BOOO! Sweden's World Cup run is over.

BOOOOOOOOO.

😩😩😩😩😭😭😭😭🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪

SWEDEN!!!

I'm leaving for Sweden in LESS THAN ONE WEEK!!!

Ok, it's been a while since I wrote a post, so let me get you up to speed.

I'm still alive (obviously). I'm getting better at my prosthetic arm. In fact I took it fishing just a few weeks ago, but the first fish I caught jerked my fishing pole out of my prosthetic and swam off with it. So, now there is a fish swimming around this lake in Georgia with a $20 fishing pole trailing behind it. Oh man, that reminds me of the most hilarious thing that happened--

AH THERE'S NO TIME FOR THIS!! I'M LEAVING FOR SWEDEN IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK!!!!

"Why Sweden?" you ask. Our daughter, who is now 11 and has stinky feet, plays soccer. Or, if you're reading the blog outside the U.S., (hello, Russian bots), she plays a sport called, "WHO CARES WHAT YOU CALL  IT! IT'S SOCCER OK?? SOCCER!!!

You think they'll allow my vuvuzela at the games?

Anyway, her coach is Swedish and he and his wife are originally from a lovely town on the southwest coast (Varberg). He entered our team into an international soccer tournament called the Gothia Cup, which takes place in Gothenburg. Gothenburg is right up the road from Varberg. This is fantastic because he has set the family of each team member up with a host family in Varberg and we only have a short train ride to get to each game. So, I don't need to worry about blending my meals in a cramped Swedish hotel room. Instead, I have access to the lovely kitchen of our poor, unsuspecting host family, who have no idea, a) how loud a Vitamixer on high can get, and b) how stinky my daughter's feet are. They are like, next level smelly. After a soccer game, you do not want to be in the same living space as those feet.

So, I'm packing for Sweden and I have some concerns. Well...one rather heavy concern. If you're an avid reader of my blog, then you've been extremely bored for the past couple years because I've written NOTHING. You also may recall that I took a trip to Germany in late 2015. I also did it in 2009, I think? So I have some experience traveling in Europe with a feeding tube. There are some slight differences this time though. My sister, who has a stinky butt, lives in Germany with her family and my mom, who is much cooler than your mom. She also has her own Vitamixer, which plugs into European 220 Volt outlets. Having family close by was my security blanket for foreign travel. But unfortunately, my stinky-butt sister and cool mom will not be able to meet us in Sweden during our time there. So, I have to take my own Vitamix and I also need a transformer to convert the electricity to the blender from Europe's 220 Volts to 110 Volts. Not just any transformer either. My Vitamix can get up over 1,300 Watts, so I need at least a 1,500 Watt transformer--ideally 3,000 Watt--to handle the awesome power of the blender's whirling blades. So, I went ahead and ordered this transformer:

Not Actual Size

That transformer doesn't look too big right? We even misread the page on Amazon and thought it was only 12 pounds. The reality is, that sucker is filled with lead and weighs about 30 pounds. How are we supposed to pack it, along with the many outfits I will need, the single outfit I'll allow Betsy to bring, and extra socks for my stinky-feet daughter??

Also, what if this thing doesn't work? How can I test a transformer that only plugs into 220 Volt outlets in the U.S.? It might overload the electrical system of our poor host family's house. It might not work, so I'll be stuck buying a transformer in Sweden, which is twice as expensive. Or if I have no transformer and thus no Vitamix, I could go on a starvation diet with the Real Food Blends I'm bringing. We did have the foresight to ship a couple boxes of Real Food Blends to our poor, unsuspecting host family. But I will still only have enough Real Food Blends for one meal a day, sometimes two. I really need blended meals with the Vitamix to supplement the RFBs. I also really want to try this fermented sea herring called Surströmming that I've heard so much about.

MMMMMMMMM!! Tasty, right?

Since I can't taste anything, I figure I can blend up a few cans of that stuff a day, but I really need my Vitamix to make my Surströmming dream a reality. 

