I lost my father at the age of twenty-nine. It was not unexpected. He was terminally ill throughout my twenties, and chronically depressed during my teens. Ever since I can remember, he had a death wish. He would talk about death as though it were waiting right around the corner, making statements like, “I probably won’t be alive to see that,” whenever I mentioned graduation or getting married or having kids. His pending death consumed my life. Nonetheless, he remains the meter by which I judge all men. My father was a profoundly flawed man, and still every man who came after him would fall short of what I viewed as his unrealized greatness. My father could have been a contender. He was extr...