.341 | to my dad (& my grief), from Matt

This is your fifth birthday since you passed away. Saying it, I can’t fathom where the years have gone.

It feels like just yesterday that I stood in the kitchen and found out the news that you wouldn’t make it. I still vividly remember looking out to the crowd of 300 people from the front of the church sanctuary, making eye contact with everyone I could as I cried laughing telling some of my favorite stories about you. I remember a couple weeks later when my friend Melissa drove me to get a tattoo I told her I wanted – really, needed – to get to remember you and something you gave me.

You gave me a lot, and I’d like to think some of the things others saw in you rubbed off on me – your humor, wit, intelligence, selflessness, heart, empathy, kindness, and love.

But the thing I want to thank you for giving me was “courage”. I still remember the day, in July 2016, when I called you and you answered laughing. Like often happened, you were coincidentally thinking of me when I called. And you had something really specific in mind that day. You told me that, what you were thinking about, was a word to describe me. I asked what word that was and you told me “courage”.

I’d never felt courageous before that moment.

What I remember sparking this was that, a week or so before, you surprised me, visiting Washington, D.C. with my mom and being in attendance for a panel I moderated. It was at Gallaudet University and six Title IX coordinators from universities across D.C. sat there ready for my questions. I was, frankly, terrified. My friends are sexual assault survivors, and I felt this immense responsibility to be a voice for them when they weren’t in the room, to ask tough questions, to push. With you two watching, I was able to – I recall repeatedly looking to you for strength and reassurance.

When you told me I was courageous, a lightbulb turned on. I couldn’t see it before but, that day, you laid it out right in front of me. And not because I needed a pep talk or prompted it, but because that’s the way you showed me love – unconditionally.

Today, with the word “courage” tattooed on my wrist, it’s a reminder of all you saw in me, and knew of me, even when I didn’t know it. As a dad but also a best friend. Since you passed, I’ve really realized how important courage was in my life – as a young person, a black person, a bisexual person, a griever, a person with a deathly allergy, and as a human. In the process, I’ve developed a gift. At the time you gave me “courage”, I didn’t know what I was made of. Because you helped me see that in myself, to this day, I’m able to look within to face fear.

It’s your birthday today. Knowing you, you wouldn’t want a gift, no matter how many times I’d ask; how we, as your family, continue to show up and thrive is the biggest gift for you, it always was.

But I also wanted to stop and say “thank you”. I know I couldn’t do it without you. Everyday of my life, you or a part of you has been with me. That’s all I need to wear my courage like a cape and keep impacting.