I would like this opportunity to tell everyone about a salty navy man. No, I'm not speaking of Admiral Akbar. This is actually about my wife's grandfather, Chief Boesmans Mate Don Stone. He became one with the Force today a little after noon (Mountain Time).

My wife and I both came out to Colorado in part because the step didn't seem so big because we had her grandparents here to help us out. the two of them went out of their way to help us through our settling in period. Especially to me whom they treated as if I was blood relation. A year later (soon after our daughter was born) we lost her grandmother Joann. Now three and a half years later we lose Don. He has been in poor health for along time but he always seemed to bounce back and keep on going. This time he didn't. He had been a heavy smoker most of his life and had both emphezima and lung cancer. The emphezima is what actually killed him, slowly drowning in his own lungs. He went into the hospital a month and a half ago and from there was sent to a nursing home until he improved and could go home. This being the third time he had done this we didn't think much of it. We should have. At a point when we had no thought of his dying my wife had gone over to his house to check the mail and was greeted at the front door by what her only guess was her grandmother. He kept getting progressively worse in the last month.

My wife had spent most of the last week wearily sitting beside him. He had slipped into a coma two nights ago. The same night he told her he loved her for the last time and also the same night he had told her that Joann and others were waiting for him. Motioning across the room and giving kisses to people not physically there. She knew it was close this morning but she was so tired and came home briefly to rest. He had told her he didn't want to die alone but given the evidence I know he didn't. I don't think my wife really had realized how much she would feel his passing. For the last two years she had been his power of attorney and had a lot of stress related to it.

I am going to miss his stories the most. Don had joined the navy at the tail end of WWII, serving in Guam. As he tells it he was assigned dead body detail which he got out of by bribing an officer with some booze he had found on the island. He also served in the Korean War and retired from the service in the 60's. He and a couple of friends raced stock cars in the Denver area along with several small businesses that he ran over the years in various locations. He had some low points in his life but made it through. Cars were his passion and he had a '48 chevy he rebuilt and restored that will go to my father-in-law. It's really sweet to ride in.

The hardest part will be when my daughter inevitably asks to go see Gran'pa Don and won't understand why she can't. She loved him dearly as did he to her. She always wanted to go see him. She's so young that she will probably not remember most of the details, but was around him enough that she will remember being around him.

I doubt this has done justice to the love and respect I had for the man. Hopefully a drawing I have planned will do just that in a way personal to me. Until then I ask everyone out there to join me in a salute to an old sailor and a good man. Your stories have just begun. May the Force be with you!

"All things must pass" - George Harrison