Mom

It makes me so happy that your dad's life is being celebrated. So many happy memories. Jesus was number one in his life. His Love for all of you and me was a blessing to us all. He loved making all of us laugh. "What are those white things in your head that bite?"😃. Happy 100th birthday sweetheart.💞

Mom, that was the memory Caleb Painter shared about dad asking him that the first time they met and Dad laughing so hard at Caleb because he got him. Caleb said it wasn't until he got to bed that night that he realized the answer was your teeth! (Bonnie)

Here is another story. One of many. One time when we went to Steve's he had one of his heart episodes. This was during the world series time. We went to the hospital and as usual they kept him. During the admission they said he would be in intensive care. The nurse asked him how he felt about that. He said "That's fine. I just need to get home for the game". I loved it.😃

Bonnie

Dear Daddy,

If you were still on this earth with us, we would be celebrating your 100 year birthday together. Instead, you are with your Heavenly Father celebrating your best life ever and we are here remembering and missing you so much!

About a month ago now, I was making an apple crisp for a Sunday lunch after church. When I was all finished and cleaning up, I put the extra apples in a basket on my kitchen counter. As I was doing so a memory of you unexpectedly flooded my mind and heart. It was about the time you had somehow gotten a ton of apples from someone who owned a bunch of different varieties of apple trees. I don't know how you got them, but I now it was a very good deal. It seemed as though someone told you, if you came and picked them, you could have all you wanted. I think you spent days picking apples and in my memory our garage was filled with crates and crates of them. I still remember the smell of them and how please and proud you were of the treasure you had gathered.

What flooded my memory that Sunday was how you would bring a few of the biggest, reddest apples you could find into the house and wash and polish them to their greatest luster and beauty. I remember you showing their beauty to me with great joy and delight. As a young girl, I didn't quite understand the big deal about some red shiny apples but I did recognize the joy they were obviously bringing to you. As I put my own not so big, red, or beautiful apples in my basket on my counter and remembered how much you loved fall and apples and a very good deal, I missed you terribly.

In that moment, I realized that what I missed above all was your love for life and for all God's daily good gifts to you, that filled you with a consistant and contagious joy.

It has now been almost six years since you left our lives, but this memory has flooded my mind and heart with and intense longing for your presence in our lives again. I've been remembering and grieving you more frequently these past few weeks. As I remember, I realize what a good father you were because you taught me what is good and what I should love. You did this by simply loving all your Heavenly Father's daily good gifts to you.

Dad, you seemed to find joy in every moment, and every beautiful tree, in every meal, flower, snowfall, and every bird, dog, fish, bunny, and every sunrise, sunset, child or friend, in every beautiful piece of music, or massive roaring fire you built. The list of your loves is endless because the list of your Heavenly Father's loves and good gifts are endless too.

Thank you Daddy for loving and delighting in our mom, in us, our children, and grandchildren. And thank you for delighting in your Heavenly Father and showing us His love for us and the joy that can be ours if we too live a life in fellowship with Him and filled with gratitude for all His good gifts, especially the gift of salvation and resurrection which assures us we will see you again and together, around the throne of God, we will know a fullness of joy in God's presence that is beyond our comprehension here on this earth.

You are experiencing this today and until we are there with you, may we be comforted knowing, your joy isn't gone, but is complete and for those of us who embrace all you taught us about life and Christ we can experience a foretaste of that joy today and the fullness of it for all eternity!

Thank you Daddy for the good gift you continue to be to me! I love and miss you so much! Happy one hundred years! It's only the beginning!

Love,

Your daughter Bonnie

I made chili and baked potatoes and a cherry pie and cobbler and all our local children are celebrating with us! Thanks for sharing the memories!

Seth

A memory of Grandpa Griffin. One summer trip to Middleville, I was probably around eight or ten, we had gone fishing down the road and as would sometimes happen, turtles were involved. One of us had hooked into a snapping turtle and somehow it didn't break off. Instead Grandpa netted it. This was a big one! Probably almost a foot across. Once we had it on land there was the bigger question of what do we do with it now? Grandpa was determined that he was going to get the hook out of the snapper's mouth. He reached at it with pliers, but the snapper was so fast it lunged at him and got ahold of his thumb. I don't know how or why it let go, but I do remember Grandpa bleeding a bit and everyone laughing about it later!

Sue

Here is a little memory of Dad I want to share. Just to show he still had his sense of humor nearly to the end. Christmas Day 2018 Dad went to the hospital from Maple Lawn after aspirating juice. They wanted him to do a swallow study before allowing him liquids to drink. But because of the holiday there was no therapist to conduct the study for a day or two( I'm not sure exactly). And boy was he thirsty! Bonnie stopped by the hospital on her way back from Ohio, I think, and had a gift for him . Remember when she was asking everyone to do the mix tiles pictures for his room? She was the only one that got around to doing it. Well she had her chunky package of maybe six pictures and she said " Dad, I have a gift for you" . To which he replied " I hope it's a gallon jug of water"!! I still chuckle when I recall that. Little did we know he would be gone shortly after the new year. We love and miss you Dad

Tim

That is a great story Sue. Josiah, Ryan, and Tabitha surprised me tonight with Liz's sneeky help. We are having dinner all together to remember dad and celebrate his birthday. We also have lit up homemade luminaries. I will never forget coming home to Middleville for Christmas one year and he had lined the driveway with luminaries he made with empty milk jugs. We have ours lit around our patio fire pit. I'll send pictures later. Later we are headed to Wendy's for fries and frostys in his memory. We love you dad. My heart aches that you will not get to meet our first grandchild in this life, but know you will meet someday. Ryan said that I carry on the kind of love dad had for kids. Thank you for loving us unconditionally.

A Few Moments Later...

We are all at Wendy's. We came here the first birthday after dad passed, and now for his 100th birthday. We had dinner together at home, a birthday cake, luminaries outside, shared a ton of stories and laughs together, and are ending our night together at Wendy's. Liz will send some pictures later. Been a good day.

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