Happy Birthday, Grandpa Bud. Well, I made it on time this year. I know I forget to post every single year, but on the times that I did, I was usually a day late. My bad. You’re lucky you don’t live in this day and age, Grandpa. This world has gone crazy. People are different. Children are different. Life is different. I don’t even like it. I think of you often, and I still have the very same picture of you in the very same frame that I bought with my babysitting money when I was just a young girl, sitting right here in my living area, where I can see it every day. I truly believe you are finally resting in peace and I am so so happy for you. I just want to ask you to please wait for me. It’s been 23 years almost since I found you, but that puts me 23 years closer to being with you. Please take good care of my baby girl, Miss Scarlet, and give my momma a kiss from JoJo and please tell daddy and her how much I miss them and I can’t wait to see them also. I cannot wait to see that gentle smile of yours and hear your soft voice. I think I have pictured it all a million times over. I hope you have a wonderful day and a joyous reunion with all our loved ones on your special day. I just can’t wait till I am there to share it with you. I love you more than you’ll ever know. Forever in my heart. Your beloved granddaughter, Jo Layne AKA JoJo

Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I'm a day late, as usual, but I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten you and I still miss you and love you very much. One of these days I will get around to making you a birthday cake like Momma did so many times during the years you were missing. I hope to be seeing you as soon as the good Lord lets me. Love JoJo

Hi Grandpa Bud. I meant to say something yesterday and I just completely forgot about it. I wish you were here, and because I'm going through so much and I have nobody. I just wish you were here to talk to and maybe help me or just to sit with me awhile and let me hug you and you hug me, because we've never gotten to do that before. You went missing before I was born and I wanted you so badly in my life and always hoped you would come back. Grandma just wasn't a grandma and she didn't care anything about any of us kids and I had no grandparents and I was so jealous when all my school friends would be excitingly scooping up their stuff on Friday to go see their grandparents and I didn't have any to go see. I just wish things hadn't of been the way they were, but I understand if that's the life you had to live. I would give anything to go to your grave there in California, but I just don't have the money. But if I had a whole lot of money, I would have you brought back to Texas where you belong. My eyesight is going and the light is blinding to me, so I basically just have to sit here in this apartment by myself with no lights on and I can't see the TV unless I close one eye and even then it's difficult. I'm sorry to have to say all these things to you when I should be more uplifted, but I'm just not right now, because I guess I'm just so scared and that you had just hung around another year and waited for me to be born, I think you would have loved me and I know for sure that I would have adored you. The mama told me so much about you that I feel like I know everything about you and I would give anything to hear that soft gentle kind voice and all I can do now is look forward to heaven and hope that you are waiting there with mama and daddy. Going to go now, but I pray that you are resting in peace now that you have been found and I will always believe that you were just waiting for me to grow up and hold to the promise that I had made as a young teen that I would grow up someday and find you and I never make a promise I don't intend to keep. But it wasn't just that. So much time had passed and mama was getting older and it was time to find you for her and I wanted to know too because I love you so much and always wanted to know where you were and although I knew I wasn't going to find you alive, I did have hope in my heart then I would. I love you grandpa so very much and I will try to talk to you more often, but if I don't, it's just that I'm having a very hard time these days holding the phone with two hurt arms but only one of them needs to have surgery because it has a torn rotator cuff. But I think the other arm is hurting now simply because the one with a torn rotator cuff cuff wants a friend, so now it's just keeping me in misery, but I will survive like I always have because I'm a fighter. Again, I love you so very much and please tell Mom and Daddy how much I love and miss them too and please be waiting there for me when I get there. I hope to talk to you soon. I love you Grandpa, so very very much. JoJo

Happy Birthday, Grandpa! I'm so sorry I'm a day late. But as the saying goes, "It's better late than never." I pray you had a great celebration, with Momma, Uncle Billy, great grandma, Mattie, and all those that you loved so dearly. I wish I could've known Great Grandma Mattie, also, Grandpa, and I'm so happy you're with her now. I wish I could be there with you all, but God just won't let me right now. I always cry when I write you, but I'm sure you know that. I think so often of you and cry every time I do. But, I'm still keeping to my promise to forever advocate for missing people, just not as often as I used to. It just hurts so much to know how much pain and desperation their loved ones are going through. I want so much to find them all for them, but I finally realized I'm not God. Just like with you, God has a planned day and time. I hate to think that like Momma, they may spend 40 years or more going through what she did. I just have to put my trust in Him and hope it doesn't take that long and that He will comfort and be there for them during their time of that haunting "not knowing". You surely knew how much it affected me. But after 25 years I just couldn't wait anymore. I'm still so thankful that because of my faith and trust in God, along with my hard headed determination, God allowed me to find you in just 3 months of searching. He knew I wasn't giving up even if it killed me. And, I promised you when you came to me in church when you asked me, I would not give up on you. Well, enough of that. I have no doubt you were with me the entire time. My picture of you will never leave it's place since Momma gave it to me at a very young age. It will forever remind me, that I promised then that someday I would find you. To this day, I still can't recall, breaking a promise that I knew I would definitely keep. I'll go now, Grandpa Bud. Daddy already did, but will you promise you'll wait for me, too? I miss you so much and I've waited so long to finally meet you. I love you so much, I always have, and always will. That's a promise. Please tell Momma and Daddy I miss them so much, too. Forever the grandchild that loved you so much, JoJo.

It's hard to believe you've been gone 47 years. When I found you, it felt strange that you had still been alive the 1st 4 years of my life. To think you were out there, not knowing you had a granddaughter that would adore you so much. I always knew I didn't have a grandfather, I just never thought about it nor questioned why. When Momma told me at about 14 years old and gave me that picture of you in you in uniform, I wanted to know more. After Momma told me you were missing, I promised myself I would find you someday. Through the years, I somehow felt that you knew the promise I had made. I know you did. I'll love you forever, Grandpa. I'll talk to you soon. JoJo

Here's a yellow rose from Texas, Grandpa. If God be willing, one day i'll bring your earth vehicle home to be buried here in our National Cemetary. Full honors and the whole caboot. This time with your family in attendance, instead of "No relatives located." I love you, Grandpa Bud. I always have and i always will. But, i have a pretty good idea you've always known that...JoJo