the greatest love

The boys know you as an optimist, an innovator and a culinary wizard. 

Thanks for helping them hone skills and for sparking hobbies, for holding their hands and having their backs.

The boys know you as an askable parent.

Thanks for making time to chat with Tuck in the evening when what you're most tempted to do is pour bourbon on ice.

You are naturally nurturing, and not afraid to let emotions show.

Thanks for teaching Tolliver that it's possible to chisel joy out of what seems like rough-edged circumstances. And that it's also okay to feel frustrated.

You make your availability known to your sons, to play Candy Land or read a chapter or shoot baskets.

Thanks, especially, for doing crafts with Hank. He knows when you say I'm all yours you mean it (and he doesn't know you'd rather stab your eyes out than cut and glue paper).

Thanks for showing up and for stepping back, for making it clear that being part of a family is an ongoing masterclass, forever.

You are a pretty precise guy - believing in manuals and recipes and textbooks and correct sizes.

Thanks for tolerating the wonky looseness of my estimating or close enoughs, for acknowledging that failure is actually sometimes an option.

Loved by you may be the luckiest feeling the four of us ever know.