On this day, twenty years ago, my wife Jamie Salter and I were married in the Justice of the Peace’s office in Austin, Texas. It wasn’t a shotgun wedding; I’d already decided I wanted to marry Jamie. But it was…hurried along by the news that our first child, Megan Salter was on the way.

Any regrets I have about the last twenty years are purely on myself. I regret getting overweight and the resulting health problems it caused. I regret moving to Michigan; it turned out to be a disaster for my family. I regret that even though things are getting better, we’re still not completely financially secured and we’re still not where we feel we belong.

Jamie has been at the root of everything great that has happened to me over the last twenty years. She brought me out of my painfully introverted shell. She made me believe a woman could care about and love me. She gave me the experience of being a father. She is the reason I was able to work for Origin Systems, both because she had a contact in Origin’s HR department and because she continually encouraged me to apply when I was sure I had no chance. She gave me two more children, both of which have been blessings, and has stuck with me through thick and thin.

I love you, Jamie Salter. I always have and I’m not stopping any time soon.

My grandmother, and my children’s great-grandmother, passed away on Wednesday, April 23, 2014.

I do not have a single negative memory of my grandmother. We called her “Nanny”. Traveling from our home in Macon, Georgia to visit her in Warner Robins was always one of the highlights of my youth. While she didn’t have a lot of toys, she had a big backyard and, better yet, bordered the local high school outdoor football field.

My mother would tell me stories about how she and her sisters would go out there after games and crawl around under the bleachers looking for dropped money. My sister and I never found any ourselves but it always felt adventuresome to crawl around in that enclosed space looking for treasure and sneaking into the control tower.

Huh. And this was years before I started playing D&D…

Nanny was a very traditional Southern woman. Even after she divorced her husband and began working for herself she still made a lot of time for her family, especially us grandkids. She was old enough and respected enough to earn the title “Miss Jackie” in the community. She loved to cook, and many of my favorite memories of her involve eating the copious amounts of treats she made for us. And when Thanksgiving came around, wow.

After my family moved from Macon to Virginia Beach, VA, I fell out of touch with my grandmother. I can give all kinds of excuses – life was hard, I was working two jobs and going to school, I’m a male and thus have trouble expressing my feelings, etc. But I shouldn’t have let it happen.

And then I took my solo trek to Austin and became even more self-centered as survival became my priority. I hardly thought about Nanny, much less talked to her.

When my oldest child was very young, I took my entire family back to Warner Robins to catch up with everyone. Nanny seemed to be slowing down but was still in her right mind. She loved meeting Megan and she told me that she was proud of me.

I would only speak to her again briefly until our move from the accursed Michigan to Florida. On our way down we made time to visit her in her home. By now I had three children, and the oldest was almost eighteen. Nanny loved seeing them again, but I could tell from her difficulty getting around and the fact that one of her daughters had moved in with her to care for her that she might not last much longer.

And last Wednesday she breathed her last. I’m just very grateful I got to see her one more time and that she got to see three of her seven great-grandchildren.

Goodbye, Nanny. I will miss you.