My father, the man who built bridges for a living, started to forget my name. So I booked a flight, rented a ‘95 Ford Explorer, and drove him six hours to a memory.

It started subtly. A missed appointment. A repeated story. I’m a lawyer in New York; I told myself it was just old age. During our weekly video calls, I’d be half-listening, firing off an email while he tried to tell me about a cardinal he saw in the yard. “That’s great, Pop,” I’d say, my eyes on the screen. “Listen, gotta run.” The distance between Manhattan and his quiet Chicago suburb felt like more than just a thousand miles. It was a lifetime.

Then, a package arrived. Inside was my old jean jacket from high school and a dusty cassette tape. The handwritten label, in his familiar block letters, read: “St. Croix Summer ‘95.”

I had to buy a Walkman off eBay just to play it. The moment I pressed the button, the tinny, warped sound of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” filled my sterile apartment. It wasn’t just a song. It was the smell of pine needles, the buzz of cicadas, the feeling of sun on my face. It was my father, strong and silent, teaching me how to cast a fishing line from a rickety wooden dock on a lake in Wisconsin.

I called him, my voice electric with excitement. “Pop, you’ll never guess what Mom sent me! The St. Croix mixtape! Remember how you’d play this on repeat the whole drive up?”

Silence. Then, a hesitant, confused voice on the other end. “St. Croix? What lake is that, son?”

A punch to the gut. It wasn’t just a forgotten song; it was a whole universe, our universe, vanishing. The thief that was stealing my father wasn’t just taking his future; it was erasing our past.

That night, I pushed a multi-million-dollar deposition to the following week, telling my boss it was a family emergency. It wasn’t a lie. I booked a flight to O’Hare, and online, I found the exact same model of car we used to own: a green 1995 Ford Explorer.

When I picked him up, he looked at the old truck with confusion. I just smiled, opened the door for him, and popped the cassette into the player I’d brought along. As the first notes of a Tom Petty song filled the cab, I saw a flicker in his eyes. A ghost of a memory.

For six hours, we drove north. We didn’t talk much. I let the music do the talking. I stopped at the same roadside diner we always did and ordered him a chocolate milkshake, his favorite. He drank it slowly, staring out at the rolling Wisconsin farmland.

We arrived at the old lake house at dusk. It was smaller than I remembered. He walked around the yard, his hands in his pockets, quiet. A wave of despair washed over me. Maybe it was a stupid idea. Maybe it was too late.

I led him down to the dock. The water was like glass, reflecting the fiery orange and purple of the setting sun. We sat in silence, the air growing cool. And then, it happened.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a perfectly flat skipping stone, and held it out to me. His eyes, for the first time in months, were perfectly clear.

“Your turn, Leo,” he said, his voice as steady and sure as it was twenty-five years ago. “Keep the wrist low.”

Tears streamed down my face. Not tears of sadness, but of pure, heart-splitting gratitude. In that moment, the disease receded. The fog lifted. My father was there. He was home.

On the drive back, the fog rolled in again. He didn’t remember the dock, but he never let go of the stone in his pocket. I realized then I couldn’t stop the thief. I couldn’t save the memories. But I could stand in the doorway and make sure the thief didn’t leave empty-handed. I could give him new moments, new feelings of love to hold onto, even if he couldn’t name them.

So here’s my advice. The people who built your world won’t be here forever to help you remember it. The promotions can wait. The emails can go unanswered. That perfect time you’re waiting for doesn’t exist.

The mixtape of your life is playing right now. Don’t wait until the best songs have already passed.