Change is constant,” one of the first pages stated in one of the books he gave me. That has been a guiding light as my industry and many others deal with new challenges.

It’s not easy to sum up a life in one appreciation, so I’ll share what will stay with me forever.

I desperately wanted to be like my father. Be an economist who sees into the future and can gauge how the markets will react, but math was an impenetrable obstacle. He sensed that and started dropping books on the table when he came home from teaching.

“2001: A Space Odyssey,” by Arthur C. Clarke, and “A Clockwork Orange,” by Anthony Burgess, soon had me reading “Helter Skelter,” by Curt Gentry and Vincent Bugliosi — about the Charles Manson murders — then “All the President’s Men,” by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. That book gave me a profession.

“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac, also a son of Lowell, gave me the courage to venture out on my own, and so did “The Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand.

Losing a loved one is never easy. Talking about it helps a lot. Maybe it’s selfish to admit that losing someone you relied on will make life more difficult. But, as my dad always said, college allows you to “keep learning.” That and family are what really matters.

As my brother wrote, our dad would want us to celebrate baby teeth, cherish tree rings, embrace the life cycle, and look up at the stars.

The best quote I’ve heard recently came from Norman Lear, who also died last week: “I don’t mind the going, it’s the leaving that’s a problem. Who knows what’s out there? It can’t be all bad. But leaving? I can’t think of anything good about leaving.”

Hug a loved one a little harder today, and tip your paperboy.

Joe Dwinell is the Herald’s executive editor.

This file photo released by NASA in July of 1969 shows the Earth as seen from the Apollo 11 command module as it orbits the Moon during the landing of the lunar module. (AFP/Getty Images)