Big Roy/ Dad/Pop/Papa Roy/Grandpa Roy/ ROY

I have much to do before I leave for Cinci and a week of doctor appointments and packing up the pieces of our live that remain at that house. It's time to move them.

But it's imperative (to me) that I take a moment on this Father's Day to pay a tribute to my wonderful--fabulous dad.

He would have been 87 this past Wednesday.

I've written about him before and will write more in the future, but for now I'm simply going to put up a montage of uncropped pictures that are on my computer.  (I plan to take a box of pics to Cinci and have my IT husband help me put them on my computer.)

Here's to Rev. Hilliard/Rev. Roy/The Rev/Big Roy/Dad/Pop/Papa Roy--by my kids/Grandpa Roy--by my grandkid/Roy and ROY (when mom was scandalized at something he said--she was really secretly amused though)---

Love you Pop and Miss you More than Words can Say.

He was singing to her "Tru la la. . ."-my kids and grandkids know it well--nothing better that resting against Grandpa Roy and having him sing to you.

My son cut his hair for years. This was less than a month before Pop joined mom in Heaven.

My daughter hung these in a special place: her Grandma Shirley and Papa Roy

and

Sara and her husband Jory

One of my regrets is not taking a picture of her on her Grandpa's lap the July of the year he left. We had all our immediate family at our place at the lake.  Pop got ill that day.  Sara was to fly back to Texas and didn't know whether she would see him again.

So she went in, sat on his lap, hugged him, and told him she loved him.

He told me later that she just sat there with her head on his shoulder like when she was little.

He teared up--that gesture meant the world to him.

(Never underestimate simple gestures and never let age stop you from doing them.)

Finally: a tribute to two of  "The Greatest Generation" --both WWII vets --both immensely respected members of their community---both incredible husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, friends . . .both adored and missed by MANY!

                                                         Tom Mosser and Roy Hilliard
                                            My son's father-in-law and grandfather at the baptism of my son's wife, daughter, and step-son.  They were good friends and left us within just a few days of each other.

 His grandfather baptised them--his last official ministerial act.  A church was "loaned" to us.