I used to play this game. I'd list the things I'd give up to have him back. It started right after he died, and I played it for years. Tangible things, accomplishments, emotions. I'd go down my list, then consider my options — give it up or no? And every time the answer was the same. I'd trade it to have him back. When I turned 17, I fell in love and the game changed. I'd found the one thing I couldn't give up, and I felt as if he had died all over again, only this time it was my fault. In part for not choosing him and in part for choosing instead a boy he would never meet.

I still play it. I find myself in the car listing things I'd give up. Or scrambling eggs and finding things I wouldn't. And when I find something, something I wouldn't trade — well, I recognize its importance.

In all my time playing the game, only one thing has stumped me; his letters. I don't have to give them up to have him back. I just have to read them.

After he died — suddenly, of a heart attack — I didn't think of the letters right off. It was only three months later, as my first birthday without him rolled around, that I remembered. They were there and they were mine to read whenever I wanted. But I'd chosen a time to read them, and the fact that he wasn't around didn't change things. I was big on that then.

What I didn't know was just how young 21 would feel. The letters were tucked away in a safe-deposit box at the Bank of America, a short drive from my first apartment. I signed on the dotted line, offered up my key, and was ushered to a private room. I would read just the first few. I dug past official-looking paperwork and there they were, 14 unopened letters tied together with a rainbow-striped shoelace.

That day in the bank's private room, I managed to get through only the first letter. Twice. I dissolved. Because it was a connection to him. Because I missed him beyond words and because this was his final — and his greatest — gift to me.

For a short time, right after it has been made real, right after it stops being a possibility and becomes indisputable — "Your father is dead" — you are not yourself. It's a space between acutely aware and numb. Your actions are no different; You walk, you talk, and despite your utter belief that it is no longer possible, you breathe. But you feel none of it. It's a life-rehearsed sleepwalk. The letters brought it all back.

Time heals, right? I've found it also serves to erase, to smooth the edges of things too sharp, too full of pain to live alongside on a daily basis. Death is a slow forgetting. One day, a few months after my father died, I came home to voices. More specifically, a man's voice. Upstairs I found my mother sitting on the floor in front of his closet, crying. She was listening to a tape recording of my dad. I hadn't recognized his voice — I was forgetting him.