Weird the things that most remind you of someone you lost. A few days ago, I was buying baby Tylenol (and beer) at Rite Aid and saw a box of Hot Tamales. My dad loved junk food, and Hot Tamales most of all. I picked them up, then I couldn’t. Even carrying them felt like too much.

We had this huge blue van with four benches and two seats in front. It made it easy to move five kids plus parents plus random crap between meetings, practices, and whatever else. And Dad let me sit in the front a lot while we we going to pick up or drop off someobody somewhere.

And we always stopped for gas somewhere cheap (the man would spend 5 dollars in fuel to save three cents a gallon) and then he’d get junk food for himself and whoever was in the car with him at the time. His choice of course. Usually peanut M&Ms or Hot Tamales.

And those are some of my favorite memories of my dad. Driving somewhere to get dropped off or driving home after getting picked up and getting someone else along the way and sometimes just the two of us. Talking. Eating hot tamales. No eye contact. Just watching the other cars.

When I was in 5th grade, we moved to Spokane, WA. We lived there through my 9th grade year. Spokane were the best. All the trees and the mountain views. I’d stare out the side window and listen as my dad talked about high school and how he got through. And we are hot tamales.

Even in Spokane, in junior high, Dad knew I was different from him. I thought about going to the Air Force Academy like he did but I saw early that wouldn’t work. He didn’t really mind. He loved how intensely I thought about things. You have a different kind of mind, he told me.

9th grade was just the right time for these conversations. It was our last year in Spokane, and I went to a high school further away. More drives with Dad. Still the mountains and trees. Not yet old enough (it came soon) to convince myself I knew so much more than the old man.

And always the damn Hot Tamales and Peanut M&Ms. I eat the latter enough that they don’t have the intense connection for me but I eat Hot Tamales like once a year if that. So suddenly, holding them a few days ago, I could almost smell the Spokane pine trees, hear my dad’s voice.

I don’t hear him saying anything in specific actually. I just hear his pride, his assurance I’ll be okay, that I don’t have to worry so much. I remember him driving with his knee—he always did that—and pouring the box of hot tamales into his hand, then passing some over to me.

He’d be talking about something and interrupt himself, asking if I want some more. I’d turn and look at him. There’s Dad, knee keeping the wheel, still looking forward, one hand holding the box of candy and the other hand reaching out to give me some pieces. Smiling. I miss him.