I'm the same age my father was when he died. Getting older has been more emotional than I expected.

The author (middle) lost her father when he was 51, and she was 24.

Courtesy of Christina Daves

The year I turned 51, I wasn't thinking about getting older. I was thinking about my dad.Fifty-one was the last birthday he ever celebrated, and as my own birthday got closer, I couldn't shake the thought that I was about to become the age he never lived past.When my dad died, I was 24, and 51 seemed old. It felt like an age that belonged to parents, not something I would ever have to think about for myself.I certainly never imagined that nearly 30 years later, I'd be staring at that number on my birthday cake and feeling emotional about it.The trips I'll never forgetSome of my favorite memories with my dad were our trips back to Berlin to visit my grandparents. I was a first-generation American, and every summer we'd go back to Germany.It was often just the two of us traveling together, and I loved having that time with him. Germany never felt foreign to me. I spoke the language, my grandparents were there, and it felt like another home.Germany was still divided then, and I remember seeing soldiers carrying machine guns everywhere and the Berlin Wall that cut right through the city with towers and more guns.