Are You There, Dad? It’s Me, Alice - The New York Times

Jessie Glenn wrote about writing to her 10-year-old niece after her father, Glenn's brother, died by suicide.

But his email account lived on. I would leave it logged in and up on my computer on the tab to the left of my own email. (I still do.) He wasn’t getting many emails, mostly junk or notices from various lists he had been on — notifications from Alice’s school and alerts about lost neighborhood dogs. Then one day a new message popped up: “hi dad” I stared for a while at Alice’s message, so plaintive and weightless, without even the anchor of punctuation. I wondered if I should reply. I asked a therapist friend, who said: “Don’t answer as her father unless you ask Alice and she agrees to it.” It took me a few days to figure out how to ask Alice casually. During that time, I searched and read every email and text he had sent her. I studied his punctuation, his cadence, his vocabulary and his endearments. So many exclamation points. And then I texted her: “I’m on your dads email. can i write you from it?” She replied: “wait what? oh ok” “i guess i want to pretend,” I explained."

Are You There, Dad? It’s Me, Alice - The New York Times