My time with them made me examine my own life and think about my family's past and about what I want to bury and what I want to live on in my daughte… - Wright Thompson

Both loved me unconditionally and showed that love every day, as well as an unshakable belief in me and my dreams, no matter how unlikely they seemed. That's what I wanted to provide, more than anything else: a safe harbor of encouragement.

Most every man competes with his father and imitates his father, lives in fear of disappointing, and craves approval, and on the extreme ends of this potentially fraught relationship, a man often spends his entire adult life trying to be exactly like his father or nothing like him.

Being Southern means carrying a responsibility to shake off the comforting blanket of myth and see ourselves clearly.