I’ve read the obituary over and over. Posted 17 years ago, it tries to convey, in a brief column run alongside a single photograph, a life of 63 years. The names of family; wife, kids, siblings, parents, along with jobs and places lived. In 410 words, it endeavors to capture his personality, the impact of his life on others, the charms and quirks of almost 23,000 days lived. An impossible task for sure, but this one long paragraph is way more information than I’ve ever had.
It’s the obituary of my biological father, a man I never had the chance to meet, a man I only learned the identity of a few weeks ago.