The Beginning of Something

"The meaning of life is finding your gift," Pablo Picasso said. "The purpose of life is giving it to the world." 

My destination wedding was nothing short of magnificent. It was filled with warmth, joy and excitement, beyond my wildest dreams. It was hard to believe I'd been filled with dread before it for so long. 

I was filled with dread because I knew when I walked down the aisle I'd be doing it fatherless.

My dad was killed on August 8, 2003, by a 17-year-old driver on her phone who ran a red light and crashed into his car. I was only 25, and had just moved to New York City, away from home for the first time.  

My dread eventually led me to become a distracted-driving awareness activist. I had to find a way to save others from facing the same loss. Since then, I've written about it numerous times and in numerous places. I even ran the New York Marathon to raise money for End Distracted Driving. But the biggest step forward for me was when I forgave the driver—I had no choice once I learned that no driver's brain can function the way it needs to if a phone is added to the equation. 

Exchanging rings at our Santa Fe wedding (photo by Joni Bilderback)

When we returned from our honeymoon in the arid Southwest, it was like entering a hurricane. Our wedding had coincided with one of the most divisive U.S. presidential elections in history. I stayed glued to my computer screen for six months, my jaw dropping at some new development at least once a week. I watched one of the most powerful women in the world continually get knocked down by a financially powerful man who by many accounts was ill-suited for the job they both wanted.

I started living through Hillary. At the same time, in the aftermath of my wedding, I started wondering how society was expecting me to change now that I was a wife. 

I looked willy-nilly to the world around me for answers (I don't recommend doing this—see above!). Many seemed to believe I should be making babies. Despite being 38, I didn't feel ready, plus I worried pregnancy and motherhood could interfere with my creative pursuits and advocacy—things I'd only just begun. If I focused on the former, did that make me a good woman? If I focused on the latter, did that make me a bad woman—but a happy and fulfilled me?

My husband, to my relief, consistently said he preferred the latter.

My brother, his now-wife, my husband and me: day four of our honeymoon; day three of our "family-moon" (we spent five days of our two-week Southwest trip with my family in Scottsdale, Arizona)

As my confusion about my role as a woman persisted, I watched my younger brother plan his wedding. Then I watched him buy a condo—something my husband and I hadn't done yet—and I started worrying even more. Not only am I bad at being a woman, but I'm also bad at being an adult, I thought.

And then Donald Trump won. His supporters said they wanted to "make America great again," to return it to a simpler time, a time when all the things I described above were sure signs of fulfillment. Meanwhile, reports came in that car fatalites went up in 2016. The year-over-year increase was the highest the country had seen since the 1960s.

Which meant that despite my activism, more people were dying from the thing that killed my dad. 

My stepdad, mom, me and my now-husband on New Year's Eve 2015

My mom and stepdad took great pains to help my brother and me as we got married. My mom set it as a goal for herself long ago that she would help her children pay for either their wedding or their first home. 

But I couldn't help wondering, What were my father's goals? 

A few weeks before my brother's wedding, I found out.

The house that uncovered the list

My brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law had invited us up to see their new place. When we got there, we all sat around the kitchen island, talking. And then my brother said, "Oh yeah, I need to show you something."

His now-wife brought out a small brown leather pouch of my father's they'd uncovered in their move. She held it upside down and out toppled a few silver rings and trinkets you'd expect to find in the personal belongings of the deceased, along with three pieces of folded notebook paper.

"That's it," he said. "Did you know about this?"

I unfolded the paper and we started reading it. At the top of the first page was written, "Things I Would Like to Do in My Lifetime!" 

On the fronts and backs of these small notebook pages my dad had written all the things he hoped to accomplish in his life. 

We chuckled as we tried to decipher his handwriting at times, and then something strange happened. As we read off the items, we realized many of them were things my brother and I had already done. "I did that!" I said to the one about having your photo in a national magazine. "You've done that!" I reminded my brother, to the one about recording five songs. All in all, there were 13 items we'd accomplished. Not a small dent, considering he'd written down 60.

But in my father's entire lifetime, he only checked off five.

As the story goes, he wrote the list when he was 29, the year I was born. My mother once found it in a dresser drawer, when they were still married, and she read it in disbelief. One of the items says, "Have my own tennis court." Another says, "Correspond with the pope."

My brother and I wondered aloud if he kept the list his whole life. He'd never told us about it. But then we saw that the checked-off items were marked in black pen (the original list had been written in blue). And my brother remembered the time he must have checked off item 45, "See a World Series game live." Our dad had written the final score from it underneath (as proof?).

My dad and me in 1978, the year the list was born

The first item says, "I would like to live a long, healthy life at least to the year 2020." Another says he hoped to dance at his grandchildren's weddings. He was killed in 2003, rendering both of those things impossible.

But item 12 says, "Give my children the most love, the best education and best example I can give." He never checked that one off, but he should have. Because it's the reason my brother and I are doing this.

We are finishing the list. As the first item indicates, it was meant to expire in 2020. And in 2020, it shall.

And if I do have children some day, they will know their grandfather as more than a distracted-driving victim whose life was cut short before he could accomplish all he'd set out to do. They'll know him as a man whose impact was great—because look at all their mother did thanks to him.

My brother and me at the Grand Canyon (another part of the "family-moon")

This list was written by a 29-year-old, but a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old are going to finish it. And then maybe they'll write their own.

"The meaning of life is finding your gift," Pablo Picasso said. "The purpose of life is giving it to the world."

*A version of this post appeared in an article about distracted driving in the April 2017 issue of Good Housekeeping.