My friends, I am starting to see hope and feel gratitude after my father’s death.

See, I have made many mistakes in my life, however, choosing to spend the rest of my life with the man I call my husband is not one of them. As time moves over the wound of losing my father, I am comforted by the fact that I chose a man similar enough to my father that I will always feel my dad with me.

Although my father was a gentleman from a young age, I can see that my husband has been influenced by the example he set forward. I believe the art of chivalry is not lost on my husband.

“I don’t remember your mom ever walking through a door that he didn’t open first.” That was the first of many things my husband recalled about my dad after he died. It’s funny what your mind remembers as important about a person. And although my father was a dedicated, hard-working man no one recounted his hours spent working to his legacy.

He was diligent and honorable. A man of integrity. And, he would most certainly be put off by all the attention and praise, but it doesn’t make it any less necessary. For when we stop going on about it, he will be gone. Truly gone.

I’ll never forget when my father first heard my husband speak in my husband’s deep, bellowing voice, he called him “the boxer.” It was as if the strength of my husband’s character was carried on the weight of his voice. And, when my father walked me down the aisle and shook my husband’s hand, my dad knew I would be alright.

Over the last 15 years, we have been more than alright, we have grown in our love and in our family, only now we sit here without our patriarch. The man who started it all, whose humility would never let him push out his chest and feel pride in that fact, but is a fact all the same.

We all miss him dearly, for there are so few men out there like him, and none of them are ours. Poppy was ours. He loved us. He cheered for us. He prayed for us. And at the end of his life, he was surrounded by us.