Terry I miss you.

My uncle whom I love dearly and have remained close to my entire life finally lost his battle with Cocaine. He was found dead in his room at 6:30 last night.

I have struggled to find ways of honoring him. He was really an incredible guy. He was the member of my family that I always looked up to.

I owe him so much. He is the reason that I was able to go to school, which he supported me through. He has always been there for me, and more accurately was there always.

Cocaine took his life and it took his dignity, but it never took his spirit. He was quite simply the sweetest man I ever knew. He made everyone around him feel special. I believe that truly is the greatest gift someone can have. Making people feel special by your mere presence is an amazing thing. Recently my daughter, Terry and I were sitting around talking and cracking jokes and I realized how much my daughter was loving it. Which reminded me of how much I enjoyed sitting around and talking to Terry and my uncles when I was younger (and older for that matter). I would just sit there and think how special my family was that we could sit around and just talk and it was the most fun thing in the world. I'm sorry my daughter isn't going to be able to experience that again.

Here are a couple of stories that I think help to illustrate what an interesting dude my uncle was (seems strange to use past tense).

When he was in high school he took his older brothers birth certificate when was sixteen to the DMV and had them make him a license that said he was 21. So at 16 he could buy beer. Next he rented a place on weekends set up a bar, bought a whole bunch of beer and hard alcohol and hired the cheerleaders from Ferris H.S. in Spokane to serve as "cocktail waitresses". He charged 1 buck a beer and made a fortune. He also started nailing cocktail waitresses. His bar was the stuff of legend.

By the time he was 18 years old he was managing several restaurants in the Spokane area. By the time he was 19 years old he bought his first home. In his twenties he bought another home. At this point he managed several large restaurants and his partners bought him his own restaurant in downtown Spokane. I worked for my uncle from the time I was 13 until I was sixteen.

Cocaine took all these things away, but he still managed to lead his school's senate during the time he went to S.C.C. and last summer he graduated from Whitworth. He had been offered a pretty great job when I saw him last week. He has a full room of awards he received at each school that he attended for his leadership.

I told him everything that happened in my life just so I could hear how proud he was of me. I will forever be proud of him.

I will miss him.

-Geoff Brousseau