My birthday lands exactly four days after Christmas. This means that, traditionally, I usually receive holiday gifts from family members who smile sweetly as I open presents, saying, “Just to be clear, this is for Christmas AND your birthday.”

It’s hard being born during Christmastime and also not being Jesus. But over the years, I’ve gotten used to having a post-Christmas birthday. In fact, it’s kind of nice having your big day while the whole world is between hangovers.

This birthday was a particularly big one for me. Because as of yesterday, I am now older than my dad was when he died.

I don’t know what it is about kids who lose parents young, but something happens to your childhood brain. The age at which your parent dies becomes the age you never expect to reach. It is as though someone moves the goalposts inward.

Over the years, I’ve talked with people who lost parents as children. They all sort of feel the same way. Many of them are surprised when “That Age” happens to them.

My dad died when he was 41 years old. Forty-one was That Age for me. Last year, on my birthday, I kept marveling at the fact that I was actually still alive. I stayed up late that night, just to be sure.

And now that I’m even older than my father was, it’s weird.

When someone dies, their image is forever cemented in your mind at the precise moment of their death. And so, in my head, my father is a perpetual 41-year-old. He’s a middle-aged guy, just like me, who doesn’t know jack squat about life.

He’s walking around inside my brain, still living a regular life, still changing the oil every three thousand miles, still shouting at the radio about the importance of relief pitching.

Whenever I think of him, I realize that I never knew anything else about my father other than his dadness.

He rarely showed me his non-dad side. He was careful not to drink too much beer around me. He tried to watch his language in my presence—which was laughable. I never knew about the elaborate pranks he pulled on his friends. I never knew about the fistfights he got into on jobsites.

I never knew about the adult problems he faced. I never knew what he actually wanted out of life.

Moreover, I never knew what kind of guy he was outside of the house, on a guy-to-guy level.

What was my father like as a person? What would I have thought about him if he was just another guy? Was he nice? Was he someone you wanted to be friends with? Was he neurotic? Was he annoying? Was he Mister Popular? Was he smart?

I don’t know. Because inside my brain, he’s still just Daddy. In my mind, he is still a middle-aged man, riding high in a white diesel Ford. His approval still means everything to me.

His voice is forever a low tenor. His hair is eternally red and curly. His legs are long. His eyes squint when he smiles. I cannot forget these traits, because I see them each time I look in the mirror.

And on my birthday this is perhaps the greatest gift I possess.