Finding North
Remembering my grandfather today, one year after his passing.
In Memory of My Grandfather, Paka Doc, Thomas Shelton Boggess III
8/28/1941 - 10/3/2025
At 84, you could spin him around in the middle of a busy crowd in Albuquerque and ask him which way was North, and he’d point without hesitation. He never needed a compass. He just knew. He always knew where he stood, even when the rest of the world felt upside down.
He always had something crunchy in his car — nuts, pistachios, corn chips, or just straight ice. He loved cherry cordials and black coffee. He’d pour it fresh in the morning and drink it cold all day without complaint. Simple pleasures.
If you were selling, he was buying. Raffle tickets, school fundraisers, some ridiculous new multilevel marketing product — he didn’t care. He believed in supporting people who worked hard and took initiative. My sisters and I made a killing off his generosity. And one year in college, when I was selling women’s skincare, he bought sunscreen from me. I later found out it burned his eyes — and he used it anyway.
He loved waking up early — around 6 a.m. — with his coffee and his opinions. Controversial ones. He was a master at playing devil’s advocate. It didn’t matter what side you were on, he’d argue the other. I never knew if he was trying to get a rise out of me or if it was his true thoughts.
Maybe both.
He hated being bored. If you weren’t willing to debate him, you had to follow him outside — to his truck, his farm, whatever chaos he had planned. He wasn’t someone you just “sat with.” You had to participate in his adventures.
—
He was a veterinarian, and he took it seriously. I worked at his clinic one summer when I was about 12, cleaning dirty dog cages under his watchful eye. He was meticulous. He cared deeply about those animals.
I remember litters of tiny puppies squirming in my hands. I remember a massive German Shepherd laid open on the operating table — cords hanging, tongue out, the brutal reality of life and death right in front of me. I remember old ladies bringing in their puffy little dogs, lighting up when they saw him. He was kind to them, always. One woman came in every month with her ancient Shih Tzu, and he never forgot that her husband had passed the year before, that her daughter had just moved away. He asked about them every time.
And then, on weekends, he’d be deep in the wilderness hunting mountain lions, deer, birds. A veterinarian and a hunter — the paradox never confused me. It was simply him. Life and death lived side by side.
He kept packs of hound dogs, maybe seven at a time. Wild, loud, scratching, caged creatures waiting to tear through mountainsides on Sunday mornings. As a teenager in hot Arizona, I hated wearing shorts around them. They tore my legs up every time.
But he loved them.
And they loved him too.
—
He was a Christian man but didn’t go to church much. He saw God in trees, animals, and people at farmers markets. He couldn’t understand why people would file into a building to seek God — especially during hunting season.
I heard someone once tell him they were atheist. He just smiled and said, “Well, that’s between you and God.”
He was surprisingly sensitive. In his older years, he cried a lot. For animals. For injustice. For my mom. For the world. He always had a soft spot for the underdog — the people who got overlooked, the ones who were dismissed.
He grew up during Jim Crow in Mississippi, and he often evaded questions about the more sensitive parts of his childhood. Even as he moved west to Arizona, he held onto his conservative roots — and he was never blind to the underserved or underrepresented in any culture.
As he aged, he’d joke that he’d become a Democrat. In the end, I think the political climate in the U.S. really bothered him — the division, the way people stopped listening to each other.
But… he still loved stirring the pot.
Once my little sister came home from his house at five years old and announced, “I’m a Republican!” My moms jaw dropped and she didn’t know what to say. I thought it was hilarious.
He had the best heart. He was curious, provocative, and always full of mischief.
—
He paid for my master’s degree. Education meant everything to him.
He believed in thinking for yourself, not just following what you’re handed. When I told him I might go to law school, he lit up. He loved that kind of thing. He welcomed anyone who challenged him or questioned his point of view.
What people didn’t realize was that he listened. Mostly because he was half deaf. But if you told him something new, he’d come back next time having sometimes read three books about it. He subscribed to medical and science journals for decades. He was proud of my sister for going to medical school and loved debating medicine with her.
Curiosity kept him going.
—
I loved going on adventures with him because there was never a dull moment. But it meant you had to get into his truck.
Oh, his truck.
Always with a shell on the back so he could sleep in the bed, cages underneath for the dogs. Covered in dog hair. Usually filthy. Around Christmas, my sisters and I would fight over who had to ride with him to church, because no one wanted to arrive covered in dog hair.
The truck was lived in.
And one of the safest places I knew.
He loved that truck.
—
I loved watching him with my grandmother. They were a team. They drove seven hours from Arizona to New Mexico for our graduations, games, and milestones. Never missed anything important. Love through action.
In his early years, he was the more vocal, dominant one. In her later years, she found her voice and challenged him right back. I admired that evolution.
They valued honesty above all else. They didn’t sugarcoat. They didn’t dance around anything. They were generous — with time, with money, with opinions. They shaped how I see the world. I’ll never escape their lens.
And I don’t want to.
—
The last three times I saw him, he told me it would be the last time. And each time, he cried.
I’ll never forget my grandmother pushing him gently back through the front door, trying to get him inside as I drove away. And I saw his big watery eyes through the glass — both of us crying. I saw love in his eyes, and a lifetime of memories between us.
I’m grateful he let me see his vulnerability.
I think he saw life as a full circle — especially after a lifetime as a veterinarian, guiding animals through both beginnings and endings.
When I told him over FaceTime that I was pregnant, his first concern wasn’t for me. It was for June Bug — my 18-month-old golden doodle. He said, “Just don’t forget about June Bug!” That was him.
Thoughtful.
Practical.
Tender.
Contradictory.
Curious.
Generous.
Southern.
Wild.
Authentic.
Brilliant.
Soft, somewhere beneath all the calluses.
Like someone who always knew where North was.
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