Favotre {Photo} Friday--Grandpa Earl

Today was kind of a rough day, emotionally. The kind of day where you have a complete hormonal meltdown in the kitchen and have to sit down in the middle of the floor. Jason was awesome and eased me out of it, and then just as I was coming back into my normal self, I happened to look at my perpetual/special dates calendar and saw that today is my Grandpa's birthday.

And then I started crying again.

My grandpa's been gone for many years now, but I still get choked up every time I think of him, because I just miss him so damn much.

So I started digging through my boxes of photos, looking for an old photo of my grandpa on his favorite horse, when he was so young and handsome and looked kind of like Roy Rogers. My aunt had the original scanned in and gave me a copy of it not too long after he died. But I couldn't find it, so I started crying again.

So instead, I'm going to show you two other photos that my aunt gave me. Several years ago she took all the photos that my mom had sent her while my sister and I were growing up, and she put them all into albums for us. Which is so awesome! Anyway, here we go:


I love that he's wearing the party hat. :) I'm the one in the back apparently trying to figure out how to operate a party horn.


Here I'm younger, obviously. I still remember that stuffed animal, it had a music box inside that would play when you wound up a key sticking out of its hip. :)

I love how engaged he is with us/me in both of these photos.

I love how this past Christmas, at home in Oregon, we talked about him and retold a couple of his many, many, many stories. He was such an amazing storyteller. I want to capture some of these stories, put them on paper, while I still remember and have family to help me remember what I've already forgotten.

But now, I'm emotionally spent. I'm cried out. So instead, I'll just tell a short story that always makes me smile to remember.

When I was in college I was home for a summer break. Grandpa was over and I was heading out to meet a boy (I don't even remember who and of course it doesn't matter). As I was walking out the door, Grandpa yelled,

"Be good!

And if you can't be good, be careful!

And if you can't be careful, name it after me!"

Quite a sense of humor, my Grandpa Earl had. Love you and miss you sooooo much, Grandpa.