We don’t own the people we love. We share themwith the past, with others, sometimes with ghosts of what might have been.

That day, I didn’t just say goodbye to my father. I met him again because the boy who danced, the soldier who wrote letters, the man who carried two great loves in one lifetime.

Love doesn’t vanish. It lingers in promises, in dresses kept in boxes, in the space between farewell and forever.