Eight years ago my dad went out on a bike ride not knowing he wouldn’t come back from it. At his funeral, my dads cousin Glenn (a sculptor) who lives in New York took a few roses home from the funeral and created a ceramic shell from those roses. From there he poured molten bronze into the shell and this bronze rose was created. Glenn would eventually give both my sister and I each one of these bronze roses as a memory of our father. The rest of the bronze roses he created would be part of a bouquet that is a fixture of my dads headstone which Glenn also sculpted and has a story of its own. I’m thankful for Glenn for creating these incredibly personal keepsakes and for being a wonderful relative, especially when times are difficult. I miss you dad. There isn’t a day that I don’t think about you, wonder what you would do in a situation or share an eye rolling joke that was more than likely inspired by your sense of humor.