A couple of months after his death, when I was trying to shape the tail piece of a surfboard and couldn't quite get it right, I called him to ask if he knew of a workable formula for measuring its unusual shape. That's how natural it was for me to ask him for advice. He didn't answer, of course, but if he could have, he would have asked me questions that would have enabled me to solve the problem, rather than just tell me what to do.
Turns out, that works even when it seems there is no one on the other end of the line.