You don't have to of course, but would you feel comfortable talking about Horace more
I'm literally just some guy on the internet, so please feel no pressure from this. You also don't have to post the ask if you don't want. Thank you for telling us about him it's really sweet of you
I love telling people about Horace! He was genuinely a wonderful light in our lives.
He was one of those people that was just always old. He was probably already in his late 60s before I had my first memories of him, and he died at 96.
He had this soft, raspy voice, and he'd just rock in his rocking chair telling stories. You kinda had to know Horace to understand him, as his speech pattern was a bit slurred and you had to go where he went with his thoughts.
He'd tell us about the cartoons he watched, and what Miss Honey (what he called my Aunt) had done that day, and chat about his mom and dad (my grandparents) and how he missed them.
I was always "the baby" or "little baby". I'd ask if he remembered me and he'd laugh and say "oh yeah! Yeah! You're the baby. The little baby. February 14th. The baby."
He knew everyone's birthday.
He would tell us about Bridgewater (the institution) and the bad people there. He'd get angry if you let him go on too long, shaking his fist at the wall... probably at the memories. So distracting him was always good.
No one sat in his rocking chair. God save you if anyone did and he caught you. He wasn't aggressive, but you'd be on his shitlist for the day, and he'd tell everyone for the next 10 years about the day that person sat in his chair.
