Ian Tyrel Griffith was born on April 18th, 2010 in Cordell, Oklahoma and passed away peacefully at his home in Yale on August 11th, 2021. From birth until death he was surrounded by loving family and friends. He is survived by his parents, Preston and Chantel Griffith of Yale, Oklahoma, 2 brothers Kevin Griffith of Hobart, Oklahoma and Declan Griffith of Yale, Oklahoma; Great Grandparents Jess and Mary Gillis of Centerville, Missouri, and Martha Mckellips of Corinth Texas; Grandparents Keith and Diana Griffith of Rocky, Oklahoma and Curtis and Karla Herrmann of Agra Oklahoma; Uncles and Aunts include Jesse and Sheri Griffith of Hobart Oklahoma, Tucker and Tabitha Griffith of Rocky, Oklahoma, Gabriel and Kourtney Herrmann of Delta, Colorado, Daniel and Rebekah Herrmann of Agra Oklahoma, Samuel and Mikayla Herrmann of Agra, Oklahoma, and Zach and Ashtyn Herrmann of Agra, Oklahoma.

He is survived by a throng of cousins each of whom he loved so much and enjoyed spending time with whenever he could. Cousins include Riley and Asia'h Griffith, Kendra, Chance and Ryker, Griffith; Keagan, Kinsley, and Kendall Herrmann; Jaidyn, Anistyn and Scarlett Herrmann; and Jack Herrmann. He was preceded in death by Great Grandparents Earnest and Lois Griffith, Alva and Janice Herrmann, Wayne Pearcey, Bud Greenfield, Vern Mckellips and by one cousin Dawson Herrmann.

He is also survived by his second family Jesse and Laci Bellew, along with their children Jakeb, Kiley, Rylan, and Eli. He was preceded in death by their daughter Rorrie. He loved spending time with the Bellews, Spending nights, playing games, getting into poison Ivy patches with Jakeb, eating restaurant themed dinners prepared by "Sister Lady", and any other activity that they could think up.

We still laugh about the incident where Laci went looking for him and found him in her pantry climbing the shelves. They teased us that our kid came to their house and was literally climbing the walls.

Jesse recently helped us rewire our house and the attic was too short for any of the adults to fit in. Ian was called upon to crawl back and forth in the itchy rockwool insulation, pulling wires. He hyperventilated a time or two, but he never gave up and he faced this task like a trooper, just like he faced every other task that he knew he would have to do.

Ian was strong in his faith and was not ashamed to talk to anyone about it. He was our miracle baby, having been born without life we watched, begging and praying that God would grant life to him. Obviously, we were able to behold a miracle that day as we saw the breath of life be breathed into him. He was so proud of the fact that he was born dead and had been raised up again. If he was really wanting to impress someone that is the story that he would tell.

He was highly motivated by money and was always looking for a way to earn a buck. He and Jakeb had a lawn mowing business together and had lots of other future business and life plans. One of these plans included the creation of a zombie themed nerf gun course. I think he liked the fact that it included something that his parents didn't approve of. He had saved enough money from lawn mowing and working with Gramps and Nana to buy a 22 rifle and had just started shopping for his first real gun.

He loved any outdoor activity. Exploring, survival, foraging, fishing and hunting were special passions of his. During the spring you could count on his breath smelling like garlic from all of the wild garlic that he had been eating out of the yard. There was also a special camping trip that just him and his Dad went on. This trip was supposed to include a knife, a match, cotton ball and just our wits against nature in the woods. It ended up with the amazing discovery of such delicacies as wild bacon, wild steak, wild popsicles, and wild marshmallows. Pops wasn't quite as much of a survivalist as Ian, but he loved it just the same.

One of the greatest gifts ever given to Ian by his Mom was when she taught him to read. It opened up such a big world for him and he had a passion to learn about anything and everything that he could. He was so passionate about reading. He read when he ate, when he was supposed to be asleep, in the car, and whenever he could find a spare moment.

