When I look back over the last 50 years of my life, I realize how much of it was spent moving. Moving toward goals. Moving toward success. Moving toward the next achievement that I thought would finally make me feel like I had “arrived.” Like many people of my generation, I grew up believing that hard work was the path to a meaningful life, and to be fair, hard work did open many doors for me.

There are certain images in life that never really fade. They don’t need photographs or videos to preserve them—they live on in the quiet corners of your memory, steady and familiar. For me, one of those images is the dining room table from my childhood. It wasn’t fancy. It didn’t need to be. What mattered was what happened around it.

My mom, Mary, lived a long and beautiful life—98 years strong. She passed away on August 10th, 2020, leaving behind a legacy rooted in faith, resilience, and unwavering love for her family.

There are chapters in life that don’t fit neatly into “good” or “bad.” They’re layered. Complex. Full of both love and hardship. This is one of those chapters—the story of Cindy, the mother of our son Jake, and the years that shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.