Hello, my name is Robert

On may 15th my cousin and I lost our grandfather very suddenly and without warning.

Thankfully, his passing was very fast and painless, but none of us saw it coming.

Very sadly and painfully, his longtime best pal and dog Rascal passed away two days after, having lived to the incredible age of 23.

His name was Robert Potteiger and he was the greatest man I've ever known. He was born on February 4th, 1941, to a family of farmers and military folk. He was 82 when he passed.

He did many things in his life but he was best known to our small home town as lieutenant at the Salinas Valley State Prison for nearly 40 years. He took pride in keeping his officers in line and treating the inmates with humanity and respect, putting protecting lives above everything else.

He was a kind, cheerful man with an unshakable strength of heart. Married to his wife Barbara for just as long, becoming the adoptive father of her two daughters, my mother and aunt.

He had the nickname Dancing Bear, which is what nearly everyone knew him by, having earned the name by never standing still while conversing with anyone. If you had a problem, he wanted to have a solution and he would give the shirt off of his back if he thought you needed it. If you were short on rent, a bill or even just needed gas he was more than happy to cover that for you because his job paid very well. People were always more important to him than money, often shrugging and saying "it's just money".

He raised both of us like his own sons and was there for us our entire lives.

In 2014 when he lost his wife, my grandmother, he had all but given up and fell into awful health but in his own words, knowing his boys would be shattered without him, he allowed me to move him out of state to a better home environment.

Ever since then I had taken care of him, hoping to repay even a portion of the kindness he showed us in essentially being our father.

His wishes were very simple; to be cremated and have his ashes spread with his wife's ashes, as she's spread into the sea at Morro Bay.

The costs were a sudden gutpunch, as my car was stolen last month and my income as a doordash driver was abruptly ground to a halt.

While the funeral home has been patient and understanding, it pains me greatly to leave this unresolved and dealt with.

While I'm hoping to at least cover the costs of cremation, should I somehow get more than my goal it will go directly to funding a drive from Colorado to California to honor my grandparents final wishes, and spread their ashes as a couple with the ashes of their beloved dogs Rascal and Bunny.

Words cannot covey how much I love, admire and cherish my grandpa and every day that I was blessed to spend with him.

I'm very glad that the last 5 years of his life were spent happy and peaceful, full of love, kindness and pride in his boys and I'm honored to have taken care of him and give him a comfortable life.

Thank you for your time in reading this, and if you wish to honor his memory then I suggest doing what he thought was the most important thing thing in the world; being kind and loving.