Dad, you died seven years ago. I can’t believe how much time has passed; time keeps ticking and you’re still not here. I miss your big body that would hug me and laugh with me and take care of me. I miss your presence.

It feels far away, that time when you were here. I was a different person then in a lot of ways. Everything else is happening now, different than when you were alive. The backdrop of my life has changed, with the palm trees of Los Angeles replacing the Chicago skyline. I’m living with Sarah in a new place, a new job, new computer, new body. I heard once that all the cells in each body renew themselves every seven years, so even the cells in my body are new.

Pretty soon after you died, pro soccer dreams came and went. Then my identity as “helper” disintegrated and continues to disappear. Gender transition came, and with it a new way of being in the world. A really nice girlfriend came. Yoga appeared and now there’s meditation daily. Chicago left, northern California materialized, and now we’re in LA. Bodies came and went as the number of friends I met grew. I have a whole different set of identities now. I traded girl, lesbian, urban, helper, and soccer player for adult, transman, uncle, introvert, yogi, and artist, among others.

Dad, after seven years, part of me is scared you won’t know me anymore because all these things have changed. I’m afraid that you missed so many cool parts of my life. But what helps me is what you taught me when you died. I’m so grateful I was able to be with you for your last couple months, because you showed me something deeper than anything I’d ever seen before. There were a few times that you went back and forth between here and wherever you went when you died. Once you had tea with people somewhere else behind your closed eyes, while I sat there and watched your body in your chair. Another time you left for a while and came back explaining, “it’s just another dimension.”

You gave us a clue of what’s bigger than the physical things we see and touch. There’s something bigger here that I’d been missing. All the physical stuff changes, but there’s something underneath it that stays the same. Truth is I could toss all my identities in the wind. They’re all going to change anyway. Seven more years and maybe I’ll have a whole new set of them. But sitting with you while you were in that other dimension. That was the real deal.

I remember when I went to see the great saint Amma for the first time two years ago and I was so worried she wouldn’t accept me because I was trans. She didn’t care a lick and saw right through that and loved me. I’ve been wondering about that ever since, and I see now it’s because these identities are so superficial. They come and go.

Real Truth is deeper, behind all that. What does gender or money or politics or personality matter, when confronted with death? No label can stop death. There’s something deeper here. Something none of us control, can hardly even touch it’s so subtle.

Dad, thank you for teaching me all that. No part of you wanted to leave this world, but you had no choice in the matter, so you showed up with courage to be taken on your path. That forever connection you taught me about when you died; that won’t ever change. So wherever else we go and whatever else we do, that deeper thing always connects us.

I love you, and I’m with you.