My father did not like Mexican food.

But every Friday, he and my mom would go to Deli Casa, a local Mexican restaurant, because my mother loved Mexican food.

That’s a way my dad loved his bride (he absolutely still complained about it).

I’ve been trying to think about the things I’ve learned from my dad, the catchphrases (most not suitable for mass publication) and the moments that changed me.

When it comes down to it, what I’ve learned from my dad is how to love quietly. How actions are love disguised as every day monotony.

It’s not in the big declarations. It’s how as a manager at FedEx instead of buying bagels and fruit, the day before Christmas for the employees he made fresh Belgian waffles, sausage gravy and had my mom make biscuits. It’s how when he knew I was having a rough time in college he overnighted me a singular pack of Keebler soft chocolate chip cookies because he used to buy them for me as a kid and I called them thank you daddies. It’s how he LOVED his grandkids so much that he went to a KISS concert with his grandson and was so excited about it. It’s how he talked to me about how proud he was of the fathers his sons had become. It’s showing up for people who needed a Santa. It’s how he had nicknames for all of us as absurd as they might have been.

My list could go on and on.

I think in the highs and lows of my dad all of us kids and grandkids and observes could say that we watched our dad, papa, Santa love in the quiet and the loud.

And I can use the Royal we to say that we all got a seat to see how Andy Reeve loved and grew in more and more love and appreciation for his wife.

He loved his bride.

I have more and more words I need to write about my dad. I have words I need collect and stories I need to stack stones for, but in this moment I have to be grateful for the ways I learned to love from my dad. 

More words to follow, more things to be said, but for now I sit with the legacy of love that grew and a love that changed and expanded and became all that it was.

With love,

Meg