Today would've been my parents' 44th wedding anniversary. Not a flashy number: that came earlier this month with the 10th anniversary of my dad's death. I was too busy spending that day with my siblings and their children to write about it and might not even be writing about it today were it not for the wonders, and horrors, of Google image search.

It's a long story—involving delinquent mortgage loan officers, curiosity about an old friend who used to be a mortgage loan officer, and reminiscences of Mormon dentists who share Elessar's name—but, basically, upon looking up my own and Elessar's names in Google image search, I found a picture from my grandmother's obituary in both. And then I wondered if my father's obituary would come up if I searched his name. It's been so long, I couldn't remember what picture we'd used.

I didn't find his obituary. I found an article from a local hospital honoring his tissue, eye, and bone donation and discussing his life of service. It ends with "As a donor, he saved lives, preserved vision, promoted mobility, and reduced pain," and all I could think was how proud he would be of that. He relished those things in his own life and did what he could to promote them in others' lives—literally and metaphorically.

I miss him. Differently than I did ten years ago, but I still miss him. And at the same time, I am very aware that my own ability to save lives, to preserve vision, to promote mobility, to reduce pain (mostly metaphorically) comes in large part because he died. I can care, now—love, now—in ways I could not before I lost him. I miss him; I wish he were still here to help me answer questions I never got to ask; but I am so very grateful for the person he helped me become, through his life and his death.