Missing JoJo

My granddad and ME's great-grandaddy, JoJo passed away Thursday morning Sept. 30th. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2009 and fought it all the way. I feel so lucky that ME got to know and love her JoJo, but we still miss him. JoJo and Pat only live about 5 miles away from us, so ME got to spend a lot of time with them. In the past few months we had many good visits, but I wanted to write about 2 of them so ME could read about them when she is older.

On Good Friday of 2010 ME and I took JoJo to Veteran's Park. He was feeling really tired and didn't really want to go, but Pat and LuLu really encouraged it, so off we went. The weather was beautiful! JoJo sat in a lawn chair and just watched ME run and play at the park. We stayed about an hour, then loaded up to go home. All the way home JoJo kept saying that he was so glad he had gone, and that ME was so much fun. It was a really good morning.

The second time was this summer. ME and I dropped by for a visit and it turned out that Pat was on her way out. Since it was almost lunch time JoJo offered to take ME and I to lunch. We somehow convinced him to go to Jack's instead of MacDonald's! ME sat by JoJo during lunch and held his arm and petted him. It was the sweetest thing ever!

I of course could go on and on about everything JoJo has done for me through my life, but the biggest was probably making my dream of having a horse come true. When I was 11, JoJo bought my first horse (the first of several actually). My parents had to work and sacrifice to make it all work, but JoJo got the ball rolling. I sometimes wonder where we would be now without that first horse purchase. Horses led us to our current property where my parents built a house and now many years later Mike and I built our house. ME can see the barn and the horses from her bedroom window. I am sure JoJo is smiling down watching as ME rides her pony!