Everyone laughed when they sent an eighty-year-old man and his eighteen-year-old wife off to spend their wedding night together. “Let’s see if Grandpa can make it until morning,” one relative joked through a burst of laughter. He didn’t respond. He simply picked up his old briefcase and closed the door. When six relatives opened it the next morning, they stopped laughing when they discovered what he had been protecting all night.

She chose that specific career field to honor her late father, who had spent his life repairing old homes and always taught her that a house was far more than just four physical walls.

“A house is of very little use if you are living in constant fear inside it,” her father had always told her.

On her very first day of university classes, Walter drove her directly to the campus entrance in his old sedan.

“You really didn’t have to drive me, because I am completely capable of going alone,” Chloe protested with a smile.

“I know you can handle it alone,” Walter replied calmly.