Dad,

Last year when I realized that it was going to be your 75th birthday this summer, I set it as one of my goals for the year to do everything I could to make it an awesome one. It is rare in life that we get the opportunities to care for our father and to show him a small part of what he has given to us over so many years. I try to notice when those opportunities come along and take advantage of them and turning 75 certainly qualifies as one of those moments.

It has been really amazing to have you and mom in Oregon these last 4 years. I know when we asked you to move up here, we were asking a lot. You had a home you liked, great friends, a church where you were making a difference and a lot of great reasons to stay in Grass Valley. It was also exciting to think about the opportunities here. With our kids going into the teen years, it seemed the perfect time for them to build a special relationship with their grandparents. Also, with all the craziness of life, you can be sure we could use all the help we could get.

It has been really great to be able to do all the things that we do together like camping, boating, working, riding ATVs, working on home projects, coming to each other’s rescue, doing birthdays, and holidays together and just plain hanging out and having fun. I’ll never forget our trip to Washington DC and being able to experience all that together.

I expected having you in Oregon would be great and that we would have a lot of fun together. I hadn’t anticipated about how great it would be to get to know you and mom as adults. It is interesting how you spend much of your growing years focusing on how you want to be different from your parents and trying to create your identity apart from them. I’ve always known that there were things I got from my dad like my humor, outgoing personality, smartness, etc. (Don’t worry mom, you contributed too but we’re just talking about Dad’s part right now. 😉 It has been fun over the last few years to see the things that are a big part of who I am that I got from my dad. My love of fun, my enjoyment of hard work, my competitive nature, my eagerness to think outside the box, and my sense of adventure all come from you dad. There is so much that has enabled me to be successful in life and business that I’ve inherited, learned or been inspired to that have come from you.

I think the one thing that I am the most thankful for that you taught me is how to care for and love my wife. You have always been and continue to be an amazing example of servanthood but beyond that, you have taught me what it means to simply adore the most important woman in your life. Every day I benefit from your example. We have so many examples around us all the time of marriages and relationships that are contentious and strained. Life conspires against every one of us to try to make us closed, cold and angry. I am so blessed to have been raised in a home where my dad knew that the daily love and encouragement for his wife was the most important thing he could do for her. I have taken your example in how to love and care for April. It has been so amazing to see her blossom into a woman more wonderful than I could have imagined the day I married her. Your example of how to be a husband is a huge part of what has made our marriage one where we are both free to mature and grow together. It is exciting to see the legacy that is being left for our children and the great example of marriage they are getting to see in you and mom.

I have a friend who I know from Vistage who is turning 75 this year and was talking about what life looks like after he leaves his business. In the context of the conversation he mentioned that he was excited about figuring out what things look like for the “second half” of his life. I thought that was awesome for a guy who is 75 to be talking about. I decided we should be looking at the same for you and 75 is just getting started!

Thank you for everything you are and have done to invest in my life and my family. I would be incomplete without you.

Eric