I write this on a Saturday morning from a hotel in Cambridge, Ontario. In just about an hour, we will check out of the hotel and go see our daughters one last time before we leave them behind to head back. Forgive the self-indulgence of this letter, but I wanted to write one last thing here…

Leaving those two behind is one of the hardest things that I will ever do. It’s not enough that we’re leaving them…we’re actually going to be over 6000 miles away, on the other side of the world. It’s one thing to drive a couple of hours from home and drop your kid off at university, or even to put them on a plane for a couple of hours of flying. Going to the other side of the world is incredibly hard.

Many people have done it over the years, so the situation is nothing new. But to paraphrase the great poet, Bruce Springsteen, pain is relative to the situation you live in… "A life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure don’t make much for tragedy…” So, on this day, instead of wallowing in the misery of leaving my daughters behind, I shall celebrate the fact that I have been so lucky all of these years.

How it started: