Grief in July

This is a photo of my Uncle Paul and my Dad, Bill in October 1970.

Twelve years ago this past Monday (July 18th, 2004), my dad died as a result of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).  I wrote a little bit about that a few years ago.

Yesterday, July 22nd, 2016, my Uncle Paul died.  

We are having a rough week here.  

Beyond just being a great guy and Uncle, for the past twelve years, my Uncle Paul has stood in for my father, who I know would have done anything to be here for milestones.  He came to my PhD graduation, met us at the hospital when Lucy was born, and joined us for all sorts of celebrations. 

Here he is with Lucy when she came home first (I know she doesn't look too happy here, but I assure you, she came around to him):

 Here he is with his wonderful wife, my Aunt Kathy, at Lucy's Baptism:
 

He and Lucy had a lot of fun together (although in this picture, she is protesting):

But he loved getting down on the floor and playing with kids -- getting to their level, talking with them, and learning about them.  I was amazed by what he could do with kids.


He played catch with Lucy:




He loved children so much (he is wearing a sticker on his forehead that Lucy put there):

Here he is with Kathy and their daughter, Elizabeth, when she graduated from Westfield State:

He was very, very proud of her.  

The last photo above is a scanned one from an album; I will go through and try to get some more soon.  For now, I wanted to share the ones that I had digitally, to at least briefly start to remember and share some of the very joyful moments we all had together.

Kathy is still in North Carolina, and Elizabeth is in New Zealand.  We are thinking of them and sending our love.

We are so sorry.

We are so sad.