“Dylan, you have a call on 101. Dylan, call on 101.”

The loudspeaker overhead at Walgreens boomed with the voice of my co-worker, Carolina, and her cries to desperately get me to answer the phone. I finally did, thinking it was another pharmacy patient who just wanted a quick way to bypass the phone loop.

“This is Dylan, can I help you?” “Dylan, this is your cousin Erin. Do you remember me?”

I had to think for a minute. Yeah, I did have a cousin named Erin. No, I hadn’t spoken with her since before I graduated high school, over ten years ago.

“Yeah, of course. How are you?” “Dylan, are you sitting down? I’m so sorry.”

Within a few seconds, I knew what she was going to say. It was that one moment in my life that felt as if it was ripped from the screenplay of a film.

“I’m so sorry. Dylan, your Dad died this morning. I am so sorry.” “Thanks for calling. I have to go.”

I hung up the phone and sat down in the back of the pharmacy. My pharmacy manager came over to ask me what had happened. I wasn’t crying, but I was able to look at him and say, “My Dad died. Give me a minute.”

He walked away, unsure of what to say. I mean, hell, I didn’t even know what to say. There I was: 25 years old, in a pharmacy wearing a white smock and a tie with slacks on, and not sure what the fuck I was doing with my life. My Dad is dead? How the fuck could that be? How could any of this make sense?

At that point, it had been nearly a year and a half since my Dad and I had spoken with one another. We often got into it over his incessant drinking habits and his inability to forego the typical “drunk dial” every night. He spent most nights dialing me and ranting about the world and politics, while his girlfriend listened on another handset. It was odd, disturbing, and not what I wanted in terms of a relationship between my father and I.

My Dad and I at some unknown lake when I was a child.

My Dad never believed in my quest to become an English teacher. He never thought it was something that I should pursue. He got his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly in the 1970s. Anything other than the sciences disinterested him. But, he still loved me. He always did.

He died of a heart attack on the morning of July 27th, 2012. His girlfriend at the time took all of his things and eventually left when his body was taken care of. She probably loved him, but never showed it — especially when he was gone. To this day, nobody has heard from her and probably never will.

But the biggest thing about my Dad’s death was how quickly it faded. Within months, I had cried all I needed to cry. I had asked my Mom if she was okay too many times. I had done it all. The memories of him faded even quicker and it was almost 2013 when I realized he was really gone and I had started to move forward. I would Google his name every so often, and only one account really came up, “@Dennuts on Twitter”. Dennuts was my Dad’s online handle for many years, so it was no surprise to see him tweeting under it. But, as most older people do, he didn’t use Twitter “correctly”. That is to say that he clearly didn’t understand how to “@” somebody to send them a “mention” or “reply” to one of their tweets. He simply tweeted and would hope that someone would see it.

Like this tweet from 2010, when he tweeted at Michael Moore. But, Michael Moore probably never saw it, since my Dad didn’t use Moore’s Twitter handle with an @ preceding it. It didn’t matter. His message was clearly there.

But that was pretty much it. Just a weird Twitter account that he apparently used in conjunction with his girlfriend. There was also a few weird audiophile-related posts on an audio forum. That was it.

My Dad was not only gone from this world, but he was also gone from the online world. There is no clear record of his online happenings, and no social media profiles.

Worst of all, all the work my Dad did for so many years for Hughes-Danbury and Ratheon is completely gone from public view. The creativity that he had displayed and the drive and determination he had will never be seen again.

That’s why I made sure that, starting in 2012, I would make everything I ever created available online for free and for the rest of time.