William Todd Zackrison

I met Todd in 7th grade.  He was hilariously sarcastic, ferociously loyal, and always ready with a lame joke to make me smile when I was grumpy.

When Zack came into my life at 15 1/2, I think it's safe to say Todd was not his biggest fan.  In fact, he insisted on calling him the Jolly Green Giant the first few months of our relationship (It still makes me chuckle that the meanest thing he could think to call Zack references a tall happy guy).  But then he met Zack and the two became fast friends.  Don't get me wrong, I think he continued to call him the Jolly Green Giant, although not to his face, but that's just Todd.  We all remained friends throughout high school, visited one another through our college years and stayed in touch through frequent phone calls after we were all married.  He was not able to make it to our wedding which in some ways was good because I think Zack and I would have fought over which one of us got him as our wedding attendant.  He was our unofficial best man, and bridesmaid.

Throughout junior high and high school Todd would tell me and Dani two things constantly.  One, that we needed to name all of our children after him (especially the girls) and two, that some day in the middle of the night we would get a call to tell us he had been killed on some foreign battle field.

That call came Halloween night in 2003.

This last summer we took a trip out to Arlington National Cemetery to see Todd's tombstone and tell Jack more about our best friend who gave up his life for this country.  

When we found out last spring that we were having another boy, pretty much the only thing Zack and I agreed on as far as names go was that his middle name would be Todd. 

The world was a better place with Todd in it and he is missed by our family daily.
Little William Todd, you have huge shoes to fill.