Because I could not stop for Deathe ...

I have been running around in circles in my mind trying to find words, any words at all to try to express what I have to say in a somewhat cohesive manner.

I first met Deathe along with several other friends when I answered an ad posted in a gaming store in Lawrence looking to add gamers. When I walked up, Deathe looked over at me and said “Hey Dave! Me and Dave go way back.”

Even from the beginning, he made me feel like I was a part of the circle. Something I needed very much at the time. I had only recently moved to Lawrence with my then fiancé, and had no social life outside of her. I needed that social outlet that was, at first, fulfilled via gaming, and later, upon invitation to hang out with the gang on weekends.

I worked in Lawrence for a year before I started working in Topeka, and sometime after I’d changed jobs, he was also working for Cobler Accounting in Topeka and we started carpooling. It was then, in the car that took the vestigial friendship and turned it into one of the most important relationships in my life. We would often go eat at The Great Wall Chinese restaurant on our lunch breaks, goof off and talk of all things geek, and just enjoy life.

As our friendship progressed and time went on it became clear to many of my friends that my marriage was doomed. Sometimes I couldn’t even express what I was feeling but hanging out with Deathe and the gang often expressed whatever tension I needed to get out. Maybe it was from getting shot in the head all of those times in multiplayer Halo with the gang. To this day I still think of Deathe when a game calls out “Head Shot” because of his ‘leet skills’ with a sniper rifle and the appropriate perch.

It was during this period of our friendship that I dragged Deathe into my online life at a few message boards I’d frequented for years. Before long, his technical prowess ended up saving first one board, and then another. Eventually he opened up his own online stomping ground for the refugees of dramatic flameouts, board closings, and the like. One such board, Nutkinland, had a real world physical gathering at Deathe and Bella’s house in Lawrence, memories of which I’ll treasure almost as much as the memories of Deathe I hold dear.

Life unfortunately began dragging us geographically in different directions, and I was not able to get to see Deathe, Bella and the gang nearly as much as desired. While Olathe and Topeka beckoned us respectively, it was hard on my budget to afford the time and gas for commuting from Topeka to Olathe to game.

So as my life has taken me from Lawrence, to Topeka, and now to Iola, I feel so far from those I love and not having a car has made it next to impossible to visit, for which I hate myself.

No day goes by without my being reminded of the times I’ve spent with Deathe, whether it’s simply a Tool song I remember from seeing together at the concert at Kemper, remembering bonfires in the backyard, or seeing a geeky joke that I know he’d appreciate. My facebook page is populated by great people that I’ve met through him. My world is a better place.

But none of these words suffice.

The essence of his spirit

Deathe traveled to St. Louis in late September of 2011 for his last business trip. He knew it would be his last, and he knew his boss was sending him specifically to say his last goodbyes. He was going to a conference for his industry, a yearly shindig that had seen him rise from attendee to presenter to Keynote Speaker. He is extremely well respected in his field and has made many good contacts and friends in his years working at APU. Besides the presentations, I heard stories of networking over drinks, commiserating about personal lives and celebrating the good stuff in life that they had in common, despite sometimes working for businesses that are competitors. Deathe WOWed us all with his ability to connect with people in a business manner, no matter the age, gender, position held, what have you. Honestly, it shouldn't have surprised us, he is so skilled with cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and the zen approach he uses to relate to people. Regardless, he knew some of those folks would want to hear the news from him, and hear it before he passed.

He returned from the trip to tell me only that it had been fine, and that Thursday night he got drunk with those friends at a bar. He told me they'd all had round after round of Cape Cods in his honor... I took that to mean they were all pretty stricken. Polite sympathies don't require you to get sloppy schnockered on vodka and cranberry juice in a dying man's honor, but true grief sure as hell does.

Several days later Deathe mentioned an incident that happened on the trip while we were smoking on our back porch, one of the rare times anymore when he talks, and even at that it's pretty infrequent. He and the conference crew were at dinner together, eating at a large table with seating such that not everyone at the table could hear each other and conversations tended to split off into groups. He'd broken the news of his illness and its prognosis to the folks sitting at his end of the table, and everyone was quiet, stunned, absorbing the news. In the neighboring group of folks at the table, a man noticed the lull in sound and yelled "Hey Deathe! What's the matter, you sick or something?" You can imagine the gulf of foot-in-mouth that formed then... until a lady sitting next to Deathe addressed the guy. "Yes, actually, Deathe has a fatal neurological disease. He came here this year to say goodbye to all of us."

