Letter

What would you say to a person that you've never met? Don't know? Yea... me either.

It's not long, but I've been working on this letter for a while now mostly because I was really unsure of what to say. I never got the chance to meet the man that would now be my father-in-law. He passed away a few months before Brian and I started "casually dating". I've heard a lot about him... the majority of it good. So if I were to be able to write a letter to him, it would go something like this:





Dear Roger,

You never met me, but I'm now married to your youngest son. We met not too long after you passed away.

Brian tells stories about you all the time - his face lights up whenever he talks about you. There's the one about him curling up in the combine and going to sleep while you were in there. There's the one where he walked on top of the extra seed that you didn't need to plant and the bags got ripped open so you couldn't take them back. There's the one about when he drove his tractor all the way to your house after a snow storm to plow you out. And there's one about a certain bike shop and Easter baskets. He's taken me by the house that you lived in several times... in fact, we drive past there almost every time we go toward Urbana. We take the kids out to visit your grave although it's not as often as maybe we should.

I wish I would have gotten a chance to get to know you, but in a way, I feel like I have gotten to know at least a part of you through Brian. You helped raise an amazing man. Brian is incredibly patient with me which is great because I can be more than a handful at times. He is an awesome father. His kids are his pride and joy and that is reflected in everything that he does for them. Yea, at times, I think he's entirely too easy on them, but I can't fault him too much for it. He supports me in everything, regardless of if he agrees with it or not. His love is unconditional, which again is great because I definitely push it from time to time. Believe it or not, we have a dog. And a cat! It took a while for him to invite my cat over and it took much longer to get him to agree to a dog, but he did.

The kids are getting HUGE! They're both doing great in school and are in as many sports as they can manage to fit into their schedules. Timothy has also started getting involved in different art projects - he even took a class through the local community college.

I know no one is perfect. Brian isn't. I'm definitely not. It was a rocky start once we got serious. We're both incredibly stubborn. But we have worked really hard on our relationship and I think we've gotten it to where we want it. We may butt heads at times, but I love him very much and I fully intend to stand by the vows that I said to him when we got married. So if you've been worrying about him at all, I just want you to know that you don't have to. He does his best to take care of me and I do my best to take care of him - whether he wants me to or not!

It may be asking a lot, but even though you're not here in person, I would appreciate it if you could give us your blessing on our marriage and our family.

We'll visit you soon...

Samantha