For the past two years, I was dead. That ended Friday afternoon, Jan. 31. I became alive again. Despite the pain, despite the tears, despite the memories. I'm alive. And I have you and your beautiful daughter to thank for that.

I'm not sure if I will ever run into you again. I don't even know your name. To you, I was just another random passenger on MARTA, headed north from the airport. Faceless, except for that one exalted moment where we traded a smile.

You, of course, would never know my story and why that one smile meant so much to me. Why it brought me back to life. I fear I will never get a chance to thank you. So I came to Craigslist with the faint hope that, maybe, you'll see this posting and understand and know just how very thankful I am you entered my life for a fleeting moment.

I died a little more than two years ago. Without being cryptic, when I say I "died," I don't mean in the physical sense. Although that would have been a blessing. I mean, emotionally. Spiritually. Even, to an extent physically.

I lost both my six-year-old daughter and my wife when a driver, for reasons I will never know, wandered his pickup truck across a grassy median at 92 mph and slammed into our minivan in a near head-on collision. It's funny, or merciful, that I have no memories of the wreck. I don't even remember leaving the house. But I remember waking up in the hospital, nurses around me with that dread pitying look on their faces, my former boss -- the only family I had at that time -- bowing his head, unable to tell me in words what I knew at that moment.

My wife was crushed, the momentum of that impact literally fusing her to the crumpled metal of the car. She died instantly. My beautiful daughter on the other hand fought for life for twelve hours, after being ejected from our car still strapped to her booster seat, skirting the other car's hood and roof. The doctors swear to me that it was best she died. I suppose I believe them. I got to hold her hand before she was cremated.

There's a cliche among survivors of things like this, where we say a part of us died with those we love. It's trite, really. Because there wasn't a part of me that lived afterward. Somehow I functioned, yes. I ate. I slept. I went to work. But those times only come back to me in fits of images. It was as though my DVR recorded television shows during a time when the satellite broadcast in fits and starts, as it may during a storm.

Things happened to me at that time. I lost a job -- ostensibly because my position was eliminated, but more than likely because I made my coworkers and boss uncomfortable -- I would spend hours, even a times days, wandering in an aimless pursuit for I don't know what, whether by car or even foot. I once hiked from my home in XXXXXXXX to some bar just over the border of South Carolina with no memory of even leaving my bedroom a day before.

I never cried during these two years. I didn't feel. I barely thought. I was all impulse and instinct. I survived on money that came from life insurance and detested every dollar of it. But still I didn't feel anything.

I had just returned to Seattle, my flight delayed there from our little winter storm we had this past week. As usual, I was a zombie walking to the MARTA terminal, my mind barely a grasp on what was around me. I still can't recall what I was thinking, if anything, during those times. Nonetheless, a company flew me up to Seattle for an interview, the first I had in months.

When I boarded the tram at Hartsfield, heading back to my Buckhead apartment, I was still a husk. Then, as the sun bled into the skyline, I noticed your daughter staring at me. Something sparked in my brain, a feeling. She beamed at me, that heart-wrenching smile of her's and she tottered over to me, showing me her sticker book and asking me if I liked how she created a scene with her ponies and what not.

With each passing moment, I felt the presence of my daughter. This was her. Not in some analogous way, but in reality. She had come back to me for closure, for a final visit in the body of your child. I laughed as she explained the scene of stickers and ponies. My eyes, welled with tears, but I dared not shed them for fear of chasing this angel away.

As we approached a stop sometime along that journey, you called out your daughter's name, Amelia, and said, "It's time to go. Leave the nice gentleman alone and let's go home."

Amelia kissed me on the cheek. By then, I was barely able to keep it from being wet with my tears. Your daughter's smile lit inside me. And I looked up, and you smiled as well. "Thank you for being interested in Amelia's sticker book," you said. I just nodded. You smiled, I smiled. Then you left.

I can't say what came first, the tsunami of pain, of feeling or the tears. Maybe it doesn't matter. A passenger asked me what was wrong. He stayed with me when MARTA security escorted me off the train in Doraville. I couldn't make them understand what I was feeling. That I WAS feeling. Again. After two years.

The tears are only now beginning to ebb. I was studying a photo album of my wife and child just a few minutes ago. The pain is still there. Acute. But, at the same time, I'm embracing this pain, these memories. And moment by moment, I'm coming to accept. To remember.

I got that job in Seattle. I'll be moving there come March. And for once, I can acknowledge that I have a future, that I can start over again. Oh God, there are still moments I don't want to, but I know that's what my wife would want. That's what my beautiful daughter would want. So I will embrace this.

I'm alive again. And I only have you and your daughter to thank for that.