Another potential issue we may have (there are many) is the World Cup. Sweden is still in the World Cup (go Sweden!). This is awesome, but also a little scary because we are taking a train from Copenhagen, Denmark, up to Varberg on the day of the final game. So if Sweden reaches the final, then it'll be a crazy time to try to get in the country. Sports analysts haven't given Sweden the best chance of beating England, then taking out either Russia or Croatia to make it to the final game. However, this World Cup has been pretty crazy (Spain, Argentina, Portugal, AND GERMANY have all been eliminated??), so I don't think you can count anybody out. The next game is this Saturday against England.

Go Sweden!! Beat those bloody English bastards!!!

Book Review

Declutter your life!!!!!!

Take the Declutter Challenge!!!!

A year ago today, I had a lot of dead weight in my life. I was a hoarder; holding onto things that left my mind confused and disorganized. Once I got rid of that trash--the useless stuff--holding me back, I was able to focus on the things that really matter: my family, my friends, my community, and my remaining limbs.

You can reorganize your life too!!!!! Do you feel like you're maybe not using all your limbs to their full potential? Is there one you could possibly go without? I've got just the tool to help you eliminate that worthless appendage today!!!!

May require a partner for proper use

Or perhaps this will do it faster?

Don't delay on this. It's best if you act now, even if you've been drinking. Actually, it might be beneficial if you've been drinking. It can be scary to let go of something you've had, literally, since birth--I KNOW! I'm sure you have fond memories using that limb to wave at a loved one, or allowing you to frolic in a grassy meadow, or 'raise the roof' at the dance party, or putting your "left foot in" doing the "Hokey Pokey," or even aiding you as you tie your shoes. But think what you'll gain by not having that limb!!! The lost weight (instant 10-20 pound drop)!!! All your love and attention can be devoted to your three remaining limbs!!! You used to think, Should I wash my left leg or my right leg in the shower today? Well, guess what? Now, you only need to worry about one leg and you're out of the shower in half the time!!! You'll instantly stand out in a crowd. All those other dweebs holding onto 4 limbs will look at you in envy. They'll say stuff like, "How did he DO it??" or "Sure wish I only had three to worry about!!" or even "Is that a man or some sort of sideshow circus freak? DEAR GOD, DON'T LET THE MONSTER TOUCH ME!!" The point is, you'll be the center of attention at every social gathering.

Why stop with your own trash?

7's company, 8's a crowd

Does your significant other have a problem with limb hoarding? Skip the intervention; they won't listen to reason!!! Tonight (don't think about it or second-guess yourself) crumble up some Ambien in their drink. While they're passed out in the surgically sterile master bedroom, use the proper implement...

Might be best to send the kids away during the operation

...to whack off the appendage they can do without (I'd choose the one they keep hitting you with while they're sleeping). They may whine and scream about it when they wake up. They might call you things in the heat of the moment like "monster," or "psychopath," or "demented spawn of Satan." Don't let their rage, divorce proceedings, criminal charges, and lawsuits bother you. You've done the right thing here! You've freed the one you love from something that would have weighed them down for the rest of their lives. You've given them a gift!! In a few years, or after decades of therapy, they'll thank you.

I'm referring to the hand here. And the rest of the arm. Or a leg.

Heck, why stop with limbs? I had way too many ribs filling up my torso. Do you even know how many ribs you have? I was a limb hoarder AND a rib hoarder, and I bet you are too! Sometimes those annoying bones just get in the way!! How can I possibly feel the beating of my own heart if there are ribs and a clavicle in the way?? Do yourself and the world a favor and get rid of that worthless skeletal mass.

I see 205 redundant bones in this picture

**Disclaimer: The blog author is not responsible if you, or your partner, bleed to death.

Tubie Disaster Prep

I have been extremely saddened by the images and videos coming out of Texas and Louisiana over the last week. I could not imagine what it's like to go through an event like that--losing homes, possessions, even lives, to torrential flooding. It is so uplifting to see businesses and private citizens rush to the area to help those in need. From a tube feeding perspective, I was happy to see the Feeding Tube Awareness Group on Facebook had a lengthy thread immediately after the storm hit with people across the country offering various medical supplies for those in need. More recently, they have shared a link to the Parker Lee Project's Facebook page for more information about Harvey relief.

