My dad was a proud man. He didn't believe in showing any vulnerability to the world and he passed that on to all of us. It mostly served us well, but it robbed us, too. It robbed us of the gift of letting someone else lend a hand, the gift of letting someone you love see you at your weakest. Made us hold onto grudges when all we really needed to do was to say I was wrong, and I'm sorry. I'm looking at my family now and I see how proud you are and how strong you're all trying to be, but I think the best gift that we can give to our father now that he's gone is to admit that our hearts our breaking. I think it would go better for us if we could lean on each other and let our hearts break together. I think he would like that. And then shape up and pull ourselves together, and Jiminy Christmas quit that crying.

Henry