Gordie's health slid the last two weeks of his life, and his three sons, daughter, Cathy, and the extended Howe family shuffled their lives to be at his side.
Marty Howe will miss many things about his father, and that Father's Day falls this weekend won't make things any easier.
"He's so easygoing. He loves people, he engages with people, he'll go out of his way to engage people where others go through life and say, 'Leave me alone,'" he said. "Growing up, I'd stay 10 feet behind Gordie walking down the sidewalk and I'd hear all the conversations: 'Go get his autograph!' 'I can't do that!' Some people were afraid of him, but if they knew, they'd have found a wonderful person. He'd sign it in a second. He may tweak your ear or rub your head, but he'll sign your autograph."
And Marty Howe surely will never look at a fishing rod the same way again.
"I'll really miss my fishing partner," he said, his grief now barely contained. "After the season, he'd take Mark and me up to some lake. They'd fly us in there for 10 days with no radio, no electricity. Nothing. It was you and the fish and the bears in the woods. We had to catch fish because we needed to eat, that's what it came down to. You could bathe in the lake if you could take the cold.
"Gordie never yells at us. He always gives us good advice, lets us go our way and live our lives, and try to give us a little steer here and there. He taught us the school of life. He was a beautiful man."