My Father Died Today

Twenty-three years ago today, to be more precise.

I didn't know him all that well. Something I've begun to realize the older I've gotten. We were never close. And our family didn't talk much about things below the surface level. Or at least he didn't. With me. I grew up in the same house with him, but he was always much closer to my sister. I was a momma's girl.

Ironically, we are so much alike. Much of my personality, wit, and creativity are a direct reflection of him. Perhaps because I am so much like him is why we never clicked. Perhaps he saw in me too many pieces of himself that he didn't like. Or maybe he recognized something in me that reminded him of dreams he'd set aside, paths he'd chosen not to walk.

Regardless, I always looked up to him. I wanted to be just like him. He was a smooth talker with a voice like silk. In his younger days, he was a radio DJ and a newscaster. His ability to weave words into fantastical tales on the fly is something that I always admired, but was one gift I absolutely did not inherit from him. At least not in the same way.

He was also a beautiful writer. I like to fancy myself with the thought that maybe I did manage to get a bit of that. I used to write a lot when I was much younger, but like many things that brought me peace and comfort in my younger days, I walked away from writing for many years. Life happened. Trauma happened. Survival mode kicked in, and creativity felt like another demand that I didn’t have the energy for.

Now that I've stepped back into it, I'm remembering how difficult writing is. Or maybe it's just difficult now that I'm older. My brain doesn't work as quickly as it used to. Decades were spent with my thoughts caged up in my brain. Or maybe it's this way for most writers, and I'm just choosing to remember the easy parts.

But here's what I've learned: sometimes the struggle to find words makes them more precious when they finally come.

The Weight of Unspoken Knowing

He passed away at 55. So young. And I can remember when I was younger and I would make comments to him about trying to imagine him when he was older, things like "gosh, dad, when this happens you'll be 65." he would always reply with "I won't live to be that old."

It never clicked until I became an adult that I never felt like I would live to be older, either. I always joked with my kids that I would only be around until I was 45. I know, morbid, but death and dying hold no fear for me. In fact, I think we should all discuss it more, but that's another topic for another time.

Back to my point. Forty-five came and went, and of course, everyone I said that to replied with "you don't know when you're going to die." And while this is true, I think my father knew something. And I think I know, too. Not in a fatalistic way, but in the way that some people just sense the shape of their own story.

And now that I'm 50, the urgency seems real. Kind of like the ADHD drive to put off the big task until the last minute and then hit it out of the park.

I sometimes feel like that's where my life is leading. Like that's where my drive to make all these scary decisions that feel so aligned with who I am and who I still have time to become comes from. The courage to quit toxic jobs, to start my own business, to write this book, to bet on myself when no one else was willing, maybe it all stems from this inherited sense that time isn't unlimited.

Finding Purpose in the Painful

Even in the bad things, I try to find lessons. I try to find purpose in as many things as possible, even the painful things. Especially the painful things.

And so, sometimes I wonder: what if he passed when he did and our relationship was the way it was for this very reason? What if part of his purpose was to help me fulfill my purpose? What if because I have the hindsight of his early passing, I have the courage to take the leap and spend these years following a path that I never imagined?

What if I have the opportunity to serve others, to heal my relationship with my children, to rediscover my faith in God and grow in that faith all because he died so young, because he knew he would (and shared that with me), and because I've often had the same intuition?

What if I'm wrong about my timeline and am blessed enough to spend 25 years doing these things rather than five?

What if the distance between us wasn't rejection but protection—his way of ensuring I would have to find my own voice instead of trying to echo his?

The Book That Almost Wasn't

The book I'm publishing today—What If They're Wrong About You—almost didn't happen. For months, I wrestled with whether I had anything worth saying. Whether my story of autism diagnosis at 49, of burnout and recovery, of learning to ask "what if" instead of "why me," could possibly matter to anyone else.

But as I wrote about the power of reframing our questions, about the difference between productive and destructive "what ifs," I kept hearing my father's voice. Not the smooth radio voice that charmed listeners, but the quieter voice that said things like "I won't live to be that old" with such matter-of-fact certainty.

I think he understood something about time that I'm only now learning: it's not about how much you get, but what you do with what you have.

Every "what if" question in this book carries a piece of him. Every reframe from "why me" to "what if this is exactly where I'm supposed to be" echoes his understanding that some things just are, and our job isn't to understand why but to figure out what to do next.

