He was the big man next door when I was a little girl, a giant in my eyes who towered over my entire family, and who had to duck whenever he entered our home with his gentle strength. His hands were so huge that when I was tiny, I could have almost worn his wedding ring for a bracelet. That was before I knew him, but not my family.
We weren't always next door to the Smiths. In fact, compared to the time we've known them now, those years when we could walk thirty or so steps to each other's doors were relatively few. But they have always been and will always be our neighbors. The ancient white house, now on the other side of a fence and owned by two people since they moved, will always be theirs.
Bobbie was exactly whom you would want your neighbor to be. An open smile, a firm handshake that could swallow your own, and a perfect willingness to help: these were his trademarks. He loved to laugh, and when he did, even his chuckle would fill the room with the deep sounds of his voice. No opportunity for a pun was passed over, and as I learned what they were, we would trade them back and forth like cards.
He could speak to children, he understood them, and he loved them. I never had the opportunity to be his student in school or to have him as my coach, but no one I have ever met that was in his class or on his team has ever said he was anything but the best they ever had. I would have traded a few I had for him in a heartbeat.
He loved to bake, especially his eponymous Bobbie Bread, delicious and brown and warm and unbeatable fresh from the oven. He loved to work, especially out side and with his hands. Whether it was gardening or mowing the back yard, cutting up the mint over the leach field. You could smell for days when Bobbie had mowed the yard. He gave service more willingly than almost anyone, and he gave love. He stood by what he believed without fail, and always with love.
I speak in the past tense because these are my memories, but Bobbie lives on. He has finally gone home, having enduring his trials, and I know after giving his all. The world has lost one of its greatest men, the kind you're lucky to know one of in a lifetime. I was blessed to know Bobbie Smith as the big man next door.
We weren't always next door to the Smiths. In fact, compared to the time we've known them now, those years when we could walk thirty or so steps to each other's doors were relatively few. But they have always been and will always be our neighbors. The ancient white house, now on the other side of a fence and owned by two people since they moved, will always be theirs.
Bobbie was exactly whom you would want your neighbor to be. An open smile, a firm handshake that could swallow your own, and a perfect willingness to help: these were his trademarks. He loved to laugh, and when he did, even his chuckle would fill the room with the deep sounds of his voice. No opportunity for a pun was passed over, and as I learned what they were, we would trade them back and forth like cards.
He could speak to children, he understood them, and he loved them. I never had the opportunity to be his student in school or to have him as my coach, but no one I have ever met that was in his class or on his team has ever said he was anything but the best they ever had. I would have traded a few I had for him in a heartbeat.
He loved to bake, especially his eponymous Bobbie Bread, delicious and brown and warm and unbeatable fresh from the oven. He loved to work, especially out side and with his hands. Whether it was gardening or mowing the back yard, cutting up the mint over the leach field. You could smell for days when Bobbie had mowed the yard. He gave service more willingly than almost anyone, and he gave love. He stood by what he believed without fail, and always with love.
I speak in the past tense because these are my memories, but Bobbie lives on. He has finally gone home, having enduring his trials, and I know after giving his all. The world has lost one of its greatest men, the kind you're lucky to know one of in a lifetime. I was blessed to know Bobbie Smith as the big man next door.
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