Brooksie’s nursery: our new favorite place in the house. The light in here is magical and there is a constant background of our favorite music. While he’s still sleeping in his bassinet in our room at night, we love doing all our feedings and changes and reading in here with him! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The absolute most treasured piece in this room is the hand-stitched “Brooks” framed above the dresser. Nearly one year ago, Will and I lost a friend of ours to cancer — a truly exceptional, one in a million person with the sharpest wit and irreverent humor, prodigious appreciation of music and literature, and completely inspirational level of empathy and inclusiveness. He was the kind of person who always showed up, who always made you laugh until you cried, couldn’t help but march to the beat of his own drum in a way that made you want to be truer to your own self, and loved his family and friends without bounds. His name was Brooks, and that frame of his name was made by his mom and hung in his own nursery. She so generously shared it with us and it reminds me every time I change our son or feed him or read him a story of the type of person we hope to raise our own Brooks to be. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I shared that this whole journey into parenthood was a surprise — I found out I was pregnant just a couple months after our friend Brooks’ funeral. What kept me from feeling overwhelmed was thinking maybe we could raise someone like our friend Brooks. May we rise up to the challenge of having him embody even slivers of what our friend with the same name did 💜 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Brooks William, we love you so!