My husband is—and will forever be—the best father imaginable. Like his own father before him, Tim has always loved working with and being around kids. From the Sunday school classroom to the middle school football field, Tim has spent a number of years helping young people realize their potential while at the same time gently instructing them in important life lessons. Tim is interested in kids, talks with them, and genuinely cares about their welfare. Our son Matt, now twenty-four, definitely benefitted—as he is well aware—from having such a wonderful and supportive father. My husband loves and lives to help others. If I or his mother or anyone else in his family needs anything Tim is always there. Tim’s father, who I knew from the time I was a child until his death in 1999, was the same in that he, too, loved to help, even if the occasion were as simple as a children’s birthday party. I often wish that my own father had been even just a little bit like Mr. Thomson, but unfortunately for me and my brothers he was not. Tim’s passion for “helping” has played out in his work life, too. He put his coaching skills to good use as an instructor in the MD-11, helping other pilots pass their simulator rides. (He used to joke that “coaching” pilots isn’t really all that different from coaching six year olds struggling to play T-ball or high schoolers preparing to play Division I baseball in college.) Kieran, my son from my first marriage, was only five when Tim and I married. From the moment they first met, Kieran absolutely adored Tim. Kieran and I had only recently returned to Memphis from London when Tim and I encountered one another at our childhood church for the first time in twenty years. (I remember Kieran staring up at Tim as if he were Superman, especially after he found out that Tim was a pilot.) As a result of the child custody case I’d recently been through, I was forlorn, shattered and completely lacking in self-confidence. Tim won me over, though, especially since our dates often included Kieran. The three of us would play golf or miniature golf or go on other child-centered outings, such as to Chucky Cheese. Kieran knew he had a wonderful dad but often felt that he wasn’t worthy, especially after he began making poor choices as a teenager. Still, he knew that Tim loved him just as if he were his own biological son. Tim was devastated when Kieran took his life and yet I'm sure he felt that he needed to be strong for me. Even after almost nine years I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly comprehend how much pain Tim endured following the death of our older son. I simply couldn’t fathom what Tim—or, for that matter, our younger son Matt—were going through. It sounds selfish, I know, but for my part I was trapped in a prison of almost indescribable pain that I couldn’t even begin to see beyond. At the time of Kieran’s death Tim received relatively little in the way of support, perhaps because like a lot of men he never let on that he needed anything. On this Father’s Day, almost nine years later, I know that my husband still grieves. And yet he carries on each and every day with fortitude and optimism, his life a shining example of what it means to be a devoted husband, father, and son.

My brother, George Riley, an esteemed lawyer who’d spent thirty-five years living and working in San Francisco, died three years ago today. Fifteen months before his death he’d been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After George called to tell me that he was ill and that our brother John was preparing to donate stem cells for a transplant, I suddenly realized that all those years he’d been living on the West Coast I’d always had an innate fear of "something" happening to George without him having anyone nearby to care for him. I slept badly after receiving the news and often awoke convinced, at least for a moment or two, that my brother’s illness was nothing more than a bad dream. The diagnosis and indeed the entire situation seemed so unreal. George had been a triathelete and a marathon runner and had always eaten carefully and rarely drank even so much as a single glass of wine. He was well known throughout the San Francisco area, having served as outside counsel for Apple for nearly twenty years. During that time he'd also become personal counsel to the company’s founder, Steve Jobs. Assisting his friend and client through his own illness as well as arranging Jobs’ liver transplant in Memphis and then staying with him until his death from pancreatic cancer had clearly taken a heavy toll on my brother, emotionally and perhaps even physically. Still, no one could have predicted that George would succumb soon thereafter to such a rare and lethal cancer. So many of us have—and will—face devastating loss during our lifetimes. We will have healing, but it may well be only partial healing, partial closure, if indeed closure is even a possibility. I am sitting at my desk as I struggle to comprehend the loss of my brilliant and incomparable brother on this, the third anniversary of his death. And yet there's a comfort, rather than despair, in what I'm doing since I know from having experienced the death of my older son that the grieving process cannot—and indeed will not—be rushed.