This one's for Katie!

Katie is sick of reading about how it's "Not a Perfect Day for Soccer"! My life has been so busy in an uneventful way that I haven't felt inspired to write about anything. I guess that's not entirely true; my grandpa passed away last week and I was going to write a tribute to him, but my sister beat me to it and posted a lovely account of her memories of him and my grandma. I didn't want to seem like I was trying to copy her, so I haven't written about it yet. But I guess I will now.

Grandpa Parker was my dad's step-dad. He married my grandma after my dad graduated from highschool My first memories of him are visiting my grandparent's house in San Jose, CA and a rather large man giving me big hugs and telling me he was going to "bite my belly." That became his trademark for years, first with the grandkids, then the great-grandkids. I was very relieved when I got to be about 8 or 9 and he declared I was getting too big for him to "bite my belly" so he would give me "whisker burns" instead.

Grandpa loved going out to eat and whenever we visited he would relate all the restaurants he'd been to lately and what he'd eaten at each one. I don't remember him ever saying that he didn't like the food anywhere. I'm so glad we were able to take him out to the Spaghetti Factory to celebrate his birthday this past July.

Grandpa loved to be with the family, even more so after my grandma passed away 5 years ago. He would get very upset if he found out we had gotten together and not invited him. I'm ashamed to say sometimes we didn't want to go through the hassle of driving to Port Orchard to pick him up and then bring him back home, so we'd "forget" to tell him about a family gathering. For the past year or so, he lived in Bremerton and was able to take the Access bus which helped us to be more generous in our invitations.

Grandpa had a great sense of humor, sometimes a little inappropriate, but he loved to laugh and make others laugh. The last time I saw my grandpa was on my mom's birthday last month. In true form, he put on this clown wig and told us to tell my mom we'd hired a clown for her birthday entertainment.

I feel quite a bit of guilt about not going to visit my grandpa more often. He loved for us to visit and it would have been such an easy thing to do. I always thought I had a good excuse, but really it was just the busy-ness of life that could have waited. I'm so glad that I know he's with my grandma again and not lonely anymore. I'll bet he's sitting with her at the big "all-you-can-eat-buffet" in heaven, just waiting until he can tell us all about it!