For Kathryn-Anne, Emmalyne-Grace, and Jonathan Parker:

The Roebers moved to Indiana from New Jersey in July 2013. That marked the end of our time near your parents. We kept in touch, but moving meant we would see them less. The afternoon of June 9, 2024, was the last time I saw your dad. He was pulling out of our driveway in his van, with your mom riding shotgun and the three of you in back. He had driven 10 hours from Virginia so that your family could attend Isaiah and Leorah’s high school graduation celebration. The weekend was busy. We were hosting 15 people. Your dad spent hours in our kitchen that weekend. We were supposed to cook for him, amongst our other guests, but he did half the cooking for us, with his characteristic precision and unwavering smile. And of course everything he made was amazing. Our other guests kept talking about it.

The second-to-last time I saw your dad, we were at your house in Virginia, two days before Thanksgiving, in 2023. We sat with your mom around the kitchen table. Your dad made fresh bread. Then he made coffee (a pour over for me, and a perfect latte for Ruth) from beans he had roasted at home. Then he made his incredible pizza. Then he got out the bourbon. I don’t remember which bourbon, exactly, but it was top shelf, and he didn’t drink it except on special occasions. We were at your house for two hours, on our way to New Jersey, and we left feeling like royalty. Your dad served us literally the whole time, delighting in our enjoyment of the delicious things he had to share.

Thinking about our lives with your dad in New Jersey, and our cherished hours with him after we moved, I mostly remember him in one of two modes. He was either serving his friends (always something delicious and extraordinary, as in my two memories above), or he was sitting with his friends, hands folded in his lap, smiling with his lips closed, often with his shoulders at a slight angle to the group, enjoying the conversation, saying almost nothing himself. I have countless memories of your dad like this—of him quietly listening, looking completely contented and genuinely interested in his friends’ stories and opinions. He didn’t chatter in these conversations, as most of us do. He would say something substantive, or ask about something important, if he spoke at all. When your dad spoke, it mattered.

Your dad was a profoundly generous and other-centered person, and he had this ineffable quiet strength that was hard to miss. The picture below was taken right before your family pulled out of our driveway, the last time I saw your dad. Everybody who knows your dad knows that the smile in this picture isn’t a pose. It’s his regular face, and it reveals what always struck me as some deep inner confidence. This quiet confidence and his huge generosity are what I remember most about your dad. He was an extraordinary person.