A day after burying her father after his sudden death at age 67, Nicole Chung and her young family go on a long-planned vacation to Disney World, where she finds that making new family memories is one way to honor old family memories.

I have missed so much this year. Mostly, since the day he died, I have missed my father, but I have also missed myself. Some days, in truth, I still feel lost, grasping in the dark for a thread I can follow back to the person I was before this pain struck. And so maybe I didn’t go to Disney World just because my kids wanted to. Maybe I also went because this trip seemed like a chance to build some memories with my own family, and hold them fierce and close while I can. God knows I didn’t want to lose anything else after my father died—not precious time with my kids, certainly not the opportunity to see them having the time of their lives. By then, we had all lost enough.

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