I called and invited him to lunch on Saturday. We'll do dim sum, your favorite, I said. We ordered the usual Chinese delicacies in steaming tin containers and he used his chopsticks to punctuate the air as he recounted a memory of his mother. My grandmother. How she cooked with lard instead of oil and the smell it left behind, in the curtains and the rug. It became a familiar scent in my father's childhood home.

My grandmother passed away last week, after months of failing health. When I heard the news, my heart ached. For my dad. Due to reasons beyond my understanding, my grandmother chose to distance herself from my siblings and me, so I assumed her departure wouldn't sting too much. But it did. I wasn't sad for physical loss, per se, but for the loss of connection. My father's connection to someone I didn't really know, yet somehow loved because of his fondness of her. I suppose that's how family sometimes works…loving because of DNA.

As he spoke of funeral arrangements, I stopped him mid-sentence and thanked him. For allowing his children to grieve in their own way and showing us how to lose a parent with grace.