My Dad Disappeared When I Was A Kid. Years Later, I Got A Letter That Changed Both Our Lives.

After he died, everyone asked whether he had left a note. None had been found, but then I remembered: Yes, he had left a note. He’d left 48 of them. 

Twenty-two years later, thanks to those letters, my father is still very much alive in my heart my life and the lives of my two children. If there comes a day I forget about his love for the Dodgers, Hunter S. Thompson or Miles Davis, if his passion for swimming in the ocean or remaining curious slips my mind, all I have to do is get out the yellow file with the 48 priceless pages on which his words remain, and I know they will bring him back to me, again and again. 

Geralyn Broder Murray is a Northern California-based writer whose work has appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, and Shondaland. Find her online at GeralynBMurray.com.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost at an earlier date but was republished as one of their “Best Of” personal essays.

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