My Father's Awesomeness

Spoke to my better half's mom today, and she mentioned that at her first gathering with my family at my relative's place--where she didn't know anyone else but my better half and myself, and (barely), my father--he bought her a small box of chocolates and wrapped it up, and put her name on it, just so she got at least one thing there from somebody and didn't feel too much like a stranger spending a holiday at someone else's place.  (She and my better half and I had exchanged gifts already at my place.)

The point: That's how awesome my father was.  He thought of everyone else, and of the little things they may feel.  Who thinks about how the girlfriend's mother will feel at my relative's place?  He did.  And so here are a just a few other things that show my father's awesomeness:

--He visited our tax advisor with boxes and boxes of paper and envelopes, of all sizes.  She makes her living with these things, so they're like gold to her.  When she told me this recently, she couldn't stop crying, explaining how much she'd liked him and how nice he'd been to her.  "Who thinks of his tax advisor?" she cried.

--A guy he bought train parts from spoke to me for maybe half an hour about how nice he was, and about how he'd miss him.

--His landscaper speaks to me constantly about how kind he was to him on several occasions.

--The across-the-street neighbors tell me all the time about how he got their mail, collected their paper from the driveway, and either shoveled their driveway himself or paid the landscaper to do it.  (These neighbors are in their 80s.)

I could give a ton more examples, but you get the picture by now.  My father was awesome.  It can be explained in one word: Kindness.

He was a gentleman.  Rare these days.