My father was missing. That’s when my odyssey began.

Drawn from “Tell the Kids I Love Them: A Memoir,” by Jeremy Redmon, published Sept. 15 by the University of South Carolina Press. Excerpted with permission.

Please take care as you read, as this excerpt explores suicide and other forms of trauma. If you need help, call or text the988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Whenever I reflect on my father, my focus inevitably shifts to our final car ride together. I was 14. Much of my memory of that September morning in 1986 is lost to time, so I must recreate parts of it in my imagination.

I can picture us sitting side by side in his gray Oldsmobile Starfire, riding through Riverside, Ohio. I can see him preparing to drop me off at Walter E. Stebbins High School. But I cannot visualize what I should have noticed.

There must have been important clues. If he was struggling with symptoms from his multiple sclerosis, I did not notice. If he tried to send me a signal as he drove me to school, I missed it. If he patted me on the knee, as he occasionally did to show he loved me, I do not…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/life/