What can I say about grieving for my father? I am devastated. Fifteen days later, I wonder if maybe I am still dreaming. I frequently fall apart over the most mundane things — seeing his glasses still sitting on his table, next to the wireless mouse he used with his laptop, for instance. Certain memories are so ordinary and so recent that dwelling on them for more than a few seconds will set my heart racing and result in hours of lost sleep.

The day before Christmas Eve, we ran a few errands together. I drove him to a haircut at my cousin’s partner’s salon (my dad simply referred to her as his niece) and ran to the liquor store to pick up Calvados for hot buttered apple cider. Then we drove to the florist to pick up roses for my mother and my aunt, a Christmas Eve tradition. This year, he also chose a single white rose for my sister and one for me. I don’t remember him doing that in previous years, and yet suddenly I’m not sure. Maybe he did.

And yet… I can visualize the flower shop around me so clearly. My dad’s patience standing at the counter with his portable oxygen, although it was tiring for him to stand that long, and the people working there seemed oblivious to the order in which customers had arrived. His worry that a customer who arrived after him might buy the last of the roses, my simmering anger. Resolution and then more waiting. I fidgeted with every ornament and bauble in the store, sniffing shelves of creams and soaps over and over again, trying to decide if they were worthy of stuffing my mother’s stocking, despite the obvious overpricing. Carefully stepping over ice to walk to the car together.

I feel like I am there and I wonder how it is not within the power of my mind to return to that time and change history.

Of course, it’s not. Nor can I go back to the ordinary stream of text messages we exchanged three days before my dad died, discussing whether dark, ironic humor and mastery of sarcasm are distinct to the Northeast (amongst Americans) and how to keep my son warm in his carseat on subzero days.

And maybe the power, the magic, is in the ability to remember so vividly that I believe I have only just been living those moments.