The guy had to leave the table in his embarrassment. Deathe being the amazing guy he is, got up to follow him, reassure him, and ask him to come back to the table. Instead of looking to gather sympathy or attention from the incident, he did his best to care for his fellow man and make sure the guy knew he hadn't offended Deathe in any way. Once the man sat back down, Deathe took the opportunity to tell the entire table about the time he'd done a similar thing -- at a family gathering, when asked how he was doing he replied with "Oh, not too bad, I'm not dying of, like, stomach cancer or something.", not knowing that the brother-in-law he was talking to had just lost his mother to stomach cancer. He felt bad enough from that incident to retell the story for years, using it to reassure his daughter and wife and others that embarrassing moments happen to everyone.

And at that dinner he offered up a shred of his dignity, exposed his humanity, brought comfort to those who needed it, for someone none of us know. Just a fellow human.

This is the essence of my husband's spirit.

He told me this story matter-of-fact in style, not really getting why I was so impressed and honored by what he did and who he is. His indelible mark on my soul is one of the brightest.

from the baby sister.

I didn’t grow up with Deathe in the sense that I knew him when we were kids. My first real memory of Deathe was when I was 13 and had just gotten back home from the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Dad asked him to have a “brother/sister talk” with me. I was terrified, the talk was only a few sentences and those few sentences have always stuck with me. I don’t know that he knew the influence he had on me that day. In his way he told me that he understood, he didn’t judge me, and he’d always be there for me. And he always has been.

Since that day my life is full of memories of Deathe. He became my friend, someone I felt safe with and someone I felt knew that I was a dumb kid but understood I had to go through that. I don’t know if you know this Deathe, but I idolized you when I was a teenager. Not because of the fun you had or the fun I had when I was with you. It was the way you cultivated friends around you, the way people loved you. I knew that was the kind of person I wanted (and still want) to be; the kind of person who everyone wants to be around.

So many of that group of friends I met over 15 years ago are still there today, it just goes to show I wasn’t wrong about you. I’ve never met someone so kind and honest and who truly cares for his friends in such a selfless way as I’ve always seen in you. The care and love those friends return is simply a testament to that. I was always a little jealous of your intelligence, but it has always been your heart that I idolized.

Another thing I learned about Deathe as I grew older is his sense of morals and ethics. Not traditional in nature but instead founded in real life experience, not religion or secular law. This is an important tenant in his life and in mine as well. Deathe, you helped teach me to make real, informed decisions about ethics based on people and not arbitrary rules. This is again proof of the love and kindness you show to people. People come first. This is a lesson more could do with.

I remember meeting Bella and Rachel, and saw especially how you interacted with Rachel, and how you made her not your wife’s kid, but your own so quickly and easily. Rachel and Bella have become some of the most important people in my life. I can never thank you enough for bringing them into my life. And your boys… they will always know how much you love them and hold them dear, because of how much we will love them in your stead.

It’s funny, so many people identify Deathe as something above and beyond intelligent. And of course he is. Dad used to say, “Deathe just operates on a different level than the rest of us,” in reference to his intelligence. No argument here it’s just the simple truth. When his diagnosis came down one of the things I said was nature just hasn’t figured out how to deal with a brain like his… it’s too far forward in evolutionary terms. But for all that, the intelligence is just part of him, almost like a personality trait. But people don’t have the friendships and self-formed family bonds that Deathe cultivates around him because of intelligence. No one hangs out with the “smart guy” because he’s smart. People form their lives around people like Deathe because of how he treats them, and how he makes them feel, because he doesn’t judge but only offers honest opinions. He supports and helps, and criticizes when the situation calls for it. Intelligence alone doesn’t make an amazing father and husband. If even only for a short time, Deathe’s kids could not have had a better father and friend.

Deathe, thank you for the time we’ve shared and all you’ve done for me. And thank you for including me as part of your “family.” The only thing I could have asked for was more time. 

