What T Loved

T loved the beauty of nature: a sunset, the crashing surf, redwoods, the peaks and lakes of Glacier and the waterfalls and stillness of Yosemite. He loved blooming fruit trees and the climbing roses in our yard. He would see a brightly flowering tree or plant and point it out to me and say “why don’t we have that in our yard?” He always tried to watch the sun set when we were on vacation, and often pointed out the moon above our back yard.

T loved to swim in our pool on hot summer evenings, and lay on the grass drying off with D. Cold water never bothered him. When snorkeling in the cool ocean of the Galapagos, he never wore anything but his swim trunks. He didn’t like our pool to get warmer than about 80 degrees, because he said it wasn’t “refreshing”.

He loved to travel and stay in luxurious hotels in beautiful surroundings: Napa and Sonoma, Big Sur, Arizona, Massachusetts, Maine, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, France, Italy, Spain, The Galapagos, Belize. He had a knack for finding wonderful places to stay and great restaurants.

He loved his friends, and always made time for them. He loved fine wine and fine food, and loved sharing them with his friends and family. He always did the dishes after a dinner party, sending me off to bed.

For one who enjoyed gourmet meals, he surprisingly preferred meat-and-potatoes menus at home. Salmon, red potatoes and asparagus was a perennial favorite of his. Fred steak, and burgers and Zinfandel were popular, too.

T loved his family: his father, his mother, his sister; his son, wife, daughter, niece and nephew. He loved to wrestle with D and kiss B good night.

He could wiggle his ears and pick small objects up with his toes. His laugh was loud and infectious; unmistakable even across a crowded room.

He was a bit of a worrier with D and B, and didn’t like to see evidence of their growing older. He didn’t want to move B from her baby bathtub to the big tub, and wanted to keep the heat on fairly high at night in case she got cold. From the earliest days, he thought D was bigger than expected. He never got a changing table for D, but always changed him on the floor or the futon. There was a period of time in which he would check on B as he came to bed around 10:30, and she would be wide awake and wiggle and smile at him, like she’d been waiting to say good night to him.

T wasn’t interested in fancy technology or gadgets, never using the PDA his dad got him, or his work laptop, or his own login on our computer. But he could find any email sent or received weeks or months (sometimes years) in the past, just by remembering when.

Thank you, T, for sharing your love with me. It lives forever in my heart.