There was a twinkle in his eye, like there always was, when he greeted me with a hug.  "Hey, Aunt Sandi," he said.  Then he hugged my husband.  "Hey, Uncle Gerry.  What's up?"

It was January 12th, exactly one month before we would return to Florida to say our final good-bye to Nolan.  If we had known this would be the last time we would see him, we wouldn't have done anything differently.

A few moments later, 8-year old Jordan ran into the room.  "Aunt Sandi!  Uncle Gerry!" she shouted with delight, then covered my face with wet little kisses.

"Hey, what about me?" Nolan teased his niece.  Although he had probably seen her just a few days before, he still wanted his hug from Jordan, his only niece.  That was Nolan.  That's who he was.

Nolan wasn't perfect; like all of us, he had his faults.  He was sort of messy, always lost his shoes, and was a little overweight.  I'm sure if you asked his brother and some of his friends, they would come up with other flaws.  But the kid with the big, warm heart that eventually failed him - never failed us.

A couple of weeks after Nolan died, his mother worked up the courage to look in his wallet.  She found two photographs;  a school picture of Jordan, and a picture of his grandma (my mother) dressed up as Dale Evans for a costume party.  He loved his family, and loved spending time with all of us.  So when Gerry and I spent a week in Florida in January, Nolan made sure he had time off from work so he could hang out with us.

We spent two days on my brother-in-law's boat, a Grady White.  Nolan and John were both avid boatsmen, and enjoyed cruising up and down the Inland Waterway around Charlotte Harbor, on the west coast of Florida.  We stopped at a couple of their favorite beaches to look for shells and fossilized shark's teeth.  Nolan showed us how to find the shark's teeth in the surf, and gave me his collection at the end of the day.   

We ate lunch at Cabbage Key, a place you can only get to by boat.  Sitting by the dock, I asked Nolan when he was planning on another trip to Oregon.  "Probably this summer," he said.  He wanted to see the snow on Mt Hood.  He wanted to put flowers on his grandma's grave.  He wanted to go fishing at Pine Hollow.  He wanted to meet his newest cousin, Katavia.

At night at Connie and John's house, we played games.  Nolan loved to play games.  Especially thinking games.  When he was in Grade Gchool, he liked to play 20 Questions.  In Jr High, it was Chess.  I remember one time a few years ago when he read us definitions in the Dictionary, and we had to try to guess the word.  But he also liked to play games just for fun.  When his grandma was alive, they played Yahtzee together.  And on our visit in January, we played Apples to Apples - a game Jordan could play with us.

Nolan had just bought his first home and I told him I wanted to buy him a housewarming gift.  One day we had lunch at a little fishing village, and I stepped into a gallery.   "Is there anything you would like?" I asked him.  "Um.....I don't know,"  he said.  Then he told my husband, "I hope Aunt Sandi doesn't buy me anything at that 'foo-foo' store".

I decided that when I got home, I would send him a framed poster of Mt Hood, one of his favorite places to visit.  I never got a chance to to that.  Instead, Connie is going to bring some of his ashes to Portland this summer, and we'll spread them over Mt Hood.  We'll also spread some of his ashes over his maternal and paternal grandparent's graves.

One day we took a drive to Punta Gorda, to see the reconstruction after Hurricane Charley.  We checked out the acreage Connie and John recently sold, and were discouraged at the rubble left behind by the new owners.  Nolan discovered an American flag under a pile of stones.  He carefully lifted it out and secured the pole in the ground, so the flag could gently blow in the breeze.  After Nolan died, I asked Connie if I could have the "I Voted Early" sticker Nolan had affixed to the red t-shirt he wore on election day.  It is now one of my most prized possessions.

When Nolan was younger, we discovered that we liked the same food; blackened fish, garlic, cheesecake.  So when we went out to dinner one night, we both ordered blackened grouper.  I always asked Nolan what he was ordering before I ordered my meal, because I knew it would be something I would like. 

One night we looked through old scrapbooks that Connie had stored away years ago and were almost forgotten until they moved into the new house.  We found an essay Nolan had written at the age of 11.  Even at that young age, he had formed political opinions.  He wrote about the reasons he was supporting Ross Perot over Bill Clinton and George HW Bush.  Simply put, Clinton and Bush were liars and Perot was not.  Plus - Perot would not take a salary, so he was an honest man.  Connie had kept a diary during her time as a volunteer firefighter.  One of the firemen asked Nolan if he knew that girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice.  At the age fo 5, Nolan replied,  "No, they're made of bones, guts, and blood, and the blood carries around the good food to your body and gets rid of the bad stuff."

On our last night in Florida, we played ping-pong and then Gerry taught Nolan a couple of card tricks.  We played Apples to Apples, then a new game called Right-Left-Center.  We played for quarters.  John, Connie, Justin, Angel, Jordan, Nolan, Gerry, and I all played.  Nolan was the only one who lost all of his money.  But he didn't care - he was with his family.  That was all that mattered.

We gave them all hugs and said goodnight.  To Nolan I said, "See you in the summer."   I still cannot believe that I will not see him again.

On Valentine's Day, more than 100 of Nolan's family and friends said goodbye to him at an emotional service, officiated by his Uncle Bill, a Baptist Minister.  All of Connie's and John's siblings and their spouses (19 in all) plus several of Nolan's cousins gathered together to remember the inquisitive little boy who grew into a kind and caring young man.