“Paul was the good parent.”      There aren’t many moms among us who would reveal that kind of insight into their family dynamics, but then Tammy Gaucher always has been honest to a fault and quite hard on herself.      “I was too stressed out,” Tammy said. “The babies would be crying, crying, in the middle of the night, and so would I. Paul would come to the rescue, take the baby from my arms and immediately console them.”      Was Paul a perfect parent?       Is there such a thing?      Tammy drudged up a memory from Base Camp to illustrate a scenario of another kind, this one starring a not-as-cool-dad. Nick was in kindergarten and Whitney was a second-grader. It was Paul’s turn to pick up the kids after school, and, boy oh boy, was he upset at what he saw when he got there. Whitney and a friend had Nick and his friend Zach all dolled up in girlie girl stuff. It was all this man’s man could do not to dress everyone down on the spot.     This same he-man would get teary each and every time he watched Sling Blade. You’ll have to watch the 1996 film written and directed by its star Billy Bob Thornton to see why a grown man would cry.   Oh, how Nick idolized his dad! He wanted to do whatever his dad did. “Paul was Nick’s dad, his hero, his best friend,” Tammy said.      Nick’s other best friend was his sister.     Whitney agreed both were true. There was no getting in between “the boys” when they were on a roll—except for the times when she was one of the boys. “We’re at the grocery store, and Dad chucks this kumquat across the produce section to me, and just walks off,” Whitney said, still shaking her head at the audacity of it all. Tammy’s grateful for her daughter’s sure hands, but still wonders why her husband had to pick the priciest piece of fruit. To illustrate how these boys will be those boys, Whit shared this: “We’d go out to dinner, and they are shooting spit wads (made of straw wrappers) at each other like two children.”       Oh, boy.      The Gaucher offspring did have something of a sibling relationship going on with their pop, which made the times when Paul wanted to be an imposing father figure challenging. “You can’t do both,” Tammy said with the sage of someone speaking from experience. “As Dad, Paul wanted to be the kids’ best friend, not the disciplinarian. He wanted to be liked.”     One guess as to who did the heavy lifting when it came to discipline. But when it came to sports, it was Team Gaucher all the way.     “Dad was very involved. He loved going to games and practices,” Whitney said. “He would brag to people about me, years after I played softball.”      Paul really did dig softball. “He was a better player in his own mind,” Tammy kidded. Then she added another dig of a different kind. “He also liked to try to play volleyball.”      If Paul’s firstborn and only daughter were to describe her very active papa in one word, it would be “social.”      His wife didn’t hesitate to agree. “He loved people and being around them,” Tammy said. “At retail stores, he was always explaining something to clerks they had no business knowing.”     “TMI, Dad!” Whitney interjected.     Suffice it to say, there were some awkward silences on the other side of the counter when the Gauchers were in the checkout lane at Walmart.     Contrariwise, Whitney and her mom would often get one-word answers when on the phone with Paul, but when one of the guys called, Whit said, “It was like two little high school girls.”     Whitney believes her dad was involved in every single PFA party there ever was. “He just had to be there, wherever there was free beer and people,” she said. “Dad was the first to arrive and last to leave. He was the life of the party.”      Official department ceremonies were another “essential duty” Paul took seriously. “He’d go to meet the new guys,” Tammy said. “Paul knew all the guys.”      And all the guys knew Paul.     A firefighter from Station No. 5 texted Tammy not so long ago that it just isn’t the same without Paul. Paul was known for his sense of humor, for being fun, and for joking around, but it was his overall positive attitude that left a vacuum few can fill.      “The guys are missing that spark,” Tammy said without having to say, “Me, too.”     “He was one of those people: ‘Pauley’s here!’ And the room lights up,” Whitney said, wistfully, like her mom, not-so-secretly wishing he still was here.      “He could always find a way to make the guys laugh,” Tammy said. Whit nodded, “Yeah, he’d wait till he got home to vent.” Paul’s wife and daughter are forever proud their man’s memory is treated with respect by his peers to this day, because it’s true, as Whitney put it with Paul-esque frankness, he just didn’t tolerate any crap.     That familial pride went both ways.     Tammy said Paul once asked her why she and the kids didn’t stop by the firehouse more often. “Other families would come visit, and I think that was his way of saying he was proud of us,” Tammy smiled at the thought of Paul wanting of show off his cool brood.  Paul was a good husband with a capacity for listening that made him an even better partner. Tammy often called Paul at work, naturally, since Paul was often at work. “I’d want to talk. He would listen. He tried to be strong for us,” said Tammy, momentarily lost in the thought of just how much she’s lost and how it feels to be truly lost. “He kept it together for us.”      It wasn’t until after he passed that Tammy wondered where Paul got help. “When you’re both in it, it’s hard to be there for each other,” she acknowledged. Tammy realized, but only after Bryan, John, Brian, and others told her so, that Paul would talk a lot to his colleagues.      “Paul was like a lot of men,” Tammy said. “He didn’t want to show his emotions but if someone needed him, he would be there for them. He had a deep, sensitive side that he would open up if someone was receptive to it.”      On the other hand, Paul was constantly lending a hand, whether it was cleaning Clara’s gutters, or helping a fellow firefighter with whatever needing fixing. “He hardly ever asked for help,” Whitney said. “He NEVER asked for help,” Tammy clarified. “He didn’t want to impose on others.”      Paul was a good worker, and Whitney wanted to make sure we got how good. “He took his time,” she said. “He had one speed: slow. He’d be standing there in the garage, shirt off, looking side-to-side.”      Paul Gaucher was heavy duty; he was physically strong, emotionally resilient, and mentally tough. “Everything we went through with Nick…” Tammy stopped and shook her head, indicating how losing her only son to cancer remains to this day impossible to fully comprehend. “If Paul hadn’t been as strong…well, I don’t know how I would’ve been.”      As outgoing, social, and positive as Paul was, he could turn into a bear. “The Protector” is what Tammy called him for Paul was all claws when it came to anything threatening her and the kids.     Tammy marvels when others tell her how strong she is, because she doesn’t see herself that way. “It’s the people around me that give me strength,” she said.