This holiday had never been among those that I celebrated until last year, when I lost my Dad. There were other ways to show him how essential his presence was in my life without any special reminders, but now it’s a day when I can reflect on myself and his impact on me—without a chance to say “thank you for everything, Dad” to his face or speaking to him by phone, as we had done every two or three days since I moved to England. I can talk to him through my mind only, invoking the earliest of my memories, when I can say that I love him.