This is my favorite photo of me with my Uncle Jeff.

The day before I started my new job at FIS, my Uncle Jeff passed away in hospice up in Ohio. My dad was with him. Jeff had been in hospice for several weeks and in a nursing home for several years before so it wasn’t unexpected. But it’s still sad and I’m still going to miss him – honestly, as I have even since he went into the nursing home and got sicker and sicker to the point where he couldn’t come home for holidays and then later, when he didn’t remember me anymore.

Last weekend, I flew up to Ohio for the calling hours and services. My Uncle Jeff was a special human being and it was important for me to be there. It was also great to have the family together again. I wrote a few words and read them during his service. They are below, along with his obituary – and some photos of our family all together. 

“Uncle Jeff

I think it’s safe to say he was one of a kind. Always the life of the party, he was the ultimate charmer and the biggest flirt. I remember many times when my dad would try for what seemed like an eternity to get Jeff to stop flirting with a waitress so we could leave. He was always going in for one more hug and kiss. 

But then that’s what made him so very special – his over-sized heart and capacity for love. He loved us all so much, especially my dad who Jeff called “Bobby.” My dad was the central person in Jeff’s life and I’m so thankful for all of his effort over the many years to make sure Jeff was in our lives – because the benefits of growing up with Jeff as my uncle were profound. To be a young kid and grow up thinking that different is good and funny and wonderful – at a time when other kids thought it was bad and something to be made fun of – was a gift. Jeff did that for us. Jeff made me more compassionate and taught me a lot about patience.

And I know he taught us all that love has no bounds and that life – even a simple one – can be wonderful every single day. Jeff might’ve had his grumpy moments but he lived fully in the present in a way many people strive for and never achieve. We were all so lucky to be around that kind of magic.

Jeff wasn’t the kind of uncle who could take me and Tyler to ball games or out to dinner but none of that ever seemed to matter. We all gathered around to drink coffee with him and tell jokes or pick on him to rile him up while he flipped through the never-ending JC Penney catalogs and then we promised him he could cut the grass later. 

I couldn’t have asked for a better uncle and I believe we’re all fortunate to have been here on earth with him.

I know it’s a great, big, busy, shiny, bustling world out there and Jeff was just one person, but I think the big wide world shines a little less brightly without him in it.”

Rest In Peace, Jeff. <3