Chapter One Loss and Found The average daughter respects her father. She might regard him as her hero, or she may place him so high on a pedestal that no object of her affection could ever compare. To me, my father deserved more than respect, or loyalty, or even love. I had a reverence for him. He was more than Superman; he was God. One of my earliest memories was of two men cowering in my father’s office as he spoke words I didn’t understand. His verdict was always final and never argued with. Not even death could touch him. When I answered my phone on December fourteenth, that reality came to an end. “Nina,” my mother sighed, “he doesn’t have much time. You should come now.” I set the phone beside me on the bed, careful to keep my hands from trembling so much that it tumbled to the floor. The past few weeks had been an alternate universe for me, as I had been faced with one horrible cal after another. The first from a nurse at the hospital informing me of my father’s car accident. My number was the most recently dialed on his cel phone, leaving me with the horrifying task of being the one to break the news to my mother. In his last days, when reports of no improvement were replaced with gentle suggestions