A Note From John's Sister-in-law

I am happy that I had the privilege to get know John over the years. John was a kind and gentle soul, a good man and a great husband to my sister, Heather. I noticed that he loved my sister well and to me that meant a lot. I have many happy memories of visiting Heather and John. He was not only my brother-in-law, I considered him more like a brother and a friend.

He was always very nice to me, plus I could talk computers with him, being a computer person myself, many times I would bounce thoughts about different computer stuff with John and he would always give me good feedback. John loved to talk about computers, cars, and sports and you could always here the enthusiasm in his voice when he talked about the things he loved. He also loved animals which I always thought was great, because animals were always part of our lives growing up and I knew Heather would still want them in her married life. It was funny, once John and Heather were out driving when they saw a turkey get bumped off the road. They of course stopped to see if the animal was okay. After they loaded the turkey in their SUV, they went looking for the animal’s owner. As they were doing this at one point, Heather climbed back in the SUV and John said the Turkey’s name was Blinky. As Turkey’s go, Blinky liked people and was definitely had been someone’s pet, we never found her owners, but her name was now Blinky.

Another time, when John was visiting us, before he was married to Heather, there was a stray calico cat under our house and John talked her out, he named her Gabrielle. She was his cat first even before Heather and John loved that cat very much, in fact he was taking her to the vet when the crash happened. Gabrielle did come out of the crash okay and I don’t think John would have wanted it any other way. Gabrielle has been cuddling up to everyone to tell us John is okay, which is strange for that cat because she always used to run away when company came.

I am glad that John got to do the things that he loved to do in this life. I did not know until the wake that he got to race his Porsche, which I think is great he loved having fun with that car and he enjoyed life. I just wish that I would have got to see him race.

I do not understand why he had to leave us so soon, but I do know that we are all better people for having known him. I will miss him greatly. I think the one thing besides the memories that I will keep with me when thinking of John is to remember to live life not to put it off till tomorrow.

I want to thank everyone for letting my family; the Zaccagnini’s and Heather know how he touched all your lives. He was very special to us too.

Sarah Whinery