Benjy's tribute to Jonny at the memorial service in Anaheim, CA

One of my favorite memories of Jonny, happened when he was about 7 years old. My parents went to the redwood forest and had brought home a souvenir. It was a solid redwood paddle. On the face of the paddle were the words, “board of education.” Well, one day Jonny and I had just received an “education” and my backside was still stinging a little. I went down to my room and I passed our basement door and noticed that the door was open with the light on. I popped my head inside and heard a digging noise interspersed with some crying. I looked to the far back of the basement where there was nothing but hard dirt and I saw Jonny squatting down and digging a hole with a small hand shovel. I said, “Jonny what are you doing?” and he held up the paddle and said, “I’m burying this thing once and for all.” As any good brother should have done, I managed to keep that secret and to this day it is probably still buried there.

3 ½ years ago he became “Uncle Jonny” to our little boy Gavin . Jonny is “Uncle Jonny” to 3 nieces and 3 nephews: Jesse and Shawna’s 4 kids (Kylee 11yrs, Tyler 9 yrs, Katie 7 yrs and Hannah 5 years) and our 2 boys (Gavin 3 ½ and Brody 1 year). They all adore him. He was absolutely made for this role because he was such a big kid at heart. He loved toys and cartoons and Count Dracula cereal. Anytime he came to visit he found time and an excuse to take Gavin to Toys R Us. When Gavin was 2 he brought him his first G.I. Joes and Jonny (and myself for that matter) were so excited to teach him the names of each character. Snake Eyes and Roadblock became new terms in our house. Then, when Jonny and I saw Gavin’s excitement we somehow ended up back at Toys R Us to pick out even more GI Joes. Jonny would get so excited about giving the kids their Christmas and birthday presents- the foot long plastic dinosaurs, the Batman car and figurine, the Elmo guitar. You could see by the twinkle in his eye that he was reliving his childhood all over again. One of his best friends and roommates, Jeremy, just told me that Jonny would pick out the gift he wanted to get Gavin, bring it home to show Jeremy and then go back the next day to get the same thing for himself. It was so special as a dad to have someone so excited to play with my boys.

We loved our visits and always wished we had more time whenever we parted ways.

Just this past Thursday (five days after Jonny passed) Erin and I came back from Medford where we said goodbye to Jonny. We were so sad. We haven’t told Gavin what is going on. He’s just so young to deal with this yet. We hadn’t even said anything about Uncle Jonny that day but he was on Gavin’s mind none the less.
Gavin and I were playing Chutes and Ladders. He loves to start by divi-ing out the game pieces. Gavin is always the yellow haired boy. The yellow haired girl is always reserved for mommy and I am usually assigned to be the African American boy--we both have dark hair. As he held up the one game piece left he said “Uncle Jonny can be this girl” Then, without missing a beat he said, “But he’s not here, but that’s OK-we can play FOR him”.

He’ll never know the depth of what that statement meant to Erin and I.
So, Jonny, even though you aren’t here, we will always play for you until we see you again. I will do everything I can to keep your memory alive and teach my boys about who you were every chance I get. I will make sure to teach them the three things that you really excelled at: laughter, loyalty, and always choosing to love first. Thank you for all the fun memories.