Giving Thanks

This has truly been one of the most difficult years of my life. However, I still have plenty to be thankful for.

I am thankful for the health and happiness of Adam and Melody, my two children.

I am thankful for nearly a year of marriage to my wife Kim.

I am thankful for the health and happiness of my parents, particularly my father, who survived cancer this year.

I am thankful for the renewal of a lapsed friendship-- my old friend Dobie Holland, with whom I was able to repair a friendship after a falling out over a decade ago. I am particularly thankful that he survived the tsunami on December 26, 2004 (he was scuba diving off of Phukat, Thailand, one of the worst-hit areas when it happened), giving me the time to fix that friendship.

I am thankful that another old friend, Army Major Garrett Johnson, returned this summer after a year of service in Iraq alive and well.

I am thankful, despite my grief, for the 24 years of friendship I had with my friend Mark Evans, who was taken before his time this summer. What he gave me in his life will last me the rest of mine.