That night Letterman and I fed a baby, then time passed

It must be weird knowing that a generation of complete strangers think of you as a friend, as someone they hung-out with, as someone they looked forward to seeing, as someone they counted on to distract them from whatever was bugging them. And to know that all of these men and women, people you've never met, are going to miss you.

I am one of those strangers, and it's weird for me.

It must be really, really weird for David Letterman.

His final late night show Wednesday was great fun. Lines like, "I'll be honest with you. It's beginning to look like I'm not going to get the 'Tonight' show."

The guests were funny. The music was good.

It was an hour and 20 minutes (the show ran long) of take-a-breath, enjoy-the-moment viewing, the way it's been for decades. I recall a night, many years ago, when a baby in our house awakened and was hungry, and I heated a bottle, turned on the TV and watched Letterman with the volume down low, feeding the baby and trying not to disturb her sleeping mom with laughter.

I imagined other dads doing the same thing.

That baby, and the boy who came after her, are grown-ups now. And over the years a lot of things changed. There have been ups and downs, personal crises, triumphs, tragedies, the kind of things you hash out with friends, which is why it was both funny and poignant when Letterman joked, "When I screw up now, and Lord knows I will be screwing up, I'll have to go on somebody else's show to apologize."

We track our lives by the careers of well-known actors, ballplayers, singers, politicians, writers and, sometimes, comedians who also happen to be talk show hosts.

We can't help but feel a little wistful and get a little schmaltzy when one of them decides to retire, to take themselves out of the game.

Stupid human tricks? Isn't that ... life? We move on.

Sometimes, however, like with Letterman, it's not just a sense of nostalgia we feel. It's gratitude.