“Wouldn’t it be great to do an oral history interview with Mom?” I said to my sister, Charlene. “I’ll interview her in her ‘cozy room,’ so she feels comfortable. I’ll send her the questions ahead of time.”

By the time Jackson’s Tolkien trilogy was lighting theaters like fired up beacons, so much of my dad had been broken by sickness, by surgery, by pain and the impossibility of full recovery.

I was angry that you didn’t correct me. Angry that I had to babysit you while Daddy worked. Angrier still that you didn’t remember me, didn’t know my name.