I was married at the time.

My father-in-law was driving me and my then wife, his daughter, to the airport. She had been telling a story in the car about how difficult high school had been. After hearing the story, my father-in-law started to cry. He had no idea she had been bullied. He thought she had had a great high school experience. I remember seeing the tears stream down his face, the hurt and empathy in his eyes.

But more importantly, I saw how that made my wife at the time feel.

Because he wasn’t always like that. He had raised her with an iron fist and kept his emotions buried. It wasn’t until he went through his own divorce that he started to really show himself and express his feelings. I remember watching this like a scene out of a father/daughter movie and thinking, Wow, he’s not afraid to show himself, not only to his daughter but also to me.

Just hours before, he and I had been lifting weights and talking about motorcycles. And yet there he was, sobbing because he was feeling his daughter’s pain. He apologized for not being present when she was going through high school. He apologized for not being there for her. He apologized for being an absent father.

Then she started to cry. Then I started to cry. We were all crying inside........

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