Copyright 2026 by Jack A. Urquhart

Dear Dillon,

Today, August 2, 2026, it’s thirteen years since you left us. 

Every year I try to write something to mark the day, something that will reassemble a small part of you. And every year, I’m less successful in that effort. So I hope you will excuse, dear son, this latest attempt.

How, after all, am I to reanimate in any meaningful way a lost son—especially one so adept at emotional hide and seek as you were during your brief thirty-four years amongst us?

For the thirteenth time, I browse your old photos today, looking for clues that will bring fleeting life to dusty memories. 

As always, I recall your beautiful hands (a gift from your mother) and your thrumming, slender, ever-anxious fingers—the hands of a diffident artist. 

Other snapshots freeze-frame your awkward gait—the way you kept your arms swingless and tight against your torso, as if you were unsure of how much room you had any right to occupy in the world. 

I’ve written before about your well-documented trademark smirk—a wary half-smile, turned down at one corner against the world. As if at any moment mirth might slide seamlessly into disappointment.

But these are trivial pursuits that always lead me to a familiar dead end: I can never put you back together again, Dillon. Never have you back again. And yet I can’t let go of the bits and pieces of you either. Not yet. 

I’m so sorry.

Love, Dad