There is no doubt that, in many ways, I married my father. My husband is a hard worker, a straight talker, and fervent protector of the people and things he loves. He also loves fart jokes.

I love to watch Dateline, and every time I do, I jokingly wonder aloud to my husband if this will be the night we would finally see the episode on my brother Tom.

When I was young, maybe 8 or 9 years old, I would spend parts of my summer staying with my grandma and my uncle who lived with her. My uncle’s first wife had left him some years earlier and he had moved back in with his mother in his 30s.