You would have been 72 today. Each birthday without you here to celebrate it with is stranger than the last, which I didn’t expect. I thought it would become too natural. It hasn’t. Instead, there is quiet where your laugh would have been and there is an empty chair where you’d have sat and devoured a giant piece of chocolate cake tonight. Every year, though, I do learn more about you, Dad. As I’ve talked to other people who love you, I’ve learned more about your tender side and your brave side and your stubborn side, and as we get ready to remember you today, I know we’ll learn even more about you as we reminisce.
It’s not in hearing a story for the first time that you learn it, you know? It’s when you hear it retold that you get it down so that you can retell it in your own voice. Then there are the things you memorized right away—that poem that stuck or that line a lover delivered that will be tattooed on your heart until you’re gone. Then out of the blue, that thing you knew for sure changes without warning. A song I’ve heard 999 times might suddenly sound new because I thought of you when it played that thousandth time. You left behind memories that are so strong they almost bring you back.
I can still hear you singing.