If you'd care to support medically complex kids affected by Harvey, please go to LittleLobbyists.org/Harvey/. They have partnered with the Parker Lee Project, Trach Mommas of Louisiana, Protect Texas Fragile Kids, Advocates for Medically Fragile Kids NC, and Moms of Trach Babies to get money and supplies to struggling families in the region. This is not a situation that will be resolved in a few days or weeks. It will take months, even years, for families and businesses to get back on their feet once the waters have fully receded. Parents trying to feed and care for tube-fed children--on top of losing their homes and livelihood--will need every bit of support we can give over the coming months. If you are able to help, please don't forget about these families. They will need our aid for a long time.

On a more selfish note, the Liebenow household is completely unprepared for a disaster. The situation in Houston following Hurricane Harvey really made Betsy and I re-evaluate how prepared we are for natural--and man-made--disasters. This hasn't been an immediate concern for us because Knoxville seems to be in a lucky part of the country that isn't conducive to natural disasters (at least not while we've lived here). We don't live near the Tennessee River or in a low-lying area, so flooding isn't a concern. We are in the suburbs and, since we moved here in 2009, haven't been subjected to any lengthy power outages. We are hit with the occasional afternoon thunderstorm, but nothing too serious at our house. Tornadoes have been known to hit the region, but again, not our neighborhood. We got a snowstorm once that kept us from driving for a couple days, but still had power.

We've gotten lucky, but that's no excuse for not making some preparations. We have important documents in a fireproof safe and Betsy has her parents and two sisters within a mile of us, so we have a good support network in case of our house burning down or something like that. But we aren't ready for a more widespread disaster like an alien invasion (Independence Day), Russian invasion (Red Dawn), hybrid robot/car invasion (Transformers), meteor impact (Armageddon and Deep Impact), hyper-cooling of the continent due to global warming (The Day After Tomorrow--can someone explain this?), disasters foretold by the Mayan civilization (2012), earthquakes the likes of which only Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson could save us from (San Andreas), sentient monkey insurrection (Planet of the Apes), tornados of sharks (Sharknado), meta-human conflict (see Marvel or DC Comics), the zombie apocalypse (too numerous to mention), pandemics (Outbreak and a bunch of others), or planetary destruction as a demonstration to Princess Leia of the destructive power of the Empire's battle station (actually, if you're reading this from Alderaan, then I have bad news for you).

"Can we borrow your Vitamixer? Also, BRAAAAAAAAINS!!!"

We also aren't ready for widespread disasters that maybe have a higher likelihood of happening (really bad storms and boring--not Michael Bay worthy--stuff like that). The government actually has a pretty good site on preparing for disasters at https://www.ready.gov. They include tips for preparing for a disaster if you have a disability. They also have some recommendations on items you should stow away in an emergency kit. I thought this was a good jumping-off point for a more tubie-specific emergency kit. I'll go ahead and share it here. Feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions.

• Water - one gallon of water per person per day for at least seven days, for drinking and sanitation (actually, I should probably double that for me because I use a lot of water)
• Food - at least a seven-day supply of non-perishable food (MREs for Betsy and Grace, 4 boxes of RFBs for Brian)
• Prescription medications
• Non-prescription medications such as pain relievers (Tylenol, aspirin, Aleve), anti-diarrhea medication, antacids, laxatives, OTC sleep aids (Melatonin), vitamins
• Pill crusher (mortar/pestle and the twisty-crusher-thingy)
• Syringes
• Syringe holders
• Extra g-tube
• Extra Lopez Valve
• Suction machine with plugs (includes plug for car)
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert
• Flashlight
• First aid kit (include Aquaphor lotion for Brian’s neck)
• Extra batteries
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags, surgical gloves, and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities (Leatherman tool)
• Manual can opener for food
• Local maps
• Cell phone with chargers and a backup battery
• Glasses
• Dog food and extra water for the dog (the birds are screwed; they annoy me anyway)
• Cash or traveler's checks
• Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records saved electronically or in a waterproof, portable container
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person
• Complete change of clothing appropriate for your climate and sturdy shoes
• Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper to disinfect water (I also have some iodine tablets)
• Fire extinguisher
• Matches in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
• Mess kits, paper cups, plates, paper towels and plastic utensils
• Blender bottles/plastic measuring cups
• Paper and pencil
• Books, games, puzzles or other activities for Grace

Do I have all this stuff? No. We have some of it, but not in one place. But now I have a list! Maybe some of you tubies out there have recommendations for improvement and if you ever manage to gather all those supplies, let me know your address, so I know where to go when I need to shamelessly mooch off you.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful for some of you. Please let me know if you have links to other helpful disaster prep sites, and consider donating to Harvey relief (even if you're reading this months after the hurricane hit)!

