Grief, you see, is lonely for everyone involved. Mom had lost her life partner. Jen didn’t have the luxury of grieving the way Lauren did, not with a baby to care for, and her sorrow had to be dealt with in bits and pieces. And Lauren had to live with the knowledge that Dad wouldn’t see all the important milestones of her adult life—graduation from college, job, first apartment, getting married, having kids. He was just . . . gone.

It was thoughts like those that could bring a person to her knees.

But she was her father’s child, and with the help of a good therapist, her sister’s love, Sarah’s rocklike friendship and the new friends she made in college, she kept on moving forward. She was a weeper, thank God, so there were no repressed emotions.

She wanted to live a life her dad would be proud of. That she would be proud of. Parents die. Disney taught that right from the beginning. When the tears came, sometimes predictably, sometimes taking her by surprise, she gave herself five minutes for a full-on sob, then got back to the stuff at hand. She changed majors. Got a good internship that morphed into a job offer.

And then, that day after graduation, she made her list.

Lists had magical powers, Lauren thought. All that crap about writing down your dreams and checking in? It worked. It had gotten her through college, especially after her dad died, keeping her focused and punctual.

This list would be different. It would be a life list.

She went to her laptop—who was she, Jane Austen?—and dared to dream big. No one else would see it, after all, so why not put it all out there?

When she was done, it felt good. It made her feel oddly safe. Over the next few years, she looked at it periodically. She liked checking back in and crossing things off. She’d add things, too. And somewhere along the line, she started writing to her dad about the things on the list, or just life in general. It never failed to make her heart ache in the most painful and wonderful way, this little communication with her dad in the Great Beyond.

She got three promotions in her first two years at Pearl Churchwell Harris, Architects, putting in long hours, hitting it off with her boss, Bruce Churchwell, the Mighty and Beneficent. With her third raise, she left the apartment she shared with two other women and got a tiny one of her own. She made time for her sister, mom and friends. She dated, though very casually. She volunteered at a community center and rode her bike on the weekends.

And then, life changed with the kind of pulse that makes the world stop for a second, that lets you listen to the breath of stars and ocean. The day you recognize your life will never be the same.