Hi, Daddy.

Today is the second anniversary of my father's death. He would've been 70 in June of that year. (My mom died seven years prior.)

There's not much to say when both your parents are gone, except "It sucks."

I could write until I keeled over and still not convey their respective essences. I am just not that good of a writer.

It's odd: I feel almost like my father was not someone I knew personally, but a storybook character I grew up with. Which is really bizarre, considering that we were very close, yet I was completely aware of his human flaws. It's just that... I will never be able to hear his opinion about anything important to me again. I can tell him; he can't respond except as a whisper of what I would expect he'd say.

I'm starting to feel the same way about my mother. I suppose it might have something to do with the genealogy research I'm doing, because I'm hearing perspectives from my father's brother and my mother's sister. They're becoming narratives.

I guess I'll light a mental yahrtzeit candle and let it go at that. I'm not Jewish, but I like the idea.