It's over.

[nwhiker]

My spouse texted a few minutes ago that FIL has died.

I'll tell Linnea as soon as she's out of the shower.

As I wrote in a text to all three kids: "Remember that each time you step off the pavement onto a hiking trail, to adventures and beauty most people never get to experience, that that is his legacy."

He took a little boy, his brand new stepson (later adopted) camping, and hiking, and backpacking, and so gave him the wild lands of the West, the wild lands of the world. My husband has passed his legacy onto our children, and nothing would make me happier than to think that they too will some day take small people they are in charge of, children, or nieblings, or whatever, to the places whose beauty has to be paid for in sweat and with the soles of your boots.

David was with him the whole time. At least that. He was never alone.

ETA (there may be a lot of these...)

He was an educator and a lover of history, and one of the people whose book recs for current events and history I would implicitly trust. I am lucky enough to be loved by a man he helped raise.