Bye, Jangles

Frankie and Grampa Jimmy at this past Thanksgiving

There was no bigger fan of Frankie's blog than Frankie's Grampa Jimmy. He would check every day to see if I made a new entry. If I did--he always had a positive comment for me. If I didn't-- he wanted to know when I was going to write one. We spent a lot of time with Jimmy and Frankie loved and cherished every minute. So did Jimmy. He would drop anything for her...even a Pistons or Red Wings game, and I defy you to find me a bigger sports fanatic than Jimmy. Although he
saw Frankie quite often, he never got enough of her so frequent phone calls and blog check-ins helped fill the gaps on days he was not with us.

Unfortunately, he is no longer with us at all.

We lost Jimmy, very unexpectedly, on January 18th. We were not prepared and we had no idea it was coming. It just came, and now Grampa Jimmy is gone. We were robbed of one of the greatest, kindest, sweetest men this earth will ever know and we all miss him terribly.

It has been said that over 700 people showed up for Jimmy's funeral. Everyone, EVERYONE liked Jimmy. When I showed Frankie his obituary picture and asked "who is that?" Frankie exclaimed "Gampa!" It is very important to me that Frankie remembers her Grampa's happy face, how special he was, and how lucky we were to have him in our lives.

I said a few words at his funeral and I hope that when Cody publishes this installment of blog entries for Frankie, the words will help preserve her Grampa Jimmy's memory:

When my mom called me on Saturday to let me know that Jimmy was in ICU, I instantly started preparing for the worst. My initial thoughts went to my mom. My mom and Jimmy had the best marriage ever. What was SHE going to do if he didn't make it? They did everything together from running our family business to Saturdays at Trader Joes. My mom...I was so worried about my mom. It didn't, however, take long for me to abandon my mother's prospective situation because I suddenly realized I had something else to concern myself with: ME. It was, after all, Jimmy who always said: "It's Robyn's world--the rest of us just live in it."

If something happened to Jimmy, what would happen to ME?

This man was not like a father to me, he WAS a father to me. What in the world was I supposed to do without Jimmy?

I have spent almost every day for the past 10 years with Jimmy. We worked together, we had lunch together-- we even liked each other enough to do social things together not because we had to, but because we WANTED to. He loved hanging out at my house playing with Frankie, watching sports with Cody, or giving Floyd doggie treats he did not need that he thought I didn't know about.

We spent a lot of time with my mom and Jimmy because they were fun. Jimmy made everything fun. Holidays, road trips, fundraisers--even my mom was more fun (not that you're not fun, Mom, but well, you're not "Jimmy fun.") Yes, we bickered off and on, but we never once had a fight outside of our OSU/UofM rivaly which was just stupid because... well, I'm not going to slam Jimmy's team because he's not here to defend them but I'll just say 42-7 and be done with it.

I wish I could say that Jimmy made me a better person, but he didn't. He loved me, embraced me and laughed at me for EXACTLY who I am, and to me--that is even better. I recently started seeing him do the same for my daughter, Frankie. He and my mom babysat for Frankie quite a bit and I always loved coming home to hear his commentary from his evening with my girl.

I realized the last time they babysat that Jimmy was starting to talk about Frankie the same way he would talk about me, with love in his heart and pride in his eyes. He was also very excited about Kid 2 coming in June and I'm so SO sad that she is is going to miss out on knowing how warm and amazing her grandpa was...but at least she'll never have to know just how hard it is to lose him.

Bye, Jimmy Angles. We miss you terribly.