He loved

I have never known somebody who made so many people feel special.

He would get excited when he saw me and usually make some sort clever remark and I always felt loved and special. I have admit I felt like a favorite, but in reality he did not just do that to me, but he did it to many.

He was the old guy on a tiny campus bursting with energy and craziness.

Monday through Friday we had classes and if we had classes we also had coffee break. Not sure where that tradition of my school started, but it was certainly helpful to breakfast skippers.

Jerry would pull up to campus in his red pick up. He would go and sit at his same table and if anyone dared to sit in his seat well they would know the wrath of Jerry. His chair might as well have had his name engraved on it.

A man not afraid to speak his mind, which often made us roll with laughter and sometimes blush.

He poked fun at us and we eagerly poked fun back in return.

He had the audacity to say that my apple pie was better than his wife's, which I couldn't quite believe, but the flattery warmed me anyway. I never minded saving him leftover blueberry muffins from breakfast. He would tease me about finding a man to cook for and I would blush with embarrassment.

He was to me a grandfather. I grew up without really ever knowing any of my grandfathers, so that was really special to me to know Jerry.

But this just isn't my story. I don't know how many countless other people could tell the same story of the care Jerry showed for them.

Over the years Jerry said hello and goodbye to countless students, yet even though getting to know a new crop of students was strange Jerry never stopped coming to coffee.

He never let the exhausting act of pouring out love stop him from getting to know people. He was an active member of his church body, loving people there too.  I can't get over that example.

We were crazy young people and Jerry didn't mind being crazy right along with us.

I think about the way Jerry's face would light up when he saw his friends and I think I want all my friends to feel respected, loved, and cherished just as Jerry did to me.

I write in the past tense because Jerry is now with his Savior. I'm sure Jerry's face is beaming. Jerry loved a good time and while I ache at such a sudden loss I know that because of Christ Jerry has lost nothing in his death, but has gained eternity.

Thankful to have been blessed so deeply by such a man.