What was going on in your life two years ago? Two years ago this weekend, I saw my father for the last time.

He and my stepmother had gone to North Carolina to visit some friends, and Dad decided to drive down to Atlanta and spend the night with my husband and me. I was great with child and wasn’t supposed to travel at that point, so it was nice to have a visit from family.

It was a lovely weekend—exactly what I could have hoped for, had I known what I know. I had actually spent very little one-on-one time with just Dad in recent years, and I wondered beforehand what we would talk about. In actuality, it felt very relaxing and natural. I think men of a certain generation sometimes rely on the women in their lives to keep the social wheels turning. Without my stepmother there to fulfill that role, he was lively and engaged.

After he arrived we spent some time visiting in the afternoon. He told us about going drag racing (?) with their North Carolina friends who are really into NASCAR. I don’t know anything about any of that; it just sounded to me like a big step up from Malibu. He said he enjoyed it, but he liked the motorcycle better. Anyone who knew Dad knows I speak the truth. That evening we took Dad to one of our favorite restaurants in Atlanta, Agnes and Muriel. Good home cookin’ with a funky 1950s flair. It was a cool clear evening.

We went home and visited for a while. I had just received a letter from one of the churches I was considering—they had asked me to answer some essay questions as part of the interview process. I remember Dad was very interested in learning more about the job search, which kind of surprised me, since I don’t know how aware he had been about the details of this unusual seminary thing his daughter was doing.

In fact, I still am amazed at how present Dad was during the whole weekend. I remember there were times, when I was younger, when Dad seemed to be somewhere else. A few months after he died, I heard a tape of Dad telling his story at an AA meeting—something he did often, it turns out. (He was a mentor for others. I’d known it all along, but we kids got a more complete picture of this after he died.) In this audiotaped telling of his story, he talked about his early years of sobriety and how he felt uncomfortable in his own skin a lot of the time. I had never realized how much he himself was going through while we were growing up. Maybe that is what I remember from childhood. It just seemed that sometimes he wasn’t quite listening with full attention.

Anyway, this time was different. Dad seemed to hang on every word. He asked questions and wanted to know all about my life. He was also very excited about the trilogy of books he was writing. He told me Andrew Lloyd Webber was going to be in town for a gala event in a couple of months, and he was so convinced that his story would make a good opera (after the books became a smashing success, of course) that he was working on a scheme to get in to the gala so he could pitch the idea to him! That was Dad.

The next morning, we had a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, Clementine oranges, and biscuits. I think Dad was eager to get on the road, but my husband cooked fast and Dad was easily convinced to stay. We sat around our dining room table, and Dad said how much he liked the oranges—they’re seedless, easy to peel, and the perfect size. He also liked the biscuits, which definitely are delicious. Afterward I wrapped some up for him to enjoy on the drive back to North Carolina.

Every time my husband makes those biscuits I think about that morning.

When I look back on our time in Atlanta, I think about the fact that our house there contains the most important memories of my life—the first few months of my daughter’s life, and the last few moments I ever spent with Dad. That house is the bridge between them. The first few days after Dad died—two weeks before my daughter was born—I couldn’t get a certain image out of my head. It was the image of me, handing my newborn child to him for him to meet her. I had to force myself again and again to face the reality that that transaction would never happen. It’s still the most heartbreaking aspect of his death.

Many people have wondered to me whether my father and my daughter crossed paths. Did he help her find her way to us? I’d love to believe it. There are moments when I do, and the image in my head gets re-imagined. It is he who is handing her to me.