My dad, Mark Broendel, was also my best friend
My dad always took me to baseball games during the summer in Virginia. They did fireworks after the game and a lot of times, he’d stay even though he wanted to beat traffic so I could watch them. My dad and I spent a lot of weekends together after my parents divorced. It was almost clockwork, us spending time on Saturdays together. We went to movies a lot, and I’ll never forget the time we went to see Team America and I had to explain the crazy South Park humor to my dad. My dad is the reason I started exercising. At age 14, he started taking me to the gym with him. It was a summer of self improvement, as I called it. We’d work out together and then eat a meal at Noodles and Company every week. I still think of him when I go work out or grab food from Noodles in my town. As a kid, my dad got me a booklight and I’d read comics or books in bed. I remember him chuckling and saying I was just like him, reading comics in his bed at night as a kid. These days I still read comics before I fall asleep. After my parents divorced, my dad was concerned about me eating good food. He’d cook meals and then freeze them in Tupperware that I’d take home and thaw out.- meals like spaghetti dinners. They were great. Today, his memory lives on in his family members, including my wonderful daughter Mara, named in part for his memory. As a newborn she was the spitting image of him and as she grows I can only hope to be there for her as a father like my dad was there for me.