Tomorrow would have been my mom‘s 97th birthday. While it’s unlikely that she would have lived that long, her death more than 20 years ago hasn’t gotten any easier to accept. I discovered just how true that is when I opened an old spiral notebook a few weeks ago and saw an entry I wrote in the fall of 2007, just over six years after her passing following the cerebral hemorrhage she had suffered 18 months prior. Ironically, that piece of writing had been prompted by my opening the same notebook, which had belonged to Mom, and seeing a note she’d written on the first page.

I talk a lot about how writing sloppy copy–or simply journaling–can help us go deep and access our true feelings. That was certainly true for me when I scribbled the following paragraphs:

My father used to give the same Thanksgiving toast every year. Raising his glass, he simply said, “Thanks.”

I’m definitely my father’s daughter. Unable—or perhaps unwilling—to improve on this post, I have simply decided to run it every year at this time as a tribute to him, to all of you, and to making our lives count.