Dean - Mostly Sunny

To my husband, Sean

I still wake up at night sometimes feeling I am alone in this world.

And then I smile because I know youre right next to me.

Each step and every breath has guided my way

To finding you.

And the beautiful family we have made

Together

In love.

Contents

Hey, whats your name? Where ya from? What do you think of the weather today? I was smiling, hand on my hip, nodding my head, giving her a cue to talk into my microphone. I wanted to learn about where she was from and see if she could give me a quick sentence about the weather we were having.

Im Melanie. From Ottawa. Janice, you already know this!

But just pretend Im a reporter! I pleaded. Make something up. Youre on TV!

But Im not on TV. And thats not a microphone. Thats a large spoon. Cmon, lets go get our bikes and go to the playground.

This was my audience... my friend Melanie. The place we were make-believe broadcasting from? My front yard.

That was over forty years ago. Today Im doing the same thing with my friends that come to visit me outside of the Fox & Friends studio in midtown Manhattan, where I do weather in the morning. Now I have a real microphone and camera in front of me broadcasting live to an audience of millions on the number one cable news channel in America.

Not bad for a girl raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. When I moved to New York City in September 2002, it made the headlines of my hometown newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen.

I have that page framed. It hangs proudly in my office at Fox News.

I was born in Toronto, Canada, on May 9, 1970. The day I came into the world the headline in the newspaper announced that President Nixon sends troops into Cambodiathe first expansion of the war in the Far East. Thats what my dad wrote in my baby book that I keep in a box under my bed.

We moved to Ottawa, Canadas capital city, shortly after I was born. One of my favorite stories I love to hear my mom tell is when she and my dad went to the Ottawa airport with me when I was a baby. Pierre Trudeau, Canadas prime minister, was flying to Russia, and the Canadian press was surrounding him. My mom caught his eye, and he came right over to chat with her while I was looking around at all the bright lights. (Some things never change.) He asked her if she might want to go with him to Russia, and she motioned to me and said she had her hands full. I have a picture of that exchange with my mom and Pierre Trudeau. Its like folklore in my family. My dad was standing right next to her, but Mr. Trudeau clearly had eyes on her. My mom tells me that at the time, Margaret Trudeau was pregnant with Justin (Canadas current prime minister, son of Pierre), so I like to joke that Justin Trudeau couldve been my stepbrother at one point. It was my first brush with the press, and my eyes are on Trudeau. It looks like Im smiling at him in the glow of the cameras bright lights.

My mom, Stella, was born in St. Johns, Newfoundland, the most easterly province in Canada. She was a British subject before Newfoundland joined the confederation with Canada in 1949.

Mom lost her dad when she was very young in a tragic train accident that left my grandmotherher mothera widow with six children. She had to grow up very quickly, being the oldest siblingto help care for her brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom at the time was just a baby. They were very poor, but what they lacked in money they compensated for with being a close-knit family. She is still in constant touch with all of her brothers and sisters, most of whom live in and around Toronto.

After Sean and I were married, I brought him to St. Johns to see where my mom grew up. There was a big family reunion and we had a wonderful time sightseeing and meeting all the Newfies Im related to. It was funny to see him try to figure out what they were all saying in their rich, animated Newfoundland accents. He also went through a famous ceremony of being screeched ina traditional way of becoming an honorary Newfie. Theres only a handful of bars that perform the ritual and you get a membership certificate for taking part. The key assignments require taking a shot of the screecha somewhat drinkable rum, although its pretty grossand then you kiss a dead cod on the lips. Its not for the faint of heart. You may have to recite something as well, depending on how organized the bar is that does the swearing in.

My mom moved to Toronto in her early twenties to work for Air Canada. She met my dad at a wedding reception of a mutual friend in Mississauga, Ontario (outside of Toronto), in November 1968. They almost didnt meet, because Stella never got the invitation, and it was a last-minute party crash on my moms part. My father was there on the grooms sidean American from Toledo, Ohio. They met, enjoyed each others company, and my dad suggested he come to Toronto the following weekend. They were married six months later.

He and my mom were together for twenty-five years before he left. When he was home, I was so happy. He worked a lot, so weekends when he wasnt still at the office were a treat. I still remember him teaching me to ride a bike like it was yesterday. He pushed me off without my training wheels, and I started pedaling. I could hear him in the background:

Go, Pookie! Go! Youre doing it! Youre doing it!

My dad was strikingly handsome and, when he wanted to be, very charming. He could tell a great story and made people laugh. However, he could also be distant, moody, and reclusive.

My father was a workaholic, spent a lot of time by himself when he was at home, and had a lot of social phobias. My mom used to tell me he would find friends, and they would hit it off, and then he would think they were backstabbing him or talking behind his back. He would never speak with them again.

Dad was off-the-charts smart. He knew back in the late 1970s that we would be ordering things off of computers one day and told this to anyone who would listen. He had a home computer before anyone else did in the 80s. My father was fascinated by science fiction and had seen the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey at least a dozen times when it first came out and was panned by critics. My mom says when they were dating he spent an hour explaining the entire movie to her. She wasnt too keen on it, but she did like him quite a bit.

My dad is the reason why I have my American citizenship. When he met my mom and they got married, they moved to Toronto and he became a Canadian citizen. Years later, in 1987, during the time when the CanadaUS Free Trade Agreement was reached, my mom saw a small article in Torontos Globe and Mail that stated if you were an American who gave up your citizenship, you could now get it back and, in doing so, you could also apply for citizenship for your children. My dad always thought he had forfeited his US citizenship when he moved to Canada, but its unclear if thats the case. In any event, without that free trade agreement, I dont think I would be here. It was a very long process. He needed to prove that he lived in the US for twenty years and had to get letters from schools and old friends and show proof that he had worked in the Air Force. My mom says it helped a great deal that he wasnt a draft dodger.

I remember the mound of paperwork he had to fill out for me, and I will always be grateful for that. He was going to do the same for my brother, Craig, but things got complicated, and he left my mom before he ever could start the process for him.

Two years ago, I did a DNA test on Fox & Friends and received more information on my fathers side of the family than I couldve ever hoped for. My dad has incredibly strong roots in the US. My direct ancestor Isaac Dean was born in 1782 in Pennsylvania. My great-grandfather Howard L. Dean, whom my dad was named after, was a salesman and was born in Ohio. In his World War I draft registration card from September 1918, it says that he was tall with gray eyes and blond hair. My grandfather Roy Ambrose Dean was a technical observer in the 8th US Army in 1946 and then worked for Coca-Cola.