James Patrick Curran passed away on Monday at Baystate Medical Center. After a long and arduous battle with life these 82 years, he finally is free from pain. The party in heaven must have been legendary.  Born to Irish immigrants, the late Patrick James Curran and Anna Moore, Jim grew up in working-class Holyoke. He would spend his childhood in Jackson Parkway with his brothers, Thomas (predeceased) and Jerome (Chicopee), and his sister Peggy (predeceased). He graduated from Holyoke Trade School in 1956 and went to work at AmPad as a printer for the next forty-four years. He would join the Army in 1957, and there he fell in love with the military. After his service ended, he would marry our mother and begin the life he created out of a desire to have a peaceful, loving home. Jim and Monique raised their five children (Michael, Jimmy, Kathy, Lisa, and Jennifer) in Granby when they bought a HUD house with dad's profit-sharing check-in 1963. There, dad would mow the lawn on Saturdays, definitely didn't light the woods on fire by accident, absolutely never caught the neighborhood kids smoking in the backyard or stealing golf balls from the golfers at Westover.  He was "dad" to dozens of kids who needed one. Ours was the house that offered a safe place to land. Jim taught forgiveness by apologizing for wrongs and honesty by always telling the truth. He taught his sons and daughters how to handle a bully, change a flat tire, and how to fight fair with people you love. He taught us the value of a good joke, "it's all in the timing." Jim and Monique, married for sixty-two years and eight days, loved each other more every day. They would be the example that their children, twelve grandchildren, six great-grandchildren (and counting) aspire to. To live a life with kindness first, love always, and as much laughter as you can get away with before they start to worry about you. Before any of us could leave his house after a visit, he would tell us he loved us and, "Be careful out there." As the years went on, that "be careful" would mean different things. It was his way of telling us he still worried about us, still wanted us to be smart, to take care of our own families, and to always come back home to him another day.  Burial Services for Jim Curran will be held at West Street Cemetery in Granby, MA, on Friday at ten o'clock in the morning. Social distancing is requested at the cemetery. For Zoom information for our friends and family who cannot attend, please email jenncurran@gmail.com . A Drive-By Funeral for the Curran family home at 7 Sherwood Drive Granby, MA, is planned for Friday from noon to two in the afternoon. Memorial donations may be made to the American Heart Association and Wounded Warrior Project. Curran-O'Brien Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements. For more information or to make online condolences please go to curranobrien.com.