Daughter,

A few weekends ago, your second cousin Scott, your Great Uncle Ted, your Uncle Luke, and I went to Wamego, Kansas to see where your Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother started their family. It was a great trip to a great place and I hope to take you to Wamego someday.

You're going to be born in Austin, Texas, so that makes you a Texan. But judging from how much queso and vinegar based BBQ your mother and I have eaten recently, you're already a Texan through and through. The birth will just be a formality.

Your MaDear, Great Aunt Sherry, and Great Uncle Ted were all born in Kansas, so that makes them Kansans...we won't hold that against them. Your Great Uncle Kirk was born in Fort Worth, so he's most definitely a Texan. And when you meet your Great Uncle Kirk, you'll know that his Texan Pride more than makes up for the non-Texan blood that runs through his siblings' veins.

Despite my being a Texanist, I really enjoyed going to Wamego and being a Kansan for a weekend. As I walked down the same streets that your Great-Great Grandfather and Great-Great Grandmother walked down, I really felt a sense of spiritual grounding.

As I'm sure you'll find out soon, I'm a pretty big Superman fan. I love the mythology of it all. Superman (Kal-El) was born on the planet Krypton, which was destined for destruction. In an effort to save his life, Superman's parents placed young Kal-El into a capsule and jettisoned him to Earth, where he grew up with the Kent family in Smallville.

Now among Superman fans, the location of Smallville varies. Some place it in Maryland. Some place it in Pennsylvania. The most common theory is that Smallville is in Kansas.

Well, if Smallville is based in Kansas, it's not hard to imagine that a town like Wamego could have served as its inspiration. Wamego is a small town with approximately 6,000 people. There are only 4 stoplights in the entire town and they're all placed on the one main road that runs right through the center of town. It wasn't uncommon to see a young person carrying a fishing pole to the local fishing pond. Coming from a town such as Austin, I was struck by how quiet Wamego was. Instead of the busy street sounds of Lamar being a constant in my ears, I was instead greeted by the sounds of the wind blowing over the town or the sounds of kids playing in the town pool.

Smallville was a place where Superman, who was known as Clark Kent on Earth could come home and recharge his batteries. You see, Superman lived in a giant city called Metropolis. And it was easy for Superman to lose himself in an urban environment; where people are always on the go and where people rarely interact with one another despite there always being people around to interact with.

And like Superman returning to Smallville, Wamego was a chance for me to recharge my batteries. To remember to slow down and enjoy life a little bit more.

But beyond that, Wamego was a chance for me to tap into the more spiritual side of "family." We usually only think of family as those who are related to us through blood and marriage, but we often fail to view family through the prism of the spiritual bonds that connect us all.

You will be born without ever having known your Grandfather, your Great Aunt Sherry, your Great Aunt Karen, and your Great Grandfather Hank who I've been writing about in this letter. It pains me to say all of this. There are few things that I wanted more out of this life than to see my father taking my daughters and sons by the hand and taking them off to do all kinds of Grandfatherly things.

So it is now my hope that through your family, you are able to still know of those no longer with us.

You may never get to ride on my father's motorcycle, but I hope that you're able to get a sense of the peace motorcycle riding gave my father through motorcycle rides with your Uncle Luke. My dad will never cook his famous BBQ chicken and baked beans for you, but I hope that through my attempts to cook up his favorite foods, you're able to sense how much cooking for his family meant to my father.

Your MaDear and your Great Aunt Sherry were not only sisters, they lived a few doors down from one another for most of their adult life. So I hope that through MaDear, you're able to sense the love my Aunt Sherry had for all of my siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces, and me.

Your Great Aunt Karen and your Grandmother were identical twins. And anyone who saw the two of them together knows that their physical appearance may have been almost exactly the same, but it was their personalities and mannerisms that were truly identical. And through your Grandmother, you will indeed know your Great Aunt Karen.

So someday, I hope to take you to both Wamego, Kansas and Denver, Colorado so that you are able to see the birthplace of the spiritual bonds that run through your family.

I love you, daughter.

-Daddy