Forty years without you..yet you are everywhere – Love, Me.

It is now, as I begin to write this, the morning of August 30th, 2025. I pause, consumed by my thoughts, but feel a sense of fulfillment knowing that my eleven-year-old self has grown into her fifty-one-year-old self and still misses her father, yet finally understands where she belongs.

This year marks forty years since my father’s passing in 1985. His absence was the first wound that shaped me, and his memory remains the thread I follow. From that ache, I wrote “Love, Me“—an epistolary account that combines letters to him with reflections on love, loss, and loneliness. It was just released into the world on the 40^th anniversary of his passing because honoring him this way feels like both closing a circle and starting a new one.

I chose this diary format because letters foster intimacy, honesty, and the voice of a daughter reaching across time. Throughout, I have gained insights from my trusted therapist, Tristen, who provided me with the language to name what once felt unspeakable and to understand people and behaviors that had long puzzled me on my healing journey.

At its core, Love, Me is not just about grief but also about survival, identity, and how we carry those we’ve lost inside us. What I’ve realized is that grief never truly disappears, but learning to love oneself and finding one’s way back home are essential.

Here is a brief excerpt from the book:

Dear Dad,

A few weeks ago, Mom told me we would be moving away from Reese.  I am crushed.

I actually feel heartbroken again, but for different reasons. I can’t even write about it because it makes me too mad. It’s been hard enough these last few years getting used to being at school, and with my friends, and feeling different. Now that I am in eighth grade, things have finally started to get easier. And Mom wants to make everything hard again.

How can I leave Grandma?  Our house? My friends?

All the memories of you are here in Reese and in this house. I will no longer have everything around me that feels safe.

Mom and that Dorky Dude are getting married next year. He lives in Hemlock, so we are all moving to his house. It’s the same place she has been going to every weekend for the past two years. I hate this all so much. I want to vomit.

Love, Me.

As this book begins to take flight, I release it with trembling hands but a steady heart. It will offer companionship to anyone who has felt loss and loneliness, providing reassurance that you are not alone. At eleven years old, I started writing letters to my late father, who would never read them. What began as an attempt to stay connected to the man I admired turned into a lifelong dialogue across time, shaping my grief and the quiet unraveling of generational patterns.

Through entries in my unfiltered diary, I trace my journey from heartbreak to healing, grappling with the evolving truth of who my parents were and reclaiming my voice as I confront my past—what needs to be unlearned and what will endure. Truth-telling has always been my guiding light. I have learned that not everyone welcomes honest accounts, especially when their actions are viewed in a negative light. Still, I hold firm to the belief that my dad would want me to speak openly, sharing my reflections as I navigate complex circumstances.

Someone recently asked, “Why did you write this? My response is simple.

“I didn’t write these pages out of resentment. I wrote them in reclamation—to honor the girl I once was, to free the woman I am becoming, and to finally walk the path that feels like mine.”

Please join me in this timeless investigation, or rather, life review, as I call it, reminding us all that even in the depths of loss and loneliness, we can find meaning, connection, and the inner strength to persevere.