Terry Potter

I'd like to write a long tribute to Terry. I've had a lot of thoughts fly in and out of my head about Terry Potter the last couple of days as we paid deserving tribute with his calling hours last night and the funeral service today (we brought the kids to the funeral, serving as a distraction). He was a wonderful friend to my husband, serving as a business cohort and a buddy, too. A true bromance...I called Terry (often teasingly called Harry Potter) Todd's work wife.

He relapsed almost a year ago. But he rarely acted sick, even making phone calls about parts from his hospital bed as he recovered from his transplant. He was determined to try everything to beat his lymphoma and I believed he would at least fend it off longer. I was caught off guard when he took a sudden turn for the worse.

Father's Day...he had his daughter make this cake. He talked us into the fair...which the kids loved...with his grandson Ethan, the light of his life. We went twice...Adam got his Uncle Terry to buy him dinosaurs. Dinosaurs that Adam insisted on sleeping with for the first time tonight...makes me wonder how much kids realize. He made me feel at home from the minute I met him. I was once in a truck with him for 5 or so hours following Todd driving a garbage truck back from New Jersey. I came back from that trip knowing more about Terry's family than Todd :) Like my father, he was a talker.

One of my favorite memories of him is five minutes after his son Jake said "I do" he was back in his overalls. He always wore them. Also, him swimming with us in the pool this past summer. And he loved Canale's clam sauce. Last January for his birthday I offered to make him some. And I did. We had the whole family over.

The last time I was at his house, we took a ride in the rhino (the golf cart), something he loved to do with Ethan and Adam and finally Abbey, too. She was so tired from having fun she was actually being lulled to sleep by the motion. He told me that spending time with those you care about was what it was all about. That Todd worked so hard for his family but knew he'd be there when it counted. That he had missed some stuff with his kids when he was working, but he wanted to give them the best.

And talking to his three kids these last two days, it's obvious he did. They love and miss him, mourning their father, gone too soon at 55.

I guess I did find a few words after all. I am having a hard time finding sleep tonight.