Well, Dad, it’s Father’s Day weekend and I want you to have a great one. More importantly, I want you to know how incredibly meaningful your fatherly influence has been in my life. I look around the world today and see how many dads are distracted, disengaged, and absent. But not you. You’ve been there all along the way watching me, guiding me, and cheering me on. Your positive influence, encouragement, and love has shaped me like no other person has, and for that I’m immensely grateful.
When I was young and obsessed with baseball you were there to fuel my boyhood dreams of the big leagues. You also inspired me to learn artistic expression and daily discipline through musical training. And while I never reached the Majors like I once imagined or became a concert pianist like you once imagined, the fun and focus of those two hobbies helped shape me and teach me.
You later encouraged me to run for class president and eventually apply to a selective college, two things I never would have guessed would work out for an ordinary kid like me. But you found ways to challenge me, bring out the best in me, push me beyond the ordinary, and reach heights I never knew I could grasp.
It’s from you that I obtained my passion for amazing food. Your curiosity in the kitchen has fueled my life-long love of creating and eating dazzling dishes and even affected my career path in the food industry.
Now, as Kara and I launch our own venture of Father Time Kitchen, I again look to you as a trailblazer and entrepreneurial mentor. From as young as I can remember you’ve been creatively starting and shaping companies to generate a unique spark in the marketplace. And while not all of those ventures have turned out exactly as hoped, therein lies the greatest lesson you always taught me: the most important impact I’ll ever have in this life is to be a good father to my children and a good husband to my wife. Win or lose, succeed or fail in the temporal pursuits of life, it’s family and faith that really matter most. It’s a legacy that you’ve left – the best kind of inheritance a kid could ever ask for: an inheritance of love, principle, and values.
That’s exactly what Kara and I hope to emphasize as the key message of our Father Time brand: that choosing to spend time with family and minimizing tempting distractions will yield true happiness we all yearn for. Our daily choices can make good things happen when we set our priorities straight. I learned that from you. Our busy world needs to hear it now more than ever. So, as we start Father Time we raise our bread slices in a ‘toast’ to you, a true inspiration for how we hope to live and the message we hope to share with Father Time.
Thank you, Dad. You may be far away this Father’s Day, but trust me: your memory is forever close. I love you.
Your son,
Taylor
