Today is my father-in-laws birthday. He would have been 66. I will admit that we had a rocky relationship for the first many years that I was in the family. Most of it due to his wife. However, the last year before he passed away, we became very close. I learned to really appreciate and love him. I have yet to meet a more charitable person. Over the years he donated thousands of dollars to so many charities. It has been fun to discover his name on plaques at Primary Children's Medical Center, Hale Theater, and many other places. We love driving to Park City and seeing Grandpa's slide on the side of the mountain for the olympics. He did so much on the Olympic Committee to bring the world to Salt Lake City. We are so proud of all his hard work.
Bob's last winter with us we shared some great moments. I'd like to endulge a moment and share just a few. He was overlooking our new roof project, so there were many mornings when he would show up at the crack of dawn (even for me who is a morning person) with breakfast from McDonald's and kisses all around for the girls. Yes, I surprised Cameron one morning with a giant lip smacking kiss with his dad. The girls and Kazen all loved waking up to breakfast with Grandpa. Still working on the roof project, Bob and Kazen were out watching the workers tear off our old roof. Kazen began to climb the ladder, backed back down, turned around to Grandpa with his hands on his hips, then proceeded to chew Grandpa out for making a mess of our drive-way. Grandpa swooped up that little angel and they both had a good laugh. Christmas that year was so much fun. Bob showed up early, waking all of us up Christmas morning and wanted to open presents. Our favorite Christmas by far because we had him all to ourselves the entire day. He even went with us to the Deters' side of the family in the afternoon.
The girls love and miss you Grandpa Bob! Cameron and I miss and love you too! Thanks for taking such good care of us in this life and for continuing to watch out for us on the otherside. We are looking forward to a sweet reunion with you! Happy Birthday!
6 comments:
What a sweet tribute to your father in law. He sounds like an amazing person. I can see where Cameron gets many of his good attributes from. What a generous and loving man. I'm glad that you have such good and fond memories of him. I'm sure he and Kazen are still together and having many good laughs.
Holy crap you made me cry! As if I haven't cried enough in the past 24 hours. I'm glad you were able to have those good memories with him. Carrie is right, you know he and Kazen are together and still laughing it up with one another!
That's sweet Robyn!
I'm sure he appreciates how much you care about it.
Thanks for sharing something so personal with us.
Dido... Thanks for sharing something so personal. It helps me put things into a different perspective in my own life. Hope you are having a great day! Love ya!
Sweet the reunion will be. What wonderful memories you have together! I love the knowledge we have in the gospel that we will be able to be together again. Maybe I'll get to meet grandpa Bob, you just never know.
What a great guy. I can't wait till we can see the people on the other side that we have missed so much.
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