Known to everyone as Groden, I knew this man as a provider and protector as a young boy growing up in Tobago. My regiment consisted of getting up at 4:30am, getting and carrying water from the well (1/2 mile away from house), milking the cows and putting out to pasture, then going swimming in the ocean next to our house; all before 5:30am in the morning(that's an army regiment). The last thing I remember about this man was when Mame returned from the US to get us, and he was sitting on the porch, rocking back and forth in the chair, and though I could not see, nor understand I was leaving and would never see him again, I could feel the tears running down this cheek. He married my grandmother, and not a direct descendant of the Abbott. clan, but just the same, he was my surrogate father, before I met my biological, and I love him for that.