My 3 kids spend little time with their grandpa. So, we flew across the country for a surprise visit.

• Wendy Altschuler left her home state of Montana in her early 20s after finding love.
• She has rarely returned — a few times when her mom was dying and later for her dad's second wedding.

At 19, I fell in love with a long-haired musician wearing a white linen shirt dotted with wooden buttons. He caught my eye while strumming an acoustic guitar and singing his heart out at an open-mic-night dive bar in Montana.

It only took two years before I packed up everything I owned and moved across the country to build a life with him in Chicago, leaving the weathered mountains, coniferous forests, and wildflower-filled meadows of my childhood forever in the rearview mirror.

Later, I'd marry that music man. Together, we weathered the vicissitudes of life through the challenges of working and paying for college, moving multiple times, and going through career changes. And, just as I was becoming a mother, I'd lose my own through a lengthy and painful struggle with breast cancer.

Even though we could barely afford it at the time — with three little boys to take care of — we made the journey back to my home state to spend time with my parents and to give my children a chance to feel their grandparents' love.

After my mom died, the worry about my father's health and welfare grew. How would he endure, all alone without my mom? What was my responsibility in all of this, living several states away and raising my own family?

My dad had no interest in leaving Montana

But my father had created his own life, surrounded by horses and wide-open spaces. The fact that the only time he had ever visited me was for my wedding — something I told him he was obligated to do — was incredibly telling for where he'd want to spend his remaining years.

When my dad found love again and chose to get remarried a few years later, it was a great relief. I was proud of him for fighting for his existence and for deciding that he deserved happiness — even at his mature age. I knew it was challenging to be vulnerable and put yourself out there again after so many decades of marriage.

When we arrived in Montana for his wedding, I popped in a local coffee shop before the big day, while my husband and boys waited outside. As soon as I spotted the bold brush strokes, I knew it was hers, my mother's painting hanging on the wall.

Unbeknownst to me, the owners had bought it from an antique store, where my mom sold some of her outsider art before she died. Gutted, all of it came rushing back — the pain of watching my mother get sick and lose her hair, her vibrancy, as she withered and suffered and eventually didn't know who or where she was anymore. The sting of seeing the faraway look in my dad's tired eyes when he told the young men setting up the hospital bed in his living room, "you'll be back to pick this up, she'll be dead soon."

I ran out of that coffee shop, sobbing into my hands as I struggled to explain to my husband what I had seen, trying like mad to pull myself together because my three little boys were looking up at me, and we had a wedding to get to.

Two of my sons stood next to my dad, properly dressed in cowboy hats and boots, with the Bridger Mountains in view, while my youngest walked down the aisle with the real rings stacked on his thumbs, pointing up to Montana's big sky.

My father and I would slide our boots in tandem on the dance floor while my husband played with the band on the stage behind us. That day, I experienced a kaleidoscope of emotions, ultimately landing on gratitude for a full life, where love was the golden thread weaved throughout.

A handful of months later, at Christmas, I opened the best present I'd ever received: my husband had bought me my mother's painting from the coffee shop.

As the years go by, flowers sprout, bloom, and return to the soil. Ponderosa pines still smell like kettle corn and vanilla. My sons continue to grow and mature and find their own passions and footing. Eventually, they will also flee the nest.

It had been 3 years since they'd seen Grandpaw

This past summer, just before my three teenagers would start high school together, we took one more family trip back to Montana. This time, it would be a surprise — nobody would know we were coming. It wasn't a holiday, birthday, or special occasion. It was just because we love my dad.

Laying the groundwork, I made sure to call him more than normal for several months prior, gently teasing out information to be sure he'd be home during our visit.

Nearly every day, he visits a country coffee shop near his house, the same one we would ride horses to when I was a kid. My plan was to show up there and send my boys in to casually sit down next to him. Would he recognize them after three long years? Would this timeworn cowboy cry?

When he wasn't there, however, we had to amend our plans and show up at his house. We drove back and forth before pulling into his long driveway, parking out of view. The five of us shuffled past dozens of chickens to reach his door, unobtrusive and quiet to avoid being spotted.

I was a bit nervous when I knocked, heavy with the hopes of pulling off something I had been planning for so long. My old man opened the door, and we all screeched, "Surprise!"

He stumbled back a step and then reached for my kids, delight stretching across his face. He said nothing and everything at the exact same moment.

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