A great loss

Friends and family,

Many of you know why we have been delinquent in our blogging and activities lately, some do not.

Peter's father, John Howell, suddenly died of a massive heart attack on Thursday, Nov 20th. He was at home with Joellyn and a very dear friend when it happened.

Enjoying family is something that we don't do enough of, and something that we regret not doing enough of when they are no longer here. This last week Brooke and I lost my father suddenly. However, we were all together the day before and the day he passed away. In our own way we got to say good bye and I love you.

For those of you who didn't know my dad, he was a man who would befriend you in minutes and from that moment on you would have a special connection with him that no one else would have. After seeing all of his friends that have come into town the last several days, I realized that my father had something in common with everyone. If you got to sit down and meet him you would soon have your very own part of John Howell that no one else would ever have. He could find that special thing about you, and become part of it.

After listening to people stories this last week about dad and things they remember, I saw that each person shared a bit of my father that perhaps none of us had ever seen. Some a childhood, others the war, many a martini, for us it was a family, for friends of his there is a link that I will never know. He had a part of everyone in him and he was a part of everyone.

It is funny, but this is the thing I noticed the most the night I arrived at Mom and Dads the night he died. There were many people in the room that one night, some of them knew him others did not, none the less everyone there it seemed felt my father in a way that only they could feel.

I always thought that my father would be a man who will never be forgotten by those that knew him. I know now that I was right. I look forward now to the days when I will be walking with my wife and child, down a street , in the airport, or a school, and someone will recognize me and know that I am John Howells son, and they will tell me about that special thing that my father meant to them.

His passion was people, my father was what we call a crowd man. He loved to bring a crowd together. If you have been in these crowds and many of you have, you would know that his specialty was the cooking, his satisfaction was listening to the crowd and his pleasure was the fact that he got all these people together to sit and talk. Sometimes he was involved in the conversation with his martini, other times cooking. My father could always build a crowd.

For his memorial/thanksgiving this is what we did. I want to thank everyone for coming. I know that Dad would have been smiling down on us this Thanksgiving. We had over 7o people come from the 4 corners of the U.S. to say good bye to my father. It was truly a crowd to remember.

Thank all of you for coming, and thank all of you for remembering my father.

Thank you Dad, we love you

you can read his best friend Ron's words here