A year ago, I “lost” my job. Six weeks before that, I “lost” my dad. But jobs and parents aren’t socks or keys—you don’t misplace them, and they don’t turn up under the couch. These weren’t accidents of misplacement. They were ruptures. Endings. Closures. And yet, in loss there was also finding. Losing my father and my role stripped away the scaffolding I had leaned on for identity and stability. What remained was vulnerability—and the work of piecing together who I was when