Death affects people in  various ways. If you are a parent, where does the role you’ve occupied for more than three decades go? Are you still a father (or a mother)?

Last year on Father’s Day, we drove down to Providence and retraced the beginning of Mark’s walk when he left his house on Pleasant Street, setting out on what would be his final walk. A friend of his, James, helped us figure out the steps Mark took as he left his beloved city. A small group of friends and co-workers walked out to a point on the city’s bike walking trail and turned back. We walked nearly 11 miles.

Mark, in addition to being an award-winning poet, activist, and a one-in-a-million son, also collected geography, while passing through places in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania. He reached Zanesville in Ohio. He got on a bus. He’d concocted a plan designed to subvert the coming of winter and what that meant to his bare feet. It was the only way he could come up with for continuing to walk. It seemed like a brilliant idea. Hell, it was a brilliant idea!. How could he know that the Greyhound was taking him south was actually transporting him closer to something dark and tragic waiting for him in Florida’s Panhandle?

On the day devoted to being a father, others will be spending time with their dad. They’ll visit, take him out to dinner, maybe a ball game, or they’ll call him—basically, they’ll dote on him just a bit. They should. I’ll never have that again.

Last year’s walk was a way to mitigate the sadness and sense of loss that had occurred for me and simply make it through the first Father’s Day spent without Mark. No phone calls, no more visits—nothing.

Today isn’t Father’s Day. But I’m preparing for it.

Heading towards a destination.

I’m traveling. Some of my trip will be spent seeing two bands. I’ll go to a place where our unit of three share special memories near a big waterfall. I’m spending two nights in a city nearby like many in America—simply trying to figure out how to be a city in the 21st century. I’m doing the Airbnb thing, instead of a hotel. I’m looking forward to getting out on foot and exploring and then, I’ll get to see Sloan for the second time in a month.

On Sunday, I’ll be walking across the hallowed ground of Gettysburg National Military Park. I’ve never been here. I’ve always had an interest in the history of the Civil War. Strangely, it seems appropriate to be spending time among the ghosts of sons lost to fathers a long, long time ago.

Without Mark, am I still a father?