The letters prevented that. He'd said he was writing everything down so that I wouldn't forget. I sat in that little cubicle in the Bank of America and cried from a place I've learned will never be satiated, and I remembered the pain, the longing, the loneliness. Then I read on, and remembered the life.

I thought the letters would be a simple list of vital stats chronicling my growth spurts and appreciation of all things fried.

They weren't. The letters were a mix of affection and craft. And they were written by my dad, whom I hadn't "heard" in years. The strongest feeling I had reading that first letter was relief. The words he used, the way he told a story — I hadn't forgotten.

June 13, 1974
What can I tell you about yourself? The conventional wisdom now is that children are formed within a few years. If so, you're lucky, because you're an extremely happy little girl. Since you were born I look at other children more carefully. And they're not all nice. Some are sly, or cowardly, or aloof. But you sail in with open arms, and I mean that literally. You've knocked down a few (kids) with this rush of love. But that doesn't stop you. You've decided that your form of greeting is going to be an embrace — and by God that's what it is.

My mom says he never planned to write the letters, but I know he did. He crammed a lot into my childhood, and I've always had the feeling there was a reason. He'd spin stories of first dates, fumbled acrobatics involving girlfriends' bra straps, meeting my mom and proposing multiple times before she said yes. But I was a kid. Those things seemed far off, unrelated. By the time they mattered, he wasn't around to retell them. But my father unwittingly created a backup plan. He wrote them down.

May 2, 1986
You're tougher lately and you contradict me more. You test your young mental muscles and once in a while, if we fight, you grin and say, "I gave you a pretty good argument." It's the truth. You also think you're smarter than I am. I tell you you're not there yet, but you will be, and I'll be very happy about it.

He may not be around, but neither is the me of 2, 4, or 11. His letters remind me of the child I would otherwise have forgotten.