Tim Carman is on his way down to Ben’s. He called in to report a conversation he had with Nizam Ali, the late Ben Ali‘s son. The family is starting to gather together, Nizam tells Carman. Ben, he says, was at GW Hospital for about a week. He had congestive heart failure. GW Hospital, he says, treated his dad very well. Last night he said he wanted to go home to the home in North Portal he’d lived in for 40 years. “A minute after he got upstairs,” Nizam says, “he hit the bed, and he was gone.”

“He passed without suffering,” Nizam says. “He lived a long and good life.”

In terms of a memorial, Nizam says they’ll probably do something private for the family, but he knows Ben’s importance to the community and says they will figure out something for a public service. Ben’s death wasn’t completely unexpected, Nizam says. Ben had “a million things” wrong with him, Nizam says. “We’re all OK.”