“It was not as if he said, “Be my absent siblings.” It just evolved totally naturally. We shared interests. We’d go out for pizza and go bowling afterward. And when we had children, he became their uncle. He just engaged them immediately. He had lots of wonderful nephews and nieces but they were in California, so he seemed to enjoy having kids around. Every now and then he would invite the whole department over to the apartment he had with a large yard. That was the first time I’d seen anyone who actually was ready for children to come. Often children would be at the outskirts but he would have a string of lollipops attached in the tree.

–Hanne Booth