The Christian Century

It just didn’t seem right, reflecting on my father’s life and death in the midst of a city where neither of us had spent much time. There were no familiar places that stirred memories of time together, no specific places where I could go to recall the significant events surrounding his death. I was thousands of miles away from his grave. Yet it was July 18, the date on which my father had died, and a day that I now mark as a time of mourning and thanksgiving for my parents.