Family

"Family is them as treats you that way"

Deathe always held to that adage.  Most of my friends in Olathe I met through Deathe.  His college friends and roommates gamed together and I joined games and got to know the people.  We became something of a family. They all married, most started having kids but we managed to get a large pool of people working together and have stayed pretty close.  Even now they are family to Deathe.  When we needed someone to walk with Deathe one evening everyone came out or was were willing to help out in any way possible.  Some went to comfort Bella.  Some came to walk with Deathe.  Others offered to bring food and diet coke and to provide logistics.  Deathe has a support system for him built up because he treated his good friends as family and they treat him as family.  

Deathe has his biological siblings.  He has his parents who have always been supportive and helpful.  I think that Deathe's life is richer than most in that he has gotten to choose more of his family than just his spouse.  His close friends are his brothers and sisters in deed.  He has an extended family that isn't cousins, uncles and aunts but the people he associates with.  

And this ethic has extended to his children.  Whether biological children or not he has loved his children all the same and equally.  This is an exceedingly rare trait in a man.  Family meant more to Deathe than it does for most people.  You could measure Deathe's concern for family by the time he spent with his children interested and involved in their lives.  He amazed teachers and medical workers dealing with his family for his involvement and knowledge of the children and their needs and concerns.

His open house, his open family and his ability to extend true paternal or fraternal love to those around him marks Deathe as a man with attributes that many may not associate with Deathe.  Because of how he communicated or how he socially interacted it may not be obvious that Deathe is a man with a great capacity to love and a great concern for those around him.  Those that know him best cannot escape noticing this from him.  I think the single greatest qualities I can say about Deathe is that he loved.  He is a great father.  He is a great spouse.  He is a great brother.  Those blessed to be part of his family know of his straightforward, simple love.  

Why Tana Loves Deathe

I've heard so many people say that they would give anything for a chance to go back in time and tell someone who has died how much they meant. I have the chance, no Flux Capacitor needed, to do just that. That is my one visible gift, and I'll not deny myself, so please indulge me. And if you feel the blessing of this gift as well, we'll be proud to display your expressions here.

So the following are my words, and though they were originally met for his eyes only, I hope they will inspire you to add to this project, and show Deathe and the entire Davis Family what a profound role they play in our world.


Dear Deathe,

The first time we met, I knew one of us would be attending the other's funeral. I never thought we would be worrying about it this soon. You immediately left an impression on me, and you've always lived up to or exceeded it. I have so many things to thank you for. The blessing you've brought to Bella's life, and Rachel's life is immeasurable, and that would be enough to make you my favorite man on the planet. That would be more than enough,  but you didn't stop there. You quickly became a brother to me, and I can't imagine what life will be like without you.

You were my Google before Google existed. If ever I had a question, I knew you would have an answer. You seem to know everything! You even helped me un-learn and  re-learn  things my college professors were wrong about. What's most fascinating about that massive brain of yours is how you can teach and correct someone without making them feel 'less than'. It's an amazing skill that I've tried to incorporate into my own life. I fail miserably most of the time, but I'm getting better. I was hoping to have many more years of a real-time example to follow, but the memories of debates in the kitchen in Lawrence and later in Olathe will always be with me. As I write this, the 'Zero Sum Game' discussion of New Year's Eve 2001 comes to mind, as does the debate on the merits of recycling just last year. You manage to teach me something new nearly every time I see you. I've always appreciated that, but you didn't stop there.

You teach even when you're not speaking. I've never met someone so caring, so giving of themselves, and so organic in the way they relate to others. You have always served as the epitome of what is best in all of us, and you make it seem so effortless. Your approach feels so gentle, but never tentative. I've always liked watching you interact with others. When you first meet someone, you have an uncanny ability to gauge their comfort level. You will affirm, crack jokes, even flirt, and always with such sincerity.

You see, your heart is what makes you wonderful. Your brain has been the delicious icing on the cake, but you have always been more than an egghead to me, and I suspect I am not alone. You've never stopped giving to the people around you, and you never will. When you leave us physically, all that is you will remain in those who love you. You have never stopped, you never will, and neither will we.

I love you, brother.

Tana