Dad -

I didn't really call you that while you were alive, and it feels strange to call you that now, but I didn't know any other way to start this letter.

I've become a person who grumbles at roadside memorials for victims of traffic accidents but who writes something about you every year on the anniversary of your death. I wondered about that for a number of years before I realized that I was closer to your death than I was to your life, and I've spent the years since trying to come to terms with your absence.

This entry covers it better than most:

We joke about people being married to their jobs, but the numbers in my own life tell quite a tale. A typical workday sees me awake for 17 hours. I spend nine of those with co-workers. Since Jeff and I keep slightly different work schedules, I only see him for about five hours per weekday.

The jokes become less comfortable when you realize that you're spending more hours per day with your co-workers than you do with the person you married. Co-workers don't have the same commitment to permanence that spouses do; they are people you spend time with, but not people you share everything with. I marvel at how few people find this strange or unusual.

Loss came through tweets and emails, a drip of information at a time. First a note from a tech staffer saying that someone had died, with a pointer to more information, including the name.

I saw it at work, and I wondered who it would be, whose name had to take on a different status. Death is so final it seems that we should all be able to feel it when it happens, to know that something is missing that wasn't missing ten minutes ago. But it's not like that. We have to be told, and for me it was via email.

He was a man unmet to me, but not to you.I'd toyed with the idea of saving up, of crossing the ocean sometime later this year or early next year, of seeing that great grand Ireland and meeting the two of you for a cup of tea somewhere so that I could marvel at how far you'd come.

For we haven't talked much lately, what with you off emerald-isleing and me turning librarian…

…and his death beat me to this door.

I had intended a post today of laughter and anticipation and find myself trying to write one of solace.Geof's sister-in-law Cindy died last night unexpectedly. They had very little warning.

Not that any amount of warning is ever enough.

I don't have a pretty run-in for you here, or a way to lace together these words in a way that has meaning or resonance. In the end, they're just words, the words of someone who is up at one in the morning and who is thinking through keystrokes instead of being asleep, like she should be.

Father's Day.

Lest we forget: life is so achingly fragile, and there are no second chances.

A week ago today was the fourth anniversary of my father's death. That morning, I asked myself the kind of question that defines the difference between adulthood and childhood: "If I had no more chances after today, what would be my greatest regret?"

For me, the answer was clear. Something about the day, the anniversary—something indefinable and pressing—meant that I spent that morning finally doing something about it. Actions that may or may not get written about here. It's too personal, and has ramifications on lives not my own. Even if I could write it, I am not sure that I should.

Today, after a crossword-and-cat-induced nap, we dressed and headed out for Indian food, at a restaurant in which we are regulars ("No bread tonight?") and came home to a message on the answering machine.

I wondered where I'd be. I got the answer tonight; an answer that was nearly four years in coming. As usual, the answer wasn't what I expected.

It was less.

It was more.

I have written these words in various guises, in paragraphs both fat and slim, and discarded every one, thinking I needed the last note, the final touch, to wrap this story together and bring it to completion.They buried Ken Mitchell on a clear winter's day, with fire trucks and an honor guard.

Quoting from the Benton Courier's original article:

"Ken Mitchell, chief of the Tull Volunteer Fire Department and pastor at Saline Missionary Baptist Church in Tull, made the ultimate sacrifice Thursday morning.

Mitchell, 59, died while responding to a house fire at 8722 W. Cherry St. in Tull. He was pronounced dead at Saline Memorial Hospital in Benton."

"…Simpson, also a member of the church, noted that Mitchell performed more than 160 weddings and funerals in the community."

Including my own, seven years ago. I only have the photo of him signing our marriage license, a photo which, as part of our wedding collage, hangs in our hallway to this day: