Here’s to the first man who ever loved me: my dad.

Thank you for teaching me that there’s a place for everything and everything in it’s place.

Thank you for sitting cross-legged with little me in your lap and rolling backwards and around and around in big circles all over the living room floor.

Thank you for buying me that one stuffed bear at one of the bear country tourist-trap gift stores that cost too much, but that I “really, really, really, really, pretty pul-lease???” wanted.

Thank you for listening to all my years of piano practice, over and over and over, the same song and still telling me that it sounded good.

Thank you for reading me books at night after a long day outside and a list of a million other things to do.

Thank you for making it a family habit to have meals together at the kitchen table.

Thank you for being strict enough that I actually behaved myself.

Thank you for telling me that you loved me when you had to spank me for misbehaving.

Thank you for carrying me in from the van on Sunday nights after church when I was only pretending to have fallen asleep on the 10-minute drive home from church.  You’d put me in that orange chair in the entry way and then I’d miraculously start stretching and opening my eyes as if I had truly been sleeping.  I just never wanted to walk into the house because I was too lazy and I was scared of the dark.

Thank you for spending an insane amount of money to place those 15-minute calls to Uzbekistan when I was so homesick.

Thank you for driving all of my possessions out to Ohio when I moved and for driving them back when I returned.

Thank you for showing me that the best laughter is the kind that comes from deep down inside with a good head-thrown-back to match.

Thank you for teaching me the importance of ice cream.

Thank you for teaching me the importance of everything else that is sweet and delicious.

Thank you for making me mow the lawn at a ripe young age and making me wear shoes to do it; I actually miss mowing the lawn now!

Thank you for letting me ride on the tractor with you, perched high above the world on top of the tire.  Even better was riding on the hay wagon on the highest stack of bales going back and forth across the field all day long.

Thank you for always letting me order a cookie dough blizzard at DQ and then finishing it for me because it was always too much.

Thank you for teaching me about Jesus and for praying for me every day because I know that you still do.

Thank you for being my dad and giving me so many reasons to thank you that the list could go on forever.

I love you, Dad.  Happy father’s day.

-Em