RIP Bill "Skeets" Combs

Damn.
Skeets is gone.

I'll leave it to others to write up the loss of Ed Mcmahon. They'll do a better job of it anyway.
















Instead I want to post this small memorial(in a way) to the memory of another fondly held person in my life. For my Brother-in-law of(at least) 44 years Billy "Skeets" Combs who also died recently.
Skeets passed away last Saturday from what we think(so far) was a stroke and/or possible heart attack. Stupid thing really if you think about it. A sedentary man his age(60+) and his condition out mowing a large yard in ninety degree weather.
We attended his funeral ceremonies Monday. Once again, it's time to put to rest another person who has accompanied me from my childhood to now.
We all have to do it, if we live long enough.
All the memories unfolded and brought up. Skeets was the most wonderful person in the world to have around as company. Just the name, "Skeets" conjures up over four decades of memories, mental slideshows of great and funny moments; Me running my bicycle into the front of his car when I was 13 and learning to ride, an old apartment they had with a snowy street-facing fire escape in a long ago Cincinnati.
Slides of a few bad memories also, like with any life.
Being a wonderful, gentle person Skeets was also sadly cursed with alcoholism, the bane of a lot of families. He put my sister through some years of hell in assorted, crazy ways.
You tend to remember the good when someone who's been intertwined in your life so long is gone though. Especially as good a person as Skeets Combs. The good memories far outnumber the bad anyway.
His Masons Lodge members did a small service at the funeral. It was was an interesting thing in itself. They had a reading of Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", which I liked, here's a bit of that:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

I've thought to myself dozens of times in the last few days, "Wow, Skeets is gone", over and over. Like with the passing of all my loved ones. My mother and father, my uncles and aunts, all the others, and now Skeets is gone. I told my sister that, while looking at the picture album Saturday night I realized what "the good old days" really were. The good old days are simply, back when everyone you love was still alive.
Farewell Brother. Words are somewhat inadequate to describe my feelings for you and all the other unique/loved people who have followed my life. Although, I suppose it's still me doing the following.
Again, the world is lessened..

Damn.
Skeets is gone....

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