Traveling Tubie: Behind the Facebook Profile

Facebook is a good place to go if you want to see all the best highlights in your friends' lives. But, if you look through their profiles and believe each happy photo and amusing post isn't surrounded by several hours of boredom, misery, arguments, awkwardness, embarrassment, and desperation then you'll make yourself severely depressed believing you're the biggest loser you know.

At least that's what I tell myself.

If you're one of my Facebook friends and your life really is that awesome, then I hate you. Please post a picture of your perfect angel child vomiting on your face (I know you have one!!) so I can feel better about myself.

Even on this blog, the happy pictures and funny captions have a backstory.

We were freezing cold. Grace locked herself in our hotel bathroom.

I paid $50 for a stupid wand and I feel like an idiot.

The trip where I got a bad sunburn that ultimately led to me losing my arm.

I don't drink very often. When I do, I tend to get colds, which may turn into pneumonia.

The truth is, nobody wants to know about all the really bad stuff that happens. Just like when I say, "What's up" to some random dude at the gym, I don't really want to know about his messy divorce or the details of his latest gall bladder surgery. If I filled Facebook, or my blogs, with constant gripes about my physical ailments, then people would rapidly tune me out. This is why I try to sprinkle the bad stuff with my poor attempts at humor to make the feeding tube explosions, constant drooling, and amputations a little more palatable for the casual reader.

Our most recent trip to southwest Washington to visit my dad is no exception. For every exciting, cool picture that makes us look like a jet setting, happy-go-lucky family, there is a morass of anger and frustration simmering below the surface.

I was constantly worried about the sun on my neck

Traffic. Was. A. Nightmare.

Don't get me wrong. We had a great time in Washington and Oregon. Weather was perfect; a nice change from hot and muggy Tennessee. It was awesome seeing my sister and nephews, and letting Grace and her cousins play on the farm.

Dolly the horse is looking for my other arm

Training some future child laborers

They continued looking at the camera as they drove straight into a creek

Goonie Rocks!!!!!!!

My widowed grandmother is living with my dad now. Looking great!!

Kadin insisted on feeding me every time

We have to show the bad stuff to somebody though. I was reminded of this before dinner one night at my dad's house. I was leaned over the kitchen sink hacking up gunk that was lodged in the back of my throat.

This is a nightly ritual for me. I do it in our kitchen or in the bathroom. Usually, the amount of crud reaches a critical mass shortly before or after dinner and I start to gag on it. There's no time to make it to the bathroom to do it privately, so I end up hunched over the kitchen sink coughing it up. This is what Betsy and Grace are subjected to every evening. Sometimes, I'm forced to do it in the bathroom out at restaurants, but I try to avoid that. Nobody wants to see that stuff.

So, I finish nearly puking up a lung in my dad's kitchen. My dad quietly says "Do you do that every night?"

"Yes," I answer, "every night."

Later on, Betsy asked if I could just do it in the bathroom next time. I said no way, because I think my family and close friends should have to see the bad stuff. I'm not a big complainer, so most people have no idea about all the little, everyday struggles with my health. If you're only subjected to my Facebook profile, then you may think I'm living the dream, and every hardship is just laughed off with a corny joke. The truth is, I am living the dream. I have a great life, BUT there's a lot of shit that goes with it. There's no need for me to discuss every excruciating detail publicly. We all have our private battles with mental health, physical health, poverty, work, family, you name it. No need to talk about it with everyone we know (TMI).

However, at the same time, we have to vent to someone. I need the support of my family and close friends and to get that support, they have to understand the full extent of my health problems. I think this applies to everyone. With Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc., sometimes it's just difficult for us to get used to separating the public social media profile from our private lives.

But anyway, we had a wonderful trip to Washington!

I can count that kid's ribs!

Brave explorers journeying around the farm

Searching for crawdads with grandpa

Didn't really catch enough to make a meal

That stump is actually a slug. That's how big they get.

