He was the only man I ever wanted and he was taken from me by lung cancer that spread through his body.  He was a quiet man that was generally not very social, but when he decided to make you his friend that was it, you always knew he was there for you. He would do anything for anyone and ask for nothing in return.  Even while undergoing chemo, he was across the road helping to renovate a neighbors home with other neighbors. There are very few men with the strength, humor, character and determination that he had.  He was my hero and I miss him everyday.

He loved his paintball war games, granted he took them to the extreme.  He had smoke bombs , grenades, rocket launchers and he built with his friends, a tower ,fox holes and anything else needed to make it feel real.  He had the guns, ammo and all the gear and spent weekends away shooting his friends and getting shot at.  He loved it, even with the bruises, broken toe, and broken collarbone he sustained, he would never have given it up.

Randy spent years digging up,  cleaning up and then displaying his prize bottles.  He could look at a field that to anyone else look like just a field.  But for Randy he could tell by the way the land was that a homestead or maybe a barn had been there at one time.  He could go directly to the area he thought he might find something and start to dig.  Sure enough there would be bottles , nails, glasses, medicine bottles, etc.  He could tell you almost the whole life story of the people who had been there.  He was very smart and loved history.  Then he would clean everything up and put them on display.

He loved Halloween,  he loved to freak kids out and scare anyone he could.  He always dressed up to take Connie and her friends out for trick or treating.  He set up traps to be triggered , or sat for hours like a statue wait for a kid to come so he could scare them.  He went all out.  Halloween was definitely his favorite time of year over everything else.

We renewed our vows for our 25th.  The hitch was that I knew nothing about it until the night before.  Randy snuck around behind my back for 6 months in secret.  He did the invites, met with the  minister who performed the ceremony  got everyone involved in the secret without me knowing.  I knew we were having a party but that was all.  He upset every man he worked with, because they said that trying to compete with his level of being a romantic could not be matched.  They were right and I loved him for it and so many other reasons. 

Connie was everything Randy wanted.  He knew she was a girl even before she was born and that was what he wanted.  He never cared about the whole "I need a boy to carry on the name thing."  She was his precious little girl and she was that right to the end.  He waited for Daddy's little girl to get to his side before he finally stopped fighting.