It’s an often-asked question. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t been asked it, or read it in some sort of quiz. Probably more than once. I know that I have.

The question is a simple one. If you could have dinner with anyone one, living or dead, who would it be? It’s a question that makes you think about whose viewpoints you would most like to hear, whose brain you would like to pick, whose substance or celebrity or something else, would make the interaction extraordinary.

Maybe your response would be like one I have given before, citing historic figures whose perspective I would love to glean. After all, who wouldn’t want to try and understand the zeal of Joan of Arc or the quiet power and wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt?

Yet, the question was presented to me, once again, recently and the answer came to me in the same heartbeat. There was no doubt in my mind. The people I would want to have dinner with, have a conversation with, are the people in my life that I have loved and lost.

I remember reading the Mitch Albom book “For One More Day” about the chance to have one more opportunity to make things right, to close the loops left open at a time of loss. I remember, as well, having the conversation with my husband, that if only I could have one more hour, one more chance to do and say all the things I still long to say. His response was the truth, then as it is now, that one conversation would never be enough. But, it did not, and does not, stop the longing for just those moments.

I think this, particularly, about my brother. Here was a man in the prime of life, in the prime of health. He made one mistake, with one ladder, on a sunny December day and, in a moment, it was over.

In the first year or two after his death, I would have wanted to ask him all the questions that haunted me. Did he know what happened? Did he feel fear? Was there pain? I so wanted to believe that it was all so fast that he didn’t know but it plagued me nonetheless.

Today, I know that the conversation would be a different one. I would tell him how much I love him, and have always loved him. I would tell him what a gift it was to have a sibling who was my first and best friend. I would rush to let him know all the ways I see him reflected in my children and grandchildren and his daughter and granddaughters. I would tell him that he is not, and will never be, forgotten, that I carry him with me, in my heart and mind, every day. I would ask him to forgive me for every time I was angry with him, for times that I hurt him—consciously or unconsciously. And I would ask him what more I can do to keep his presence alive, to carry his spirit forward.

I remember being at a family function just months before he died. A friend of my cousin’s commented on what a great family we have and I said, immediately, “Just wait, you haven’t met my brother yet.” He was the best of the best, warm and loving and funny and compassionate. I wish I had said all those words when I had the chance. And how I wish I still had the chance, to fill his heart with my love and to fill my own full heart.