Yesterday, we lost a long-time friend and member of the Ascension family, chuck D (Jeff McComas). Two and a half years ago, he was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable gut cancer that had spread and was given less than a year to live. Fortunately for all of us, he was never one to pay much attention to odds and carried on well past his terminal sentence. Jeff was friendly, funny, and always up for a game. The next part is a quote listed directly from his self-authored obituary (https://www.caringbridge.org/site/15593 ... 62ee6eb2e9):
“I had a big, awesome family, full of lively, lovely people, most of whom are still kicking. I was a dad, hubby, brother, friend, uncle, mensch, pickleballer, Boglehead (google it), volunteer, chemical engineer, EHS guy, Ukrainian advocate, Six Sigma black belt, IT weenie, minimalist and proud Minnesotan. A fan of ‘90s hip hop (musical tastes lock in at age 19; I was no exception. Fight The Power) and of course ZZ Top. and Prince. I better stop there, or this will become a boring autobiography.”
Jeff has been with Ascension since its founding and Aeternus before that. During COVID, the clan had regular online poker games where we set up a Zoom call that allowed us to put faces with the names we'd come to know so well via messages in those tiny CC chat boxes. Jeff would show up with his wild, ZZ Top beard and Minnesota-nice, cheerful personality (and Fargo-esque accent to match). He always made an effort to find out more about his clanmates, filling silences with questions about how each of our lives were going and trying to convince us we needed to learn to play pickleball.
He would HATE that we're even spending this much time writing about him, and if he could, would probably tell us to get over it and go play a game. Chuck D, we miss you brother. See you at the next game table.
itake and mdhill
(mike & matt)
