John T

Recently my grandpa Homer passed away (Dad's Dad).  Although we did not live near them when I lived at home, multiple summers in my teenage years I went to live with him and my grandma.  We also saw them on holidays and at the Homer Family Cabin.  When I was older and married, my grandma and grandpa moved in with my family.  Although he is our grandpa, we were closer to him than some people are with their grandparents, so the loss was hard. 

King was born 2 weeks before my grandpa passed away and he was born with hair just like my grandpa’s hair.  It is the same color and sticks up just the way my grandpas hair stuck up.  (Come to find out my dad had the same color hair too).  We were going to see my grandpa at Christmas time.  My grandpa has always loved children and I have been told, that he talked about King many times the week before he passed away.  Apparently he knew about King, I’m not sure if he had seen a photo of him or not, but he knew about him and said that he was a special boy.   

Grandma Homer with King

King was only 3 weeks old when I took him to Idaho to my grandpa’s funeral.  My dad asked me to compile a list of memories that my family and extended family had of grandpa.  I was very pleased to see that so many, almost all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren came to attend his funeral.  I would like to share my memories of Grandpa.

Grandpa made each person feel like they were special which I think is evident in how different the memories of Grandpa Homer are from person to person.  I loved to play cribbage with Grandpa.  If he caught you in Muggins (card game) his booming voice could scare you right out of your chair.  When I was little we used to always ask Grandpa to do Hurly Burly Thumpety on our back and brush our hair.  He would always sing Happy Birthday to us in Spanish.  He squeezed fresh orange juice for grandma and me every summer day.  He snored REALLY loud when he was “watching” TV (aka: sleeping) in his chair.  He loved to go get a hotdog at Costco for lunch.  Even though he had diabetes, he always seemed to sneak some candy or ice cream in the house to share with us (the grandkids) – Not sure how he got that past grandma.  One of my very favorite things about grandpa was his laugh – he was always laughing at grandma’s silliness, he would say “for cryin out loud” and then laugh.  I think his laugh was contagious – it would make me laugh too. 

One of the biggest memories for all the grandchildren, especially in this holiday season was his  reading of the Littlest Angel on Christmas Eve.

We love you Grandpa Homer!