Marissa, right, and her sister, Carly, when they were young.

“Marissa, I need to talk to you for a minute.”

In an instant, my nonchalant attitude from a long day of doing absolutely nothing turned into sheer panic. The sixth floor of 120 Boylston St. was a maze of nooks—perfect hiding places for phone calls you shouldn’t be having right before class.

I knew something wasn’t right because my mom never calls me by my first name. I know it may seem a bit strange, but I’m used to being greeted with quirky nicknames that warrant odd looks from strangers nearby. “Who is ‘Pachinko’?” someone might ask strangely.

“It’s your dad. He’s disappeared.”

For a minute, I had to remind myself to breathe. I sat in the scratchy purple fabric chair outside room 618 and held the phone to my ear. I looked around to see if any students leaving class could see me scrunched down, facing the wall, hoping the tears streaming down my face were the result of a bad grade from a professor.

Maybe I should have picked up his call the other day. But after three years of playing phone tag with my ghost-father, I wasn’t about to go out of my way to return a voicemail that should have been left in 2005.

I could handle the divorce, but this I wasn’t sure about.

I knew my parents disliked each other, and I didn’t want to play dumb and pretend that everything was going to stay the way it had been for 12 years. My sister, Carly, and I probably jinxed their marriage when we made a contract forbidding our parents to ever get divorced and had them both sign it.

In third grade, Monica Buckley’s parents got a divorce, and it scared the living daylights out of me. This was back in 1992 when the phenomenon started to take shape. I was certain that it would never happen to me.

But that’s not reality. You can’t expect the unexpected and play it safe.

My dad eventually returned from the dead, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Apparently he decided to leave his current wife and hit the open road, leaving a forwarding address in New Mexico with my sister.

“What’s wrong with me?” I thought. He had tried to make amends on several occasions—sending flowers to my apartment when he heard I had pneumonia, birthday cards on the day of, thoughtful e-mails expressing interest in my life. I should have been the happiest person alive, but I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him. He had begun to give me everything I needed, but somehow it seemed too late.

It’s not healthy for a person to hold so much anger inside herself. My entire life has been about forgiveness, and it’s been a long battle. Sometimes I’d like to pretend that I never knew my dad, and at times I’m ashamed to say it’s true. But being Jewish makes those feelings much harder to execute, and as Yom Kippur approaches, I find myself looking for answers in my religion.

T'shuvah is the Hebrew word that represents the 40 days prior to Yom Kippur. Its literal translation is “return,” but most Jews think of t'shuvah as “repentance” on this holiday. For me, t'shuvah is about being active in fixing your mistakes, learning from the past and creating new, positive experiences for the future. Even though my heart is still hurting from my father’s abandonment in the past, it’s time for forgiveness in order to move on.

Maimonides, a historical Jewish philosopher, set up his own guidelines for t'shuvah. First, we must recognize the wrong choice and stop immediately. Second, we need to regret our actions. Third, we must verbalize our forgiveness to God. Fourth, we reconcile the wrongdoing and make plans to avoid said actions in the future.

For many Jews, the fourth step can involve verbalizing remorse to the actual person you have wronged—picking up the phone and simply saying, “I’m sorry.” On this holiday it’s important to forgive, even if you believe the other person should apologize first. Everyone makes mistakes. I mean, we’re human, and now is the time to start with a fresh slate.

With one week to spare, I’m preparing myself for my own version of t'shuvah with my father. I have been dreading this day for three years, but I know once I accept that our tumultuous relationship can move forward, a huge weight will be lifted off my shoulders.

I remind myself during Yom Kippur that life is too short, and you need to make the most of every single day—restore lost connections and be forgiving. It’s good to know that I always have friends and family to turn to and a religion that accepts mistakes as long as you’re willing to learn from them.

Marissa Grey is a JVibe editorial intern. She loves reality TV shows and chocolate.