Balanced Between Grief and Dread

How mourning my father helped prepare me for life in a pandemic

In July my family marked the second anniversary of my father’s death. I drove down to San Diego with my daughter so we could spend a few days with my mother, in the home where I lived for much of my childhood. We lit candles, spoke words of memory, and told stories of a man who would surely have had something thoughtful or clever to say about our current circumstances. At one point my daughter climbed into my lap, and broke into improvised song: a lilting melody about…