I needed some time to gather my thoughts after the funeral, so I decided to sort through some boxes in my parents attic, where I found some old, dust-covered film reels of them at the beach back in 1954.

When I wound the last reel labeled “Finally Home,” the screen flickered, settling onto an image of me sitting on the couch between them, their faces sunken in, and their cold, lifeless eyes staring at me as they whispered “come home, Jeremy” over and over again, reaching their fingers out through the screen, begging and pleading with me to join them.