Brought enough Real Food Blends for lunch every day!

Bottomline, if I ever hack up a bunch of nasty looking stuff in front of you, then you should feel honored that I consider you a close enough friend to puke in your presence. That's how I show my love.

If you really loved me, you'd clean it up too.  You're welcome.

Remembrance

I've been kind of addicted to ancestry.com. You know, that site where you can build your family tree and research your ancestors, find distant cousins, discover whether anyone in your family owned slaves (yes, there are slave owners in my past, much to my shame), that sort of stuff. It gets addictive because for every relative, Ancestry gives you 'hints' that you can use like a birth certificate, census record, marriage record, or obituary that brings up more names to add to the family tree. "On May 27, 1880, Jane Doe married John Doe. Her parents are listed as William Tyler and Beatrice Grooms." OOOHHH! I didn't have their names! Let me add that to the tree! Oh, wait now there are 5 hints listed for Beatrice Grooms that point to siblings and more parents and each of those siblings was married and had 20 children. Pretty soon, the tree expands to enormous proportions when all you really set out to do was find out who your great great grandmother was. My tree has about 350 names now and I have to force myself to quit. The vast majority of names are on my father's side, because I was researching my grandparents' backgrounds a few years ago. I've also got some names on my mom's side and even Betsy's. I can see how people could just sit and spend hours at this, writing little backgrounds and timelines for each person on their tree. I've found distant cousins who spend a lot more time at this than I do. One cousin has traced our lineage all the way back to William Shakespeare. That's on my paternal grandfather's side. On my paternal grandmother's side, I'm a distant relative of President John Tyler, who is well known as being one of the worst Presidents in American history (yay!).

 

The resemblance is uncanny

All these names on Ancestry have highlighted for me what a short little blip our lives are. My great grandfather, William F. Liebenow III was born in 1882 in Wisconsin to parents who had just immigrated from Germany. All his older siblings were born in Germany. William went to a small college near Madison, joined a threshing crew that took him up the east coast until he found himself in Fredericksburg, Virginia. There, he started working for a lumber company. He fell in love with the owner's daughter, Mary Eastburn, they got married (despite the wishes of Mary's mother, who hated 'Yankees'), and had five children, one of whom was my grandfather. In another generation, William III will be just another name on a family tree. Even the limited background I know will be lost. All of my grandfather's siblings have passed away. One of his older sisters died as a child. The other two older sisters died childless about ten years ago. His younger brother, Uncle Pilly, died a few years ago. Uncle Pilly had two sons who are still alive, but they had no children. My grandfather had three grandchildren. Only my sister and I are left. In late February, much to my sorrow, my grandfather died at the age of 97. It seems there is no one left to tell their stories, and in a couple more generations, we will all just be names on a family tree with a year of birth and a year of death. Maybe a few additional notes if we're lucky.

This post took a dark turn, didn't it?

I wanted to share some thoughts I had about my grandfather.

For the first few years of his life, he lived in a farm house with his maternal grandmother. The house had no electricity or indoor plumbing. His grandmother had an African American woman who worked for her who was born a slave until she was freed after the Civil War as a teenager. The family called the woman "Aunt Susan." My grandfather followed Aunt Susan everywhere and she adored her little 'shadow' so much, she called him her 'buddy.' The name stuck, and from then on, grandpa was known as Buddy or Bud.

Bud was a hard worker, and he learned it at a young age. Times were tight during the Great Depression for the Liebenow's. Everyone was expected to earn money, since William's lumber job wasn't paying enough to cover all the bills. Bud had his first job when he was nine, selling three different magazines door-to-door, making as little as 1.5 cents for each magazine sold. From then on, Bud had a job, from working on a dairy farm, to running a paper route, to driving a lumber truck. He even had a short job distributing bootleg liqueur with some other kids during Prohibition. He remembered that one of his customers was an Episcopal minister who insisted that the alcohol be delivered through a back alley so no one would see it. Though life was hard during those years (a typical Christmas present was an orange), there was always food on the table and there were daily visits from denizens of the town's 'hobo jungle' looking for handouts to remind the family that things could always be worse.

