Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

It's been almost twenty years since you died. I'm only four years younger than you were when you fell. That seems impossible.

Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. But mostly, everything has changed.

I married a Stanford graduate, for reals. But most importantly I married a kind and loving man. A man who is honest and doesn't cheat on me or in life. A man who loves his family fiercely. Luckily, he is my best friend, too. And my greatest blessing amidst the ashes of May 2000. You missed meeting him by just a couple of months, in fact. The only silver lining of you not being around anymore is that you two would be best sports and music buddies and that would be very annoying at times for me.

We have two boys! Teenage boys! Almost men, really. Asher is fourteen. I see Asher's playful nature in you. He is the kid that everyone likes and wants to be around, just like you. He loves all kinds of music, just like you. Sorry, he doesn't love sports. But he does run cross country, like you did in high school.

Noé is sixteen. We found out that Noé had autism when he was two years old. I missed you so much through his diagnosis. I always felt like you would know what to do. You would find a way to make it better. You would have helped us carry the burden.

Noé is his own person. I can't really say how he is like you, but I can say you would love him. We sure do. He's the center of the family. He always wants us to be together and happy (and eating). Wait, that is how he is like you.

You also have seven other grandkids. They are all healthy and happy and bright and reflect you in all kinds of wonderful ways. The cousins are mostly close in age and fiercely protective of one another. There was a legendary brawl at a pizza joint when one of the cousins was getting picked on by a random kid. This was back in their preschool days. Now they are teens and tweens and still love being together.

Dave, Jeff, Katie and Kelli? All of your kids have careers and significant others and are putting good things into the world. No one has spent a single night in jail.

Mom. I shouldn't speak for her, but I know she misses you. I also know she is content. She is a machine -- doing family history and learning new languages and serving at church and fixing up her house. She is a gentle light. She is unconditional love.

Speaking of fixing up houses, you will never guess where she lives. Not the Big House. Nope, Mom sold that sucker and it has officially been declared cursed (that's a whole other letter). She went back to Cherry Park, to the Red House on 104th. The Red House still has the cedar paneling you nailed to the ceiling in 1985 and the red shed you built out back. But it doesn't feel frozen in time. We congregate for birthdays and holidays and to just hang out and play basketball out back on warm summer evenings. Mom talks about selling it now and then, but let's face it, that house is in our DNA.

You will never guess who the president is: Donald Trump! Yes, he's the President of the United States and it has been the absolute worst.

Also, a year after you died some terrorists hijacked American planes and ran them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Three thousand people died that day and we call it 9/11.

But good things have happened too: We elected our first black president! Gays can legally marry now! And after experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the stock market has marched straight upward for the last ten years. Today the Dow closed at over 27,000 (I'm not lying!) and the S/P is over 3,000. I remember riding in your Acura in high school and the newscaster announced excitedly that the Dow had finally broken 3000. A share of Amazon stock is worth over $1700 alone. Yeah, that is the little online bookstore. Now we buy everything from them.

I think you're pretty much caught up now. Oh, we're still waiting on the Blazers to win another championship. Sometimes I think that '77 banner will sit lonely in the Moda Center (no more Rose Garden....) forever.

Miss you everyday.

Love,

Jenni (but nobody calls me that anymore except for mom)