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My mom leaves me voicemails all the time. It would be totally impractical to preserve them all, yet every time I press 7 at the end of a ‘hi honey’ message, I feel somehow as though I’m chucking gold into the ocean. I’m aware that most likely, a day will come when I can’t elect to hear her voice, and my heart will ache and I’ll hate myself for all the times that I could treat her messages like things that weren’t absolutely precious.

I think I’ve dealt with enough loss in my life to know that things aren’t guaranteed, not just theoretically but moment to moment. The flip side of guilt for not appreciating moments more is the comfort of knowing that you still appreciate them a lot, that you don’t take them for granted. But clearly there is at least one person whose mortality I never considered, and I guess it’s understandable that it would be the strongest, most dynamic guy I know.

My aunt and uncle picked me up from the airport yesterday morning, ostensibly to take me to the hospital to see my dad, who two full days of health after his sugery got suddenly very sick. But in the car my aunt had to break the news. I was too late.

If you never met my dad, the best way I know to sum him up is that he always told the truth and his truth always had a purpose. He was never reckless with you, but if what he said made you uncomfortable, it was something you really needed to hear. Over the years, I have seen so many people become obsessed with my dad for maybe no other reason than he was willing to hurt them with the truth because he cared. He loved you actively, and people were always drawn to that.

When I moved to North Carolina, Dad told me that I needed to consider the ways in which it wouldn’t be all awesome. People are going to get sick—people you love—and you are going to be too far away to do anything about it. People will probably die while you’re out there, and you’ll regret the precious time you would have spent with them if it had been easier. I heard these words in my head as we buried my uncle and both my grandmothers. Now I just hear the more recent I’m getting on my bad knee here—come home to Michigan. Please.

And so far I hadn’t because I had other plans for my life, and in the grand scheme of the future I was promised with my father, there would be plenty of time for me to come home, to settle down, to get his hard truths about all the adult things I’d have to learn.

But now my hard truth is that he won’t be there. Not if I get married, not if I have kids. Not to read the book I sent him, not to build the model airplanes he looked forward to working on in his recovery. Not to talk shit about our plumeria growing contest, not to nag me about getting my oil changed. Not to leave comments on this blog. Aunt Mary Ellen says that grieving is dealing with the continuous waves of “oh, shit”. Deleting “Dad” in your cell phone. Correcting yourself every time you say “my parents…”. Hearing mention of the gap between his front teeth and remembering that at one time my brother and I had that same gap and we’d all brush our teeth around a bonfire in Antigonish, Nova Scotia and get into a contest to see who could squirt water the furthest through the gap, and then Pete and I got braces and got older and I realized that I always like people with gaps in their front teeth because to me, that looks like love. And wanting to punch something because fuck. We sent my dad to one of the best hospitals in the world for an elective procedure, and we never get to see that smile again.

Last week, Dad told me that growing up was a continual process of letting go. I have a lot of fucking growing up to do.