As I’ve mentioned before, my beloved father, Jack Craft, died recently, in December of 2025. In one way, it seems as though it just happened, and in another way, it seems as though it happened long ago. And it also seems impossible that he’s really gone.

My sense of grief and loss has gone through many stages, and I know that process will continue.

But one thing has happened that has surprised me, and has given me a lot of comfort.

I feel that my father is still in our lives, that we’re still appreciating and even still learning about him, even though he’s gone.

One instance really stands out in my mind. As my mother, my sister Elizabeth, and I were talking about him, and the kinds of things we might do in his memory, it occurred to us—he really loved a bench!

Once we noticed it, we saw so much evidence of it. In so many family photos, he’s sitting on a bench. One of his favorite things was to go on a long walk with my mother, or my sister, or me, with occasional stops at benches along the way. Not long before he died, he and my mother walked 17,000 steps in a single day in Paris, and that day included many enjoyable bench breaks. In one of my last photos of my father and me, we’re sitting on a bench in Kauffman Garden, one of our favorite walks which we did whenever I visited Kansas City.

It makes me happy to realize something new about my father. He isn’t gone from my life. Now, every time I sit down on a bench, I think of him.