The Finest Gentle-Man

One year ago today the world lost one of its finest gentlemen it ever called its own.

I got a call around 6:00 AM one year ago today from my mother and father in which they told me that Grandaddy had passed away that morning. I sat up in my bed after they hung up and tried to take in all they had told me. Grandaddy was the first person I have had a close familial relationship to to pass away, and I did not know how to take the news. I waited on my family in Birmingham as they got their things together and arrangements made so we could all head to Arkansas. I must say a word of thanks to those at Samford that let me just simply talk to them about how the loss of Grandaddy affected me. I had some of the greatest ears and comforting words come from you.

I was picked up and the four of us headed off to Arkansas. Upon arrival we met with family, shed tears and laughed remembering this wonderful man. From my own experiences I will remember trips the grandchildren took with he and Grannie. From Branson to the beaches and many a Finance games in between, I never saw him upset, except for two times: in a McDonald's parking lot after one of his beloved grandchildren slipped from the water in the parking lot and when his youngest granddaughter beat him in Finance.

I found out in the next days what a fine man my grandfather was to all he met, and that his love and kind heart was not something he shared with just his family. I could not get over how every person said something about how he was such a gentleman who enjoyed the finer things in life. He truly was that, a gentle man and role model for a young man like myself to look up to.

I know he is singing loudly with his beautiful bass voice in heaven now, waiting on everyone else to get up there with him. But in the meantime, here on this earth, I know there is not a kinder, more caring, or more gentle man than Charles Wayne Holt was to everyone he met.