Boozdo

Today was hard.

I lost one of my favorite uncles.

Well, they're all my favorite.

But this one was hard.

It's almost as hard as when I lost my cousin, Daniel.

Granted, I haven't been to the funeral yet.. so we'll see.

Boozdo was an incredible man.

He was so kind and wanted to help as many people as he possibly could.

He was in the National Guard and was a volunteer firefighter.

He's the funniest man I know.

I miss him so much already.

Boozdo was scary when I was little..

Not because he was mean or anything.

Just because he was SO TALL.

AND if I didn't give him a hug he'd give me a wedgie.

Seriously.

Even when he was getting sick I knew that would be the case.

Boozdo suffered from Diabetes.

It led to him becoming blind.

I know he would still bump around the house to give me a wedgie to this day.

I never missed a hug. I knew, even at the age of 21 I was not excluded from a wedgie.

Boozdo liked to give names to everyone in the family.

My cousin Christi is Fritty Jo

His sister is Cookie.

One of my cousins is Taz.

Me? I was peanut butt because I was so little.

My cousins Ashley and McKell were Cracker Ass.

Then when I got a little older I was promoted to Cracker Ass.

He still calls me that to this day.

A typical conversation would go:

"Hi Boozdo!"

*Me walking over to give him a hug*

"Cracker Ass?" He'd say.

Boozdo had been not super well for a while.

Then on wednesday he took a bad turn.

Turns out he had had a massive heart attack -- one big enough to damage the entire bottom part of his heart.

For a while he was having his heart pumped for him by balloons.

Then he started to get better.... a little.

He was off the balloons and they were getting ready to take him off of oxygen.

Then he got worse and they think he had a stroke.

This lead to a tough decision.

But one that was fair to him.

My aunt is a strong woman and she prayed for the right answer to come to him.

Boozdo had been in a lot of pain for a long time.

It was time for him to go.

So he was sent up to God today.

I feel like Boozdo was with me a few days ago and he was telling me everything was going to be okay.

He was ready for whatever had to happen.

It's a shame he had to go the way he did.

But I know he's in a better place.

A place where he can see us.

Where he can really see us, where he can watch his grandchildren grow and watch the rest of the family grow into old farts.

A place where he's not in any more pain and he's healthy.

I'll miss his humor.

One thing that never went when his eyesight did was his sense of humor.

Case in point: Boozdo was talking to a family member on the phone one day and my mom didn't want them to know she was in town.

So my mom wrote on a piece of paper for Boozdo to not tell the family member she was there.

Then she realized he couldn't see.

This led to all of us almost wetting our pants with laughter.

After Boozdo got off the phone, we told him what had happened.

His response, "Are you kidding me?! Geez, Karen."

Pretty sure he teased her about that one for a while.

He was a great man.

Things are going to be a lot more quiet around the house without him.

One thing that will change drastically is him belching and the entire family yelling "McCados!!"

It's a family thing. You wouldn't understand. (:

Rest in peace, Boozdo.

You will be missed terribly.

You already are.

I hope you're having fun up there partying with the rest of the family.

Nana, Papa, Big E, Randy, Dee, Grandpa Gross, and all the others.

Send them our love.

We'll see you on the other side.

Xoxoxox