Ten years ago, my dad died a bit suddenly. By suddenly, I mean that the day before, he was at the cardiologist’s, and they gave him a monitor to wear for 24 hours, because he had some history of heart stuff, and he died before he could return the monitor. So it was a bit of a surprise to everyone, evidently.

Unfortunately, the last conversation I had with my dad was an argument, caused by several misunderstandings he had, fueled along by his current wife. Which we got mostly straightened out at the last minute, but left a not-so-good taste in my mouth. My recommendation? Do WHATEVER YOU NEED TO DO, when you walk out the door, to make sure that things are good with the people in your life, in case you fell off the earth. Just sayin’.

Anyway, at the reading of the will (which was a Word doc that my dad had typed up which we printed out in his office as we all stood there — don’t do that either), it turns out that his current wife had “lost” the hand-painted picture that my mom had given my dad, which my dad wanted me to have. Nope, couldn’t find it, hadn’t seen it, couldn’t help me. Um, OK. And my dad was a geologist, and had an amazing collection of rocks, which, somewhat understandably, she didn’t want us going through at the time. She and I arranged for me to come and get some of the items, three months later, while I was on a trip to Oregon, where they lived, and then “forgot” that I was arriving, and so we never got together.

And that was that. We never spoke again, and I spent a good amount of energy reminding myself over the years that it’s just stuff, and it won’t bring my dad back, and it’s just stuff, right? Just stuff.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I learned that his wife had passed away. She hadn’t stayed in touch with my sister either, or anyone from my dad’s family, so apparently it wasn’t just me. And all of a sudden, I realized that I could get some of my dad back. It was like a tiny ember just flared up that I didn’t even realize I had.

I have very, very little of my dad’s. I don’t even have any of his ashes, don’t even know if he was buried (I heard some crazy thing like he wanted to be shot into space), no marker, no nothing. I worked hard at letting go of that stupid argument, and am mostly at peace about it. Most of the time.

But it sure would be nice to see a few of the rocks he’d bring to my grade school classes for show-and-tell.

And I’m appropriately posting this on Father’s Day, 10 years past his death. I miss you, Dad — it sure would be nice to see something of yours again.