A guy who loved his family, loved life, and was at the top of his craft

I like to go to the Mostly Cajun blog to see what happened on this date in history. Here is one of his entries today:

1942 – World War II: The U.S. tanker Virginia was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507. Most people don’t know that German U-Boats terrorized the American East and Gulf coasts for a year after Pearl Harbor. Took us a while to get our act together and we lost a lot of men and materiel while doing it.

Mostly Cajun has been feeling subdued this week. Why?

Last Sunday my brother-in-law Roger, husband of my much older sister (peace be upon her) passed away.

The sad facts: Three weeks ago he was having shoulder pain. Went to the doctor thinking that it was just another of those old-age things, pulled muscle, arthritis, you know what I mean. X-rays showed otherwise. Large mass in the lung. Metastasized to other organs, including the brain. He went home to decide on a further course of action. If I remember details, 3-6 months without chemotherapy, maybe longer with it.

He chose to forgo the chemo.

They were wrong about the 3-6 months. He made three weeks. Leaves behind a couple of sons and a horde of grandkids who’ll miss him, as will I and the rest of us who viewed him as part of our family. Like I told my boss when I wanted the days off: I’ve known this guy for fifty years.

He walked into our lives back in 1960-something, another guy on the arm of my big sister. He stuck around, though. They were married, had the requisite three kids. He worked. I mean, he WORKED. I remember sitting up evenings with my sister because he worked for an oilfield service company and spent considerable time gone offshore.

The guy was a master mechanic. I watched him do a bottom-end overhaul one one of those cars young couples used to buy, you know at the point in its life when it needed a lot of work. Used to be able to get ‘em cheap if you didn’t mind burning oil or hard starts or odd noises. Brother-in-law bought one and overhauled the engine without removing said engine from the car. Drove it for years. He was also the go-to guy at family crawfish boils. He certainly had the roots for it: A Cajun name from Hackberry, Louisiana.

In later years he continued as a master mechanic working in the oil and gas fields on the big reciprocating engines and compressors. Ended up, after all those years, in East Texas.

His boys followed in their dad’s footsteps, which, in his case, is not a bad thing at all.

And yesterday we put his remains on an oak-covered hill beside his wife and daughter, near Mom and Dad’s memorial, on the same hill that generations of our ancestors occupy.

Forgive me if I sound kind of sad. I am. Gonna miss him every time I think of a guy who loves his family. Who loves life. Who’s at the top of his craft.

Goodbye, Roger. Hope to see you again some day