**My 9-year-old daughter, Lila, started coming home late, claiming she’d been with her dad—Mike, who died three years ago. Confused and concerned, I followed her after school and watched her run into the arms of an elderly man at the park, calling him “Daddy.”

Confronting him, I learned he wasn’t pretending to be Mike—he was Henry, Mike’s estranged father, whom I never knew existed. Lila had found him by chance and, longing to connect with her dad’s memory, kept returning to hear his stories.At first, I was angry. But seeing Lila’s joy and Henry’s remorse, I realized they both needed this bond. So did I. We decided to start over—together. In the end, it wasn’t about the past we’d lost, but the family we still had a chance to build.**