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There's that saying that
all roads lead to Rome.

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Everything takes you back
to the same thing basically.

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And in my life, all roads
basically lead back to my dad.

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If there's something annoying I
do, it probably came from him.

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If there's something good I do, it
probably came in some version from him.

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I'm really good at business, but
I'm really good at business because

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he was abhorrent at business, and I
learned how to be good at business from

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watching him be absolutely the worst
business person who has ever existed.

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And, like, I literally had to take over
his business, running his business, his

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practice, when I was 21 years old 'cause
I was like, "This is a mess and this is

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not how you're supposed to do anything."

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I had no idea what I was doing, but even
having no idea what I was doing, I still

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knew more than he did. And I certainly had
better instincts about it than he did.

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He was just the worst businessman.

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Anyway, best doctor I've ever met
though, by a margin of a lot, and I

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don't just say that 'cause he was my dad.

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He really was just an
exceptional, incredible doctor.

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And sometimes those two things
just don't work together.

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Like, sometimes you can't, you
can't be an exceptional caretaker

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and also care about going to 16
minutes on a 15-minute session.

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It just, like, it just
doesn't work that way.

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I got my sense of humor from him.

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If you wanna know I make a lot of dead
dad jokes, and, and those are never

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going away, but, like, I made those
jokes to my dad when he was alive.

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So, like, at some point they were live
dad jokes. We used to tell him all the

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time that if he ever died, we were just
gonna reanimate him and do, like, urgent

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care at Bernie's, 'cause we were running
an urgent care at the time and just,

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like, and just, like, put strings on him.

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Mind you, he was a psychiatrist,
so he talked to a lot of people who

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were grieving someone, and if you
ever told him that someone you cared

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about died or if you said, "Oh, I
lost my mother," he would say, "Well,

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that was careless," like, instantly.

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Like, there was no delay.

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"That was careless." On the back of
my desk, there's a bottle that it's an

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empty glass bottle that says, "Expert
Opinions." He bought the bottles at

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the dollar store, and he put the labels
on them because they made him laugh.

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The other one said, "Up doc," so that
when people walked into his office,

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they would see the bottle that said
"Up doc," and say, "What's up, doc?"

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And he'd go, "Not much. How about you?"

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And giggle to himself uncontrollably.

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So if you wanna know how I got
like this, I came by it honestly.

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There was no hope for me.

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He and I were, were two peas
in an inseparable pod, and

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all roads lead to the old guy.

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But I say all of that because August
21st, he will be gone for 10 years, which

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feels like an impossible amount of time.

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And you know how you build, like,
these things up in your head, and

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they don't actually mean anything,
but somehow they mean something?

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And I remember right after he died
thinking, "There's no way that we

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will ever reach a point where I can
say that he's been gone for 10 years.

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That's impossible.

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That can't happen.

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I can't have been a person for 10 years
without him." Except I'm here, 10 years

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without him, and I have a 10-year-old
who was six weeks old 10 years ago. She

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had six weeks with him. Just to, like, add
a finer point to that, she was six weeks

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early. Funny how the universe works.

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But yeah, we're sitting here.

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Somehow 10 years has passed, and there's
this idea that, like, grief goes away.

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You survive grief, you get
to the other side of grief.

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There's no other side of grief.

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It doesn't end.

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It doesn't stop.

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Some days it might as well
be the day it happened.

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Some days are worse.

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When, when something like that happens,
even if you knew it was coming,

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the shock of it shields you from a
lot of what you're supposed to be

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feeling or what you could be feeling.

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And so the day or two after, at least
this was my experience, it wasn't

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this, like, deluge of uncontrollable
emotions, even though it was really hard.

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I didn't… I just remember,
like, feeling like I was outside

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of my body the whole time.

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Like, not knowing, not knowing
how I was supposed to process

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through this and, like, just
having to remind myself constantly.

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There was, um… We were trying
to do something for his memorial.

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I don't remember what we were trying
to do, but there was a place in France

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that was his favorite place in the
world, and every time I thought of it,

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I wanted to say the Champs-Élysées,
but that's not what it was.

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There was another place that had a
similar name, and I could never remember

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it when— unless he had just said it.

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And so we were trying to incorporate
it into something, I don't even

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remember what, and, I just remember
being like, "Oh, well let me ask

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him." Funny story, you can't do that.

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And then, like, just weird stuff that
happened, like I had left the house,

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and it was the first time that I had
truly been by myself the whole time.

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So no baby with me, no husband, I'm
going to go get food for everybody.

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My best friend was here from out of town
and he was literally only there for, like,

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16 hours to do a quick turnaround, and
it was like right before the funeral.

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And I was driving to, I think I was
going to Wendy's to get everybody dinner.

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And I was just talking to him, and I was
just like, "I don't know if anybody's

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gonna hear this, but I'm by myself in
the car, and I don't know what else to

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do with the airspace that I have, so I'm
just gonna talk to you." And so I just was

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like, "I just wanna know where you are.

