Feeling forever loved

“‘Come on, it’ll be fun!’ my friend Amy coaxed. She was into memorabilia and wanted to visit the vintage record store that had just opened on the town square. To me, watching paint dry would have been more appealing than sifting through musty old albums—I knew firsthand because my father had collected them and always dragged me to the store with him. But I forced myself to join Amy.

“In the little shop, I thumbed through the vinyls, surprised at the sorrow that filled my heart. ‘I miss you, Dad,’ I whispered, each cover reminding me of him. Then in the middle of a thick rack of records, I saw it: a faded green album with a beautiful redhead on the front and the words Julie Is Her

Name in the upper left-hand corner. It was the Julie London album my father played constantly when I was a kid.

“My heart soared as I remembered standing on his shoes and dancing with him to her smoky voice. Tears filling my eyes, I turned the album over and gasped: My father’s name, Thomas Newmark, was written in pen on the back corner—a habit he’d acquired when a roommate took some of his records by accident in college. Chills rippled over my skin as love filled my heart.

“‘Are you getting into old records?’ Amy asked, holding her stack. I smiled as I and felt my dad all around me. ‘Just one,’ I whispered. ‘Julie Is Her Name.’”