When my dad passed away last spring, the world felt unbearably silent, as if the very air had folded in on itself, leaving me in a vacuum of grief that I could neither escape nor soften.

Dad had always been my steady presence, the anchor in the often turbulent sea of my life.

He had a way of making ordinary mornings magical, flipping pancakes with a flourish while humming tunes from his youth, telling terrible jokes that only he could get away with, and delivering pep talks that ended with that familiar refrain: Continue reading…