The boy’s name is Alex.

Let me start from the beginning. June is a tough month for me. It is the month of Father’s Day and the month of my dad’s birthday. And my dad is dead. It’s even stranger this year, when there are coronavirus restrictions and riots.

I’m not sure when it’s supposed to be OK for your dad to have died, but it feels like that day hasn’t passed yet.

My dad was a pediatrician for a good portion of his life. One day, he held a tiny newborn in his arms, and he knew something wasn’t right. The babe was listless. He wasn’t responding to stimulus as a newborn baby should.

This was the year of 9/11, a time when nothing in this world made much sense. A time when there was so much going on that the worries of a mother with a newborn didn’t carry much weight. My dad ran the tests that would confirm his suspicions. The baby had stage 4 liver cancer.

He was rushed into surgery.

A week ago, my family and I received a graduation notice. The high school graduate has curly red hair and a letterman’s jacket. And he’s alive.

This is a strange world we’re living in right now. I feel that I have not the history nor the chops to write about it. But I feel that this is what I can write about.

Brodi Ashton is a New York Times best-selling author who lives in the Salt Lake City area. She’s also an occasional columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.