Thomas Matthew Gray

Tom was Mom’s best friend and partner in crime. They were such a great team and were together for 48 years. Together they raised three caring, smart, independent, and beautiful women.

He was the proud Apa to four beautiful grandchildren. As an Apa, a nickname given to him by Jackson, who couldn’t say Grandpa – he was so loved. Showing up to baseball games, swim practice, and babysitting as a team with Mom and Great Grandma – his grandkids always couldn’t wait to see him (and his iPad loaded with games). Family was most important to Tom and he always let us know that in so many little ways.

To his three girls, Dad was the most dependable, hard-working, and kind man. He made us feel so loved all the time and always his number one priority. Through this love also came torture from teasing and driving us crazy when we were kids. Growing up, one of the scariest sounds would be the sound of Dad’s boots coming up the basement stairs after we got in trouble. Mom would say, “wait until your Dad gets home!” – it didn’t take us long to realize THAT was an empty threat. Even at his angriest, he would have the softest heart towards us girls and look to Mom to really bring down the hammer. He was the Dad that walked us to our bus stop every day, took us to sports, had the hard conversations and made sure to have a special relationship with each one of us.

We are so thankful to have had such a good man as a father and a role model as he was the reason we chose and married wonderful men ourselves. We’ve always looked up to him and the love and respect he had for our Mom, he taught us how to love and be loved. Though he always seemed to be on the quiet side, one of our favorite things to do was make him laugh. With a twinkle in his eye, and a mischievous glance, he would hop on to every joke we made very quickly and we could laugh for hours. He was a one liner type of guy and we could just look at each other and instantly start laughing. As we got older it was an amazing experience to become friends and get to hang out and laugh together. It was the biggest accomplishment to get him to laugh so hard he showed his teeth.

“I’ll just call and ask my Dad”, is a phrase we have all said many times, in regards to anything that had to do with taking care of our cars and our homes – he seemed to have an answer for everything!

He would have done anything for us at a drop of a hat and always gave us great advice, whether we wanted to hear it or not. It is hard to sum up how great a father he was to us.

We loved Pops so much are so thankful for the thousands of memories and laughs.

We will miss you forever, OGD – Original Girl Dad.