My father and I would nap together during his final days.

Sunday afternoons were my mother's only break. She wandered thrift stores in search of the third vacuum cleaner we didn't need, while I stayed home to care for my father.

We'd talk for a while, but he tired quickly — nothing like the man who once held us spellbound with his stories. Pancreatic cancer had left his body so weak that he no longer had the strength to turn himself over in bed. So before closing my eyes, I made him promise to wake me so I could help him.

He never shook me. Never called my name. Never made a sound. Instead, he rubbed my back gently and waited — the same way he had woken me for school all those years ago.

If I could sum up my father's essence in one word, it would be this: gentle. Gentle in his words. Gentle in his movement. Gentle in his spirit.

My dad is one of my favorite people and one of my best friends. I am absolutely his mini me, although somehow I inherited his competitiveness and sarcasm but not quite as much of his niceness. Genetics are mysterious that way.

We share a love of volleyball, the same sense of humor, and an extensive, highly practical knowledge of movie quotes. I can throw out one random line with absolutely no context (usually a Ghostbusters quote), and he'll usually know exactly what movie I mean. I can do the same with him. It's basically our own language and arguably our most useful shared skill.

Long before fantasy sports became an industry, we invented our own version of fantasy basketball. We would pull out our NBA trading cards, each choose five players for the week, and track how many points they scored. Whoever's players scored the most won. There were no apps, no automatic scoring, and definitely no participation trophies. My dad was far too competitive to let me win, and honestly, so was I.