Grateful

It's a day late, but never too late to post about the most amazing person I know, hands-down!

Everyone who's met my dad, even just for a few minutes, understands why people refer to him as "Saint Art." I've never been able to comprehend how it's possible, but the man goes through life without so much as a shred of the ego and selfishness that the rest of us are prone to. Instead, his brand of humility and kindness is so rare that it's almost unsettling. People like my dad just don't come along every day.

Quite literally, everything has done in his life has been for the good of other people. He spent his entire career as a social worker who chose early on to work with the elderly, and became one of their most devoted advocates. I told you he's super-human.

Since the moment he became a father, his whole life has been about the four of us, and now his three grandchildren. Every day before school (since my mom had to be at work by 6:30), he would try so hard to style mine and my sister's hair into the smooth ponytails we requested. Then he endured our screams and whining about the fact that they had too many "bumps" and started over again until we were satisfied. We gave him so much trouble that a lesser man would have disowned us without thinking twice. But we never heard a single complaint. He made so many sacrifices along the way so that we could go to the best schools and have the most enriching experiences he could give us. Shamefully, all of us had been to Europe multiple times on their dime before he and my mom got to; we finally repaid the favor and sent them two years ago or they still wouldn't have treated themselves.

Every day, he packs my mom's lunch and includes a love note written on a napkin. He finds real joy in the simplest things that life has to offer, like sunsets and playing his guitar. Now that he's semi-retired, he spends most afternoons meeting with grade school kids who have fallen behind in reading to tutor them. Out of 9 children, he is the only one who goes to see his mother at her nursing home every single day without fail, decorates her room with flowers from his own garden and does her laundry.

It's no surprise that every time I run into someone who knows him, I am asked if I know how lucky I am. I do. And if I live a life with even an ounce of the compassion and love that he has, I'll consider myself lucky beyond measure.

To steal one of his signature lines (and one that showed up in every single napkin love note he ever wrote to me, from kindergarten through high school), "I love you best in all the world!"