Ian was an artist through and through. He learned to draw well at an early age and enjoyed countless hours drawing and making comic strips, and cartoon drawings. He loved paper crafts, and when he learned how to fold origami figures he was so excited and spent a lot of time learning how to make different things. He took art classes at the youth center and made all kinds of things out of clay. He had recently become interested in crochet and had taught himself to make crochet chains

We spent so many hours together when he was little, reading book after book. Even after learning to read by himself, he still loved to be read to. He loved audiobooks, dramatized stories, and music, and when he couldn't be found outside he could be found in his room listening to or reading a book. He loved to go to the local library and he had a special connection with the librarian, Nancy Griffin. She would order books in especially for him and would reserve them so that he could be the first to check them out.

He was a really smart kid and he breezed through all of his school work and excelled at whatever he was determined to master. He enjoyed going on field trips and participating in learning co-ops that were put on through the Cimarron Valley Home Educators group. He developed a lot of friendships and had a lot of good times with the group. He especially enjoyed helping make the food for their annual thanksgiving dinner celebration.

He absolutely loved a good joke and was always telling them to whoever he perceived would be a willing audience. He read joke books looking for new material and was always trying them out on us. Some of his jokes flirted with the edge of propriety and he was delighted when he was able to successfully walk that line and induce just the right amount of shock in his audience.

He liked to induce shock in other ways too, like the time that he was caught teaching his church friends how to play poker with orange slices… at the church… on a Sunday.

He loved trying out different accents and dressing up, so we would often be "waited on" at home by a waiter with a British accent.

He was always so impressed that his Nana had written a book and on one trip to their house, when he was 5, she helped him write his own book. She had the book made up into a hardback form and surprised him with it. To this day " The Squirrel's Happy Day" remains one of our favorites.

He loved playing video games like Pacman, Mario, Tetris, baseball, and any other vintage video game that he could find. He loved all sorts of vintage entertainment, he was proud because he learned how to hook up the Nintendo 64 by himself. He also liked watching VHS tapes and listening to audio cassette tapes because you could start them up again at the same spot where you stopped watching.

Ian was what we like to call an old soul. He watched old shows like the Andy Griffith show and he went through a phase where he went through and watched all 9 seasons of I Love Lucy. He spent many nights falling asleep to recordings of the Burns and Allen show and he spent lots of hours with his parents listening to audiobooks by P. G. Wodehouse and watching reruns of What's my line on YouTube.

Ian was an active member of the Twin Mounds 4-H club and learned a lot of his public speaking skills from speech competitions through 4-H. He had just  finished up a year as Vice President of his club and he really enjoyed leading the group in the 4-H ritual. He also loved doing cooking competitions with 4-H and had recently placed with his team at district level.

He was competitive and always put his best effort into everything he did.

He really enjoyed entering things into the fair and loved winning as many ribbons as he could. He was so proud when his decorated cupcakes won grand champion in his division.

He loved to spend time with his brothers Kevin and Declan. They spent countless hours playing games, shooting bb guns, playing Pokémon, jumping on the trampoline, playing with their puppy and making all sorts of messes

He had a lot of fun at his Grandpa Curtis' Metal shop. Papa spent time with him helping to learn about different computer and firewall basics and helped him to get started learning CAD drawing and CNC plasma metal cutting

He had lots of great memories with his Grandma, he especially enjoyed raiding her bowl of candy corn and candy pumpkins in the fall and making gingerbread houses with her and the cousins around Christmas time.

Gramps spent a lot of time showing Ian the special art of Fishing which he enjoyed very much. As he grew older, one of Ian's favorite things to do was to go to the farmers market and help Gramps sell vegetables. He loved buying things from the surrounding vendors and collecting tips from the customers when he helped carry things out to their car

He loved food, especially meat, and spent a lot of time in the kitchen experimenting with lots of different recipes that were awful but he would put his game face on and pretend that he really enjoyed them. He also loved sweets and dessert. Holidays were his favorite because he got to have all the yummy things at one time.

We had lots of conversations over the years about God, faith, and heaven. Ian thought deeply about all of these things and was well grounded in the things that he believed. His faith was strong and pure. He told us before he passed that he wanted to go to heaven, and though we are hurting badly for ourselves we are happy for our little boy.

We saw God grant him the breath of life, and we are forever going to be grateful for the 11 bonus years that God gave us with him.