While visiting my mother in Florida today, I remembered that during a recent phone call, she’d mentioned the time my father had appeared on one of the magazine covers he’d designed when he was an art director for McGraw-Hill. Back when she’d told me that, I’d searched online for old issues of Coal Age and Engineering and Mining Journal, two magazines I knew he’d worked on, but no matter how many I could turn up—no Dad.

Luckily, something made me remember that cover earlier today, so I asked her about it, and …

Which explains why I hadn’t been able to find the cover. I’d never even heard of National Petroleum News!

Dad would have been around 44 years old there, and coming face to face with him in a photo I’d never seen before got me all choked up. In fact, I almost (but not quite) burst into tears.

It’s been more than five years since I lost Dad, but I still miss him.

And I’m not alone. As my search results show, I’m not the only one missing a father.