Nineteen years ago today my dad died. I was nineteen. That’s half-life without him, and my ENTIRE adult life. And until I got a text from my brother this evening with the words, “We miss you!” and the cutest selfie ever of him, my sister, and my mom, the significance of this day hadn’t crossed my mind once.

My dad’s death was the first terrible thing that ever happened to me, and remains to be my greatest loss. The last time I saw him was in the early morning humid haze of late-August Chicago. In a photograph taken just moments before my sister, our friend Liz, and I jumped in to my mom’s Toyota Corolla to begin my westward journey, my father rests on the open trunk, arms raised high, embracing it all. His signature stance.

My dad was the kind of dad we called by his first name–Larry. Or, more often, Lar…