The Gift of Imperfect Love

We weren't close. He loved me with all he had to love me with. I longed for more, but what if it was enough? What if it was exactly the right amount that I needed?

What if the space between us taught me to fill my own empty places? What if his emotional distance showed me the importance of emotional presence with my own children? What if his inability to see my worth clearly gave me the fierce determination to see my own worth, even when others couldn't?

I've spent years off and on in therapy working through, among other things, the pain of feeling unseen by him. But I've also spent years discovering that the qualities I most admired in him—his creativity, his way with words, his ability to find humor in difficult situations—live on in me. Not as copies, but as variations on a theme.

His gifts weren't lost when he died. They were transformed, carried forward in ways neither of us could have imagined.

What Lives On

Today, as I publish this book, I think about all the words my father never got to write. All the stories he never got to tell. All the conversations we never got to have.

But I also think about the words I'm writing now—messy, uncomfortable, honest words that might never have existed if our relationship had been different. If he had lived longer. If I hadn't inherited his sense of time's urgency alongside his love of language.

The autism that made social connection difficult, the trauma that silenced my voice for years, the burnout that brought me to my knees—what if all of it was preparing me for this moment? What if the very struggles that seemed like evidence of my brokenness were actually evidence of my strength?

What if the little girl who felt unseen by her father grew up to become a woman who helps other people feel seen?

What if the daughter who couldn't connect with her dad learned to connect with herself in ways that now help others do the same?

What if everything, the pain and the joy, the connection and the distance, the early loss and the late-blooming creativity, what if it all served a purpose I couldn't see when I was living through it?

The Anniversary

And so, these "what ifs" and countless others are why I decided to wait until today to publish my book. Not because I needed his permission, I stopped waiting for that long ago. But because I wanted to honor the complicated gift of our relationship.

We weren't close. But we were connected in ways that transcended proximity. He gave me his creativity, even if he couldn't give me his attention. He passed down his intuition about time, even if he couldn't share his emotional availability. He modeled the power of words, even if he couldn't speak the words I needed to hear.

What if this is the best way I can show him and those left of us who knew him that he still exists? In me. In this book. In every "what if" question that opens up possibility instead of shutting it down.

Even the parts he might not have liked about himself live on in me, but transformed. The sensitivity he may have seen as weakness has become my greatest strength. The intensity he might have tried to dampen has become my fuel. The questions he couldn't answer have become the questions I help others learn to ask.

Living the Questions

Today, twenty-three years after his death and exactly fifty years into my own life, I'm learning that legacy isn't just what we leave behind—it's what we pick up and carry forward.

His words live on in mine. His creativity flows through my art. His understanding of time's preciousness drives my urgency to live genuinely.

But more than that, his early death taught me that "what if" questions are too important to save for someday. What if I don't wait for perfect conditions? What if I don't wait for someone else's permission? What if I stop asking "why me" and start asking "why not me"?

What if I honor his memory not by mourning what we didn't have, but by celebrating what we did? What if the best tribute to his life is living mine fully, messily, creatively, urgently?

What if the distance between us was never about love, but about learning to love ourselves?

What if he's not really gone, but transformed—living on in every person who reads these words and decides to ask a different question about their own life?

What if this is hope wearing sneakers, walking forward into possibility?

What if this is exactly how love works—imperfect, incomplete, but somehow enough to build a life on?

What if he knew all along that this was how the story would unfold?

What if he's proud of who I've become, not despite our complicated relationship, but because of everything it taught me about resilience, creativity, and the courage to keep becoming?

Today, I publish this book. Today, I remember my father. Today, I choose to believe that we can grieve what we didn't have while still celebrating what we did. We can honor the past and choose differently for the future. We can carry someone's legacy forward while writing our own story.

What if that's exactly what he would have wanted?

What if it's enough?

What If They're Wrong About You: Discovering Hope When You've Always Felt Different is available on Amazon and Kindle. This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever felt like they don't quite fit, who has asked "why me" more times than they can count, and who is ready to discover the transformative power of asking "what if" instead.

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About the Author
Gal is an autistic artist, late-diagnosed at 49, and the creator of AuRTistic Expressions—a space where neurodivergent truth meets creative survival. Through blog posts, printables, courses, and the “This Might Get Messy” podcast, Gal explores what it means to unmask safely, communicate authentically, and make art that doesn’t ask for permission. Stick around—there’s plenty more where this came from.

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