My father died unexpectedly in 2005. Emphysema. The note he left for me was in pencil. The degradation of his handwriting toward the end of the note tells me that he wrote it during his final few seconds, when he knew he would have no tomorrow:

“All the little things in life add up to your life. ?
 If you don’t get it right, nothing else matters.”

I’ve never been sure whether my father thought I didn’t already know this, or whether he just wanted me to know that he had regrets. It was one more indication that he never really knew me.

But I saw my father clearly and I loved him in spite of it.