We lost my grandfather, Thomas Earl Kennedy, last night, one day after his 83rd birthday and after a hard fought battle to come back from a stroke he had last week. He wasn’t just my grandfather; he was my dad.

I had a lot of men in my life growing up—my actual father, my uncles, my Hughie, but Poppy was extra special. He was a TV repair man and ran his own business. I was his constant companion, going on service calls with him and my uncle while my mom and grandmother worked.

We were always together. I want to remember everything: His jingly pockets, always full with change, a pen, and a handkerchief. He was picky about his pen, and if you asked to borrow it, you had to give it back right away.

The garage was his workshop, stacked high with old TVs, picture tubes, boxes full of wires and fuses, gadgets, and other random TV parts. His scrawled handwriting on yellow legal pads.

Lotto tickets upon Lotto tickets and legal pads documenting years’ worth of numbers he’d played, trying to find a way to game the system, but never winning that jackpot. He promised me a Corvette if he ever won. He shaved every day like it was a religion.

I never saw him with stubble until he was much older and ill. He drank tomato juice with salt in it. He read The Miami Herald every morning when I was growing up.

He was my alarm clock through my senior year of high school, and until middle school, he made me a cup of chocky milk every morning in a plastic Mickey cup that was totally destroyed by the time we retired it.

One time I’d been snooping around my uncle’s room and came back out to the kitchen. I said, “Poppy,” in my sweet baby voice, and then I shot a flare gun at him; it ricocheted off the ceiling and landed behind the fridge, setting it on fire.

He called me honey bunny, stinky, and stinker. He took me for Slush Puppies and candy at the Farm Store every day after picking me up from preschool. He had bad taste in beer and drank Schlitz for years. Eventually, he upgraded to Rolling Rock.

He loved Notre Dame football and knew the fight song by heart. He hated chicken, which my grandmother refused to accept all the way ‘til the end. Things he did love: spaghetti (so much spaghetti), Limburger cheese, kielbasa, corned beef and cabbage.

Sometimes for lunch he’d make us Kennedy special: pasta, tomato juice, butter, salt and pepper. I’m not gonna lie and tell you it was terrible. He was the most stubborn human on the entire planet and, god, was he cheap. He was the king of the dad joke, and also the blonde joke.

He came to all my music recitals—and there were many over the years. He hated when you’d change the radio station in the car. For years, it was country; one day, he switched to oldies and never went back. He kept all of my grade school art for years and years.

He hated it when he learned I was gay, but he always loved me, and he loved the family I built, too. In his later years, he had the TV tuned to the news, always: he’d watch CNN or MSNBC all day, then Hardball and Maddow.

He was a lifelong Democrat, but a moderate, and he loved Mayor Pete.

He taught me to value my education, to work hard, to be honest, to care about the world I live in. He’s so much of the good in me (and some of the less good, too—thanks for your hot head, sir).

He will always be one of my great loves, and I’m grateful I got nearly 37 years with him, but I would give almost anything to bring him back. I’m lucky that I can see him in Theo, so I’ll always have that extra piece of him.

I miss him so much already, and my heart feels irreparably broken.

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