Although his birth place may have been New York City on his birth certificate, there was no one location that Nathaniel Sumner, born on October 1st of 1964, called home. The son of a military man that would eventually rise through the ranks of the United States Marine Corps before retiring for something that wasn’t on the front lines, commanding those soldiers beneath him in international conflict, and a wartime switchboard operator-turned-personal assistant and housewife once the demands of a post-war nation died down, it would be one of many places that he found himself living out portions of his life – be it as a military man himself, joining the rank of the United States Army in 1982 which took him to basic training and U.S. Ranger training in Georgia only to be shipped off to the Middle East for the conflicts that were only growing there or a family man, not only when he had a hand in helping his mother take care of his siblings while his father was deployed, but once he had settled into a similar retirement from the armed forces in San Francisco, California.

For twenty one years, his life was dictated by service with participation in conflicts throughout Lebannon, Iran and Iraq, Kuwait with Operation Desert Storm and Afghanistan with Operation Enduring Freedom; but that didn’t mean that there weren’t moments where combat situations weren’t the focal point of his life and it was only a matter of time before something else caught his attention no matter the stacked odds that were against her and any semblance of a normal life with a special forces operative.

Nathaniel had met Lisa Tolliver in 1996 while on shore leave in San Francisco, little in the way of roots to speak of for Nathaniel to find himself back in New York aside from visits to his family who still resided in the city. To say it was love at first sight would mean that he would have to believe in the notion, but there had been some level of falling through what few interactions they had, not only in that one instance, but those that followed; and in 1998, given the chance to do something quick and reckless and not entirely thought through despite the years there had been between their first meeting and correspondence that followed, he and Lisa Tolliver married. A year later, between more times apart that was slowly driving a wedge between them without either particularly noticing it, she gave birth to their son, Tyler.

Understandably, it wasn’t easy; it could never be easy, and Nathaniel wasn’t a fool to think that going away for months at a time would be easy on his wife; but no matter their attempts to keep things together when duty called, there was simply too much distance between the soldier and his stay-at-home wife, constantly weighted by not only the worries about what was going on across the Atlantic, but raising a son by herself. They divorced in 2002 without much of Nathaniel’s say in the matter and the question of custody was easy when Nathaniel was never around and Lisa had only ever been for a son that would only come to butt heads with a father who was rarely in his life while growing up, causing him to miss out on those traditional milestones of life made for good old Americana Hallmark movies about growing up.

It hadn’t even helped in 2003 when Nathaniel turned away from his military career after those twenty-one years in the field, fighting the wars of politicians and government, and instead turned towards police work as a way to make use of what skills he did have. It became just as much a sink of his time when family life was in ruin, focusing on helping other people who needed it and growing his career, rising through the ranks of the San Francisco Police Department, rather than venturing into that far more personal side of his life – at least until he met Hannah Sumner who would eventually become that match made in heaven.

Familiar with the life of a police officer given the number of them who had been in her family over generations, Hannah was far more understanding of the work that Nathaniel put himself into even if it didn’t go without worry while he was on duty that something could go wrong. It happened before. It would happen again, and there was always that possibility that someone would be caught in an unfortunate situation; but it still wouldn’t stop them from having a life together, especially when she gave birth to their daughter, Hope, in 2004. Given his former failings, he made an effort this time to balance his life a bit more readily. He didn’t always have to have overtime hours. He didn’t always have to travel. He didn’t always have to be gone, and he could devote time to raising a child and maintaining a family that he hadn’t been so successful at before, something that would be imperative when Hannah was diagnosed with late stage cancer and found herself caught up in the rigmarole of treatments that only temporarily head back the unfortunate prognosis. In 2017, Hannah passed, leaving Nathaniel with a sixteen year old daughter that is easily his pride and joy no matter how problematic raising a girl seems.