Don't know why I'm posting it here, but reading this inspired me to write this on Facebook. I shared it with family and friends, but maybe it might help those of you who are grieving the loss of a parent.

A Man Named Lou…

Grief is probably one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had to experience; second perhaps only to the pain of knowing that you’ve hurt someone you love—an emotion with which I’m also unfortunately familiar.

My father wasn’t a perfect guy. He was insecure at time. He was temperamental. His humor was off-beat, if not even crass at times. He wasn’t perfect, but he was as perfect as I could have possibly imagined my father to be.

He was an exceptionally bright dude, and while he rubbed people the wrong way from time to time, he was also one of the most inwardly caring people I’ve ever met.

I’ll never forget this story… It was three years ago. Christmas. I’d been fascinated with wrist watches for a while, and I’d expressed interest in one that I thought was absolutely beautiful. I never really got too excited for gifts because I didn’t exactly come from a typical white suburban home. We never went without, and my folks always sacrificed a lot to give us a Christmas worth celebrating. But as I got older, Christmas became so much more to me than receiving gifts. It became a way for me to show the people I care about that I actually do listen when they speak. I spend all my time so buried in work and life and living that I tend to be absent-minded sometimes, and it really upsets the people who matter most to me, because they think I’m not listening. So, throughout the year, I make sure to pay special attention to the little things people talk about, so that when Christmas comes around, I surprise them with the perfect gifts.

I get a kick out of this. I’m good at it, mostly.

But this one year, Dad knew that I was really hard-up on this watch, and unbeknownst to me, had planned to surprise me with it for Christmas. I never ask for expensive things for Christmas because I don’t really see the point. I’m an adult, I usually have money for the things I want/need (especially at that moment in my life), and I tend to focus less on what physical things people give me, and more on how they make me feel when I’m with them.

So anyway, my dad sacrificed a lot to get me this beautiful brown watch from Kenneth Cole. It’s one of those self-winding skeleton watches with brass accents and a truly beautiful movement.

The day he gave it to me, I was thrilled. It was even more beautiful in person than it was on the Internet. I couldn’t believe it—it was so fucking gorgeous, this thing.

But do you know what really made the gift special?

I’ll never forget this moment… I’m in the kitchen talking to my mom about how happy I am and how beautiful this watch is, and she begins to tell me how nervous my old man was before it arrived. In true Dad fashion, he waited until the last possible second to order it, and was really, really worried about whether or not it would actually make it to the house for Christmas.

She looked me in the face and told me that when he heard the UPS truck backing down our street, he jumped up from his chair and ran to the door like an eager child. And then she told me that when the UPS delivery man gave him the small brown box, he closed the door, turned around, and was so overjoyed that he began to cry.

The minute she told me that, my whole perspective on my father changed.

Life had hardened him a lot. He was skeptical of everyones’ intentions. He wasn’t very trusting. He was, at times, cold, and callous, and he was always so cynical about life. But it was very life that made him that way. It was BECAUSE of his experiences that he acted the way he did sometimes.

I always told my mother I never knew the man named “Lou.” My father was born Lou, but changed his name after an unfortunate legal incident. The incident was born of corruption and forever tainted his name. When you search for it on Google, you’ll find some pretty dramatic (and very untrue) stories about my father, so in order to avoid future problems, he changed his name to Damian—and that’s what everyone knew him as. And largely, that was the man I’d known him as.

But before there was Damian—the hurt and scared man who’d been betrayed by the world he trusted and loved so much—there was Lou.

Lou would stop at the flower shop every payday and pick my mom up a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. Lou ran one of the first recycling facilities in New Jersey, and was even invited on a popular talk show to discuss his program, which helped fundraise for kids in impoverished New Jersey neighborhoods. On the day I was born, Lou got off work, came to the hospital, and bought the entire hospital staff in the maternity ward sandwiches and shrimp cocktail, just as a small token of his appreciation for not killing me on arrival.

Lou was sweet, genuine, and kind beyond belief. He was loyal and loving and cared about everyone.

But on that Christmas morning, I saw the man named Lou. Damian always kept him tucked away pretty deep—not for lack of want, but for self preservation. But he was always right there, hanging out below the surface. My dad was an extraordinary and complex human being, and when I look back on my relationship with him, I truly see someone who was one of my absolute best friends, supporters, and mentors, and now that he’s gone, I wish I could say that grieving has gotten easier for me. But truthfully? I miss him every single day. Every one. There isn’t a single morning where I’ve woken up, looked at his necklace I wear, and not thought, “Man, I still can’t believe it.”

I was inspired to write this small tribute because the comedian Patton Oswalt released a small letter about his late wife, Michelle, who passed away last week. In it, he writes about his daughter, Alice, woke up one morning having just had the epiphany that, “When your mom dies, you’re the best memory of her. Everything you do is a memory of her.” And I read that line and just thought, “Ahhh kid; with that mentality, you’ll be just fine.”

Because I spend every single waking moment trying to live in my father’s honor, even when I’m living dishonorably. He was strange and complex, and kind and beautiful and intelligent. He was, at times, lazy and selfish, but there also wasn’t a single thing on this earth he wouldn’t do for his wife and children. He was stern and skeptical, but profoundly empathetic of the world around him. He was rude and downright crass at times, but I don’t think a single person who knew him would every look back on his time here on Earth and not smile.

And the older I get, the more I realize that I am more like my father than I ever would have thought possible. And I am proud of that—all of it. I am strange and rough around the edges, but I try to be kind and loving. I try my best to be charitable and helpful when I can, and I’m painfully honest whenever the need arises. I can be selfish and egotistical, though I try hard not to be, and when my time here on Earth is up, I hope the people whom I love and respect will look back on me and see the man I remember as my Father—someone who lived and died by the seat of their pants, who gave more than he asked to receive, who loved everyone who mattered (and even some who didn’t), and who knew how to throw a punch as well as he knew how to take one.

I miss you, Dad.

And to every person out there grieving the loss of a parent, you really, really have my sympathy. It’s tough, and I don’t think this shit gets easier. But the only thing we can do is try to make them proud, and hold closely all the people who really, truly matter to us. That’s it. That’s all.