Thursday, January 03, 2008

Happy Birthday to one cool dude!

Back in November, Jay and I met his parents and sister in New York for one perfect day. We walked through Times Square on the way to Central Park, and we stopped right in the middle of it to just look up and around. Soon we noticed a man playing the guitar, with another guy filming him.

In the next photo, you will see a handsome man standing directly behind the guitar player. That is my father-in-law, Frank. He is the kindest, most humble, easy-going, polite, wise, down-to-earth, coolest dude ever. I could go on and on. The thing I really enjoy about him is that he has all of these really admirable qualities and then there's the zinger that sneaks up on you. It's in the moment like this, where he stands right behind the guy being filmed. I don't know what movie that's gonna be, but Frank has made his appearance.

You may have seen the photo below in an earlier post. This is Jay and Melissa watching their Dad do this, and the look on their faces says it all. They love him with all their hearts, and they really love it when he goofs off.

In the past several months, I have had an internal struggle about changing my last name. I wanted to make that choice, and it's simply an identity thing. Slowly but surely, I've started to make the legal changes. Writing this tonight makes me realize even more, just how lucky I am to be in this family.  And all of a sudden, my identity struggle doesn't seem to be giving me much of a fight.

Happy birthday like I said, to one cool dude.

3 comments:

Jessica Nichols said...

What a wonderful tribute to Jay's dad and I especially loved how it brought you to a new perspective on your identity struggle. I hope I get to meet the other Mr. Watson someday!

Anonymous said...

Jamie,
I work with Fran, your father-in-law, and I must say you have described him perfectly. He's all the good things you have said about him. I can only add that he is very dependable, hard-working and a true gentleman. I am very lucky to have him in my daily work life....makes the days very pleasant when he's around. Happy New Year to the entire Watson family. Sheila Lally

sulu-design said...

What a sweet post! Happy birthday to your pop-in-law!