Paul A. MacDonald

Waltham - Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave and impossible to forget.

Paul A. MacDonald, Jr. was a good friend. He was the rare breed that made friends in kindergarten and kept them throughout his life. He was fifty-five when he died at his Waltham home on Sunday, August 16, 2015.

Paul was born in Boston on April 7, 1960, a son of the late Paul A., Sr. and Dorothy E. (McKinnon) MacDonald, and was a lifelong resident of Waltham. He graduated from Waltham High School in 1978 and after that followed in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather and became a machinist with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Always used to working long hours he was the proprietor of Greatscapes Landscaping in Waltham, a company that he founded forty years ago mowing neighborhood lawns.

When illness claimed his health beginning last December it was to his family and to his friends that he turned for love, help and support . . . the same things he'd so freely given to them over the years and they responded in kind. When Paul left the hospital for the last time to come home to be with those closest to him he got to enjoy precious moments, delicious meals and one last Dairy Joy ice cream cone.

He enjoyed traveling, especially a trip that he took to Australia. When he wasn't working Paul loved going to Vermont where he spent time four-wheeling and snowmobiling at the family cabin in West Barnet and when he was at home in Waltham being in the company of his Warrendale friends and neighbors.

Paul leaves his sisters and brothers, Susan E. MacDonald and her husband, Patrick McGowan, of Waltham, John S. MacDonald and his wife, Ruth, of Manchester, New Hampshire, Karen M. Peterson and her husband, Kenneth, of Waltham and Stephen J. MacDonald and his companion, Lynne Traskus, of Brighton; twelve beloved nieces and nephews and his cherished grand-nephew.

Family and friends will honor and remember Paul's life by gathering for calling hours in The Joyce Funeral Home, 245 Main Street (Rte. 20), Waltham on Thursday, August 20th from 4 to 8 p.m. and again at 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning before leaving in procession to Saint Jude Church, 147 Main Street, Waltham where his Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m.

Memorial donations may be made to Boy Scout Pack 250, c/o Chris Higgins, 125 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472.