Nika was close to her dad. Close in the way that father and daughters often are. Close at the beginning and the end, and through the mysteries that sometimes unfold after that.
Hugh Sill died in late September after a three-year struggle with cancer. Family includes Carrie Ann, his wife of 40 years, four children, an honorary son, two grandchildren and a lot more. Nika (Sill) Morse is the second oldest of the children, her siblings include Hunter, Oliver and Hallie (Rogers) Sill.
If you’ve lived here awhile, you may have heard of the Sills because there are a bunch of them (Hugh was one of eight children), and, if you haven’t, you might have seen their names on street signs (Sillect Avenue) or on buildings around town. Business interests include commercial real estate (the Sill building at 18th and Chester), oil and farming (almonds, corn alfalfa and wheat) and, from 1947 to 1950, a newspaper called the Bakersfield Press.
Hugh had a travel agency, was involved in real estate development, but found “his true passion as an elementary school teacher,” the obit read.
Hugh and daughter Nika, who went into the family business and works as the controller for Sill Properties, were especially close.
“My dad could do no wrong in my eyes,” she said. “I went to Mom when I had a problem but my dad was often the one who called with the advice. His 30-plus years and life experiences made him the best advice-giver.”
Hugh knew how to get his daughter to talk, not the easiest thing to pull off for dads, especially when the subject was boys.
“Towards the end of college and afterwards when I was living in the Bay Area, he would call on Sunday to check in and the first words out of his mouth were always, 'Well, Nika, did you fall in love last night?' I always laughed and said, 'No,' and he said, 'Damn, maybe next week.'”
“Next week” finally arrived.
“He called after a weekend in Santa Cruz and repeated his famous line, 'Well, Nika, did you fall in love last night? '... I said, 'Well, Dad, I kind of met someone.'”
“Someone” turned out to be Jake Morse, the man she ended up marrying and with whom she had two kids. “Someone” was the man she introduced to her father during her parents’ July 4th party that year.
Nika and Jake moved home. Home made a lot of people happy. Happiest of all may have been her dad.
The last three years were challenging for Hugh. He was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2017, had a stem cell transplant (by his brother) in June 2018 and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2020. He was in and out of the hospital and sometimes more in than out.
“He fought hard and there were times when I thought the end was near but he would bounce back, “ Nika said. “There were lots of peaks and valleys the last three years but his strength was amazing.”
Hugh Sill died at 3:33 a.m. Sept. 21 in the ICU at UCLA Medical Center. Within minutes of his death, Nika, who was home in Bakersfield, had a dream.
“I opened the door to my house to find my dad standing there looking like he had on my wedding day: a healthy man with a full head of hair. He kept saying over and over that he had no more problems.
“Dad was excited and full of joy. He grabbed my shoulders and said, 'Look at me. I am fixed.'”
Nika smiled, woke up and checked the time. It was 4 a.m. Two hours later, a nurse called from UCLA to tell her her father had died.
Things worked in the strange fashion that they sometimes do: Had her mother called earlier, rather than opting to let her sleep “because at 3:33, there was nothing we could do,” Nika would have never had the dream.
“I believe he came to me so quickly after his passing because he knew I would need this dream to help bring me peace over the next couple days, months and years.”
Hugh was being a father. Fathers are fixers even when they need fixing themselves.
October 25, 2020 at 01:36AM
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HERB BENHAM: A fixer, a fighter and a father - The Bakersfield Californian
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Herb
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