My grandfather was tough and fearless. There was an older bully in school who "took a shine" to Bud. He led Bud up to other kids and said, "hit him," forcing grandpa to hit the other boy and start a fight. Bud recalled one fight on the playground when he knocked the other kid's head back so hard, it broke the glasses of another boy watching the fight.

Image of grandpa's first school in 1925

Bud was a boxer from high school through his years fighting in the war. He was known by fellow navy soldiers as "the fighting fool." This wasn't just for his boxing reputation, but for his fearlessness during combat. 

 

Relaxing during some downtime

On one occasion, Bud's PT 157 was escorting a Marine landing craft to a beachhead in the South Pacific when they came under attack by Japanese dive bombers. Bud quickly had his crew steer their own 80 foot, plywood PT boat away from the landing craft to draw the enemy fire away from the Marines. On another occasion, Bud's PT boat got caught between two destroyers on a dark, moonless night. They came under blistering crossfire, putting more than 50 holes along the side of their boat but miraculously, no one was hurt. The destroyers both turned because it was too dark to pinpoint the PT boat's location. Bud used the brief lull in the action to check on his crew. They discovered that one of their three engines was completely dead from enemy fire and the mechanic had to coax a second engine back to life after severe damage. Despite the damage to his ship, Bud turned the boat around, sped toward one of the retreating destroyers and scored a hit with one of his torpedoes. He was awarded the silver star for his actions that night.

 

Grandpa's in shorts, 8th from the left

After rescuing Kennedy and the crew of the PT 109 (see my blog post about it if you want his account of that night), Bud was reassigned to the European theater, where he made numerous covert runs to Normandy Beach before D-Day. On these missions, his PT 199 would pull in close to the beach and Bud and another crewman would quietly row a small dinghy to shore to get soil samples, or meet with French resistance operatives under the noses of German sentries. On D-Day, my grandfather's PT 199 escorted gun ships close to shore so they could fire on German batteries. During the invasion, the allied destroyer USS Corry struck a mine and simultaneously came under heavy fire from German artillery. The Corry sunk and Bud's PT 199 picked up more than 60 survivors during a constant barrage from the Nazi defenses. He was awarded the bronze star for his actions on D-Day.

Bud, at left, on PT 199

Grandpa epitomized the ideal of the 'Citizen Soldier.' He detested the peacetime Navy, constantly having to wear a uniform, with good sailors getting chewed out for minor rule infractions. He left the service, turned his back on war and became a railroad chemist. Other than his 1960 campaign support at various rallies in Michigan for the man he shared a tent with in the South Pacific, and his attendance at JFK's inauguration, Bud stayed out of the spotlight. He lived a quiet life with the woman who helped him through physics class when he was a senior back at Randolph Macon (my grandmother was only a freshman; she's kinda smart). They raised a daughter and son (my father). 

Showing off his first born son, 1946

My dad and Aunt Susan, sledding with their dad at their Michigan home, ~1953

After 30 years working for the railroad, the couple bought a small house on a golf course on North Carolina's Abemarle Sound. I grew up 30 minutes away, where my father worked at a paper mill. I have so many good memories of my grandparents' house on the water. Fishing with grandpa; checking the crab pots; playing tennis down the street, my complete lack of skill at golf, lazy days laying on their hammock, so many fantastic meals, courtesy of Grammy. 

Who is that adorable boy playing with his grandpa?

Compared to Grandpa's young life, mine was so privileged and I have him to thank for that.

I have such admiration for Bud Liebenow. His courage. His quiet modesty about his past. The love he had for his wife of nearly 75 years. 

Dancing at my wedding in 2002

The life lessons he taught me growing up on everything from how to sail a boat, to civic engagement are priceless to me. In the end, Bud Liebenow is a pair of dates on the family tree, 1920-2017. But like the rest of his generation, he witnessed so many changes, hardship and tumultuous days. The Great Depression, World War II, the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, seeing a son through two tours in Vietnam, Watergate, losing a grandson to cancer, 9/11, technological changes from commercial flight to smart phones. He met all challenges with quiet fortitude. Like any boxer, when he suffered setbacks, he picked himself up and kept fighting. We all lost something the day this man died.

Grace's favorite photo of grandpa

Bud and Lucy, March 2016