People always say that your siblings are your first best friends. I was an only child for almost four years. So, mine was my uncle. It's been a month since I was able to talk to him. He passed away February 16. My mom taught him everything from throwing a football to driving a car. He was sick and was an embarrassment to his father. That's why his sisters taught him what his father should have.
When I was born, he was only four years removed from high school. He never actually held me but my mom had to have her gallbladder removed. He had to help babysit me. Apparently, we were best friends immediately. From then on, we were inseparable.
He taught me about football and video games. We watched Disney. A lot. He was the only person that I could get to watch High School Musical with me all 800078943829 times I watched it. He is the reason that I have a morbid fear of masks. He chased me around wearing a Michael Meyers mask all of the time. But he stopped doing that when I got big enough to chase him with a broom.
He got me hooked on Tim Burton. We watched Beetlejuice every day and drove Nana crazy watching The Corpse Bride until the disk started messing up. Then he bought a new one. He accepted every stage of my awkward childhood and was an escape from my real world.
His passion was Oxford High School football. He was the manager from 1985-1992. He was with them for their ups and downs, state championships and losses. He was as involved as anyone else on the team even though he couldn't actually play.
When it came time to decide what I would do with my extra time in high school, I wanted to continue what he started. I wanted to carry on the school spirit our family was known for. I decided to do color guard. And then show choir. And then Diamond Dolls. I wanted so much to be known for the same things he was because he was my best friend and role model.
He was proud of everything I did. He was doubly proud when my younger sister joined band my second year and then color guard my senior year. No matter what we did, he was genuinely proud of us.He never used our accomplishments to brag about himself. He, unlike many people in our lives, bragged about us to anyone who would listen just to brag about us. He was almost as proud of us as he was his letterman jacket, which is now my most prized possession.
When I graduated high school and tried out for the Southerners color guard, he prayed for me to make it every night until the night I called Nana and told them I made it. Not ten seconds later, he posted it on Facebook for everyone and their mother to read.
He got sick in October. Well, sicker than normal. He had CO2 poisoning. It was touch and go for a few days. He even Code Blued -- died for people like me and not a nursing major-- three times the second night he was in the hospital. Somehow, he made it the week we were told he wouldn't. Then two weeks. Then three. At a month, he woke up, something we were told he would never do. Then he started communicating.
At two months, they started PT. He was never supposed to wake up and he was out of bed walking short distances. If he wasn't doing PT that day, they were taking his trach collar off and he was breathing on his own. Then, he was transferred.
When they transferred him, he was getting a little better. Then he wasn't. He started to go downhill at the end of January, three months in. He got an infection that made him sleep for like a week straight. after he woke up, I was the only one that could figure out what he was saying since his iPad was taken home without permission. Pretty soon after, he started shutting down. They couldn't do his dialysis so he retained a lot of fluid.
February 15th, they moved him to ICU again. They maxed out his medicines the day before and wanted to try to bring some of those down. They got a 24-hour dialysis machine on him. That was the last day that I saw my best friend alive. He was unconscious, in pain, and weeping from almost every spot on his body from being so swollen. My mom told him, "If you're fighting for you, fight until your body can't fight anymore. If you're fighting for us, let go. We can handle it."
The one time he had to listen when he was told to do something. We left that night at 10 and got home at 12.
He passed away February 16th at 2:30 AM. My sister and I sang his three favorite songs at his funeral. He will never know how much him being here meant to people. He was the boy who never frowned.
He will never know the respect and love an entire town had for him. He was one of the few men in my life that wasn't terrible. He was my very first best friend. He was like my big brother more than he was my uncle. I miss him everyday and will treasure his jacket and ring for the rest of my life.
RIP Uncle Jeff. I love you and I miss you.