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I just wanna know that you're okay.

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If somebody could send anything to let
me know, that'd be great." And so I had

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been using voice-to-text on my phone
to coordinate one of my friends getting

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airfare to come down for the funeral.

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And so I did that, sent the message,
put my phone down, drove, got the food,

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came back, picked my phone up again.

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And in the box where I, where you're
supposed to either, like, speak into

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the phone or, or text into the phone,
it said, "Hey, do you have a second?"

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That is the way my dad
started every phone call.

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If you answered the phone, he would say,
"Hey, do you have a second?" Every time.

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I didn't type that.

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I didn't call that.

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I didn't say it into my phone.

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It was just there in the box.

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And I am not a big believer in, like,
woo-woo afterlife stuff, but that

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was about as clear as you could
get that he was like, "I'm good.

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I got this." And he's probably
sent me, or I choose to believe he

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has sent me 20 different messages.

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More than that, way more than that
in the 10 years since he's been gone.

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And I don't know how it's been 10
years, but I also know that I don't

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feel any different about him today
than I did the day he died or the

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day after he died or the day before
he died when I was terrified that

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he was about to die because he was.

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Spoiler, he was.

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My grief is not smaller.

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I've just grown around it.

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I have a much bigger life because
life has gone on, and he's still

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at the middle of it, but the life
around him is still so much bigger.

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Is, is so much bigger so that it
doesn't take up as much of my brain.

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But I still think about him every day.

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I still talk about him all
the time like he's here.

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He's still integral to,
like, every decision I make.

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I can still hear the things he says in my
brain as responses to stuff all the time.

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And somehow he's been gone for
10 years, but he hasn't left.

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He's still right here.

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He still drives me fricking crazy.

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Just because I think that's what
parents are supposed to do, right?

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I don't know how it's been 10 years.

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I can't… I both remember every part of
the last 10 years in excruciating detail,

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and I also can't believe we've come this
far, had this much, done this many things.

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I can't believe there's so
much he hasn't been here for.

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I can't believe he never
got to meet my youngest.

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She would be his favorite person.

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Not that my oldest would not also be
his favorite person, but my youngest

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has, like, a certain murderous streak
in her that he really would've loved.

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He would've— That would've been,
like, his favorite thing in the world.

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It, it's just wild to kind of wrap your
brain around having come so far and yet

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feeling like some things just have never
changed, and it's never gonna change.

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He's… I'm gonna miss him every
day for the rest of my life.

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I'll leave you with a story that

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perfectly explains my relationship with
my dad and how my children are so much

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like him, despite the fact that they
really never got any time with him.

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And also it's just hella funny.

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I'm gonna tell this story for the rest
of my life 'cause it's that funny.

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So I was… We've been spending a lot
of time at my mom's house, who lives

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only a couple of blocks away from me
because she's been sick and we've been

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taking care of her, et cetera, et cetera.

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And so I took my youngest over to
see her 'cause I, I don't know if

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I had to take the garbage out or
something, but it was a quick trip,

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and she saw something of my dad's in
the house and had asked a question

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about him that my mom had answered.

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And then as we left, she said, "Mom,
I meant to ask you while we were

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there, what was Pop Pop's real name?"

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And I said, "Uh, his name was
Lawrence Benjamin Ehrlich."

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And she goes, "Lawrence?

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Is that why you're named Lauren?"
And I said, "No, not actually.

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My mom just really liked the name.

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"Jewish people don't usually"—at least
our kind of Jewish people, I didn't

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explain to her the difference—"but don't
usually name people after living people.

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We only name people after people
who have already died." And she

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goes, straight-faced, "So if you
wanna name somebody after someone

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living, you have to kill them?"

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And I went…

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"No, baby."

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And I was trying so hard not to
laugh at her, but I was dying inside.

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I went, "No, baby, you just, like,
pick a different name." And she

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goes, "Oh, that's probably better."

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And I was just imagining my mom just,
like, shanking my dad 'cause she

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wanted to name me Lauren, and that
would've fit their relationship,

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but also not the way it worked.

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So anyway, we have my youngest's seal
of approval to just pick a different

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name if we don't wanna do a murder.

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Though she did seem fairly on board for
the murder, which is her whole vibe, and

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goes back to what I said earlier about how
much she would've loved this fricking kid.

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But yeah, somehow it's been 10 years
and he doesn't get to see moments

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like that, and that fricking sucks.

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But also, it only sucks because
it was cool to have him around for

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as long as we did, and here's to
a long time more of missing him.

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Actually, it'd be kind
of cool not to miss him.

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I wish I could wake up one day and
just be like, "I don't like that guy,"

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and then not have that to think about.

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But it's kind of the bad part of having
a parent who's really cool and your,

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your other half in this life is that
sometimes they're gonna be super fricking

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rude and die, and then you have to,
like, figure out what to do with the

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rest of your life, and that's bullshit.

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But we've done an okay job of it.