RIP Reese Jay

I’ve been trying to finish this post for the last couple months, I don’t know why it has taken this long to write. Maybe it was because of the sadness of losing Reese, maybe because of the whole pandemic I really didn’t want to think about more death. We lost so many family members and friends during the end of 2019 and into 2020 then the pandemic hit. His funeral was so small because at this point restrictions were in place. I can only imagine how big his funeral would have been if it had been a normal year. He spent most of his life working for our community and everyone knew him well. At work I had coworkers tell me they remember seeing him around the community always working.

Over the last couple of years his health was declining but he still had been trying to do every day things up till the day he got sick, he hated being still. He also didn’t like to go to the doctors much. Well, he ended up getting sick and having to go to the dreaded doctors, while they were doing tests they found he had cancer. It pretty much made its way through his entire body. Doctors told us that it was better to let him live how he wanted and he would go when he was ready. It ended up being quick.

If you look back or have followed my blog for a while now you might have seen some posts about Reese Jay, he is one of my grandfathers on my dads side. When I was a small child I used to spend a lot of time at his home with his wife Shirlee and daughter Reyne. When we lived next door to them I would wander off from my parents and walk over to their home. He would yell over to the other house “Jimmy is over here!” The last time I took some photos of him was in 2017, he was sitting in his chair and smoking his cigarettes. I was surprised he let me take those photos, he wasn’t one for having his photo taken. That post is still up if you want to look back.

Only 10 people were allowed in the church at a time. My grandmother his sister is the one on the right in the front row, she is the last of her brothers and sisters.

Morning mass before we go to the cemetery.

Our family member Marlon makes our crosses and his brother Joey does the lettering they usually makes the crosses for our family. That is my nephew Reese sitting there, he is named after the original Reese.

Prayer at grave site.

Reese standing over the casket

My Grandmother saying goodbye to her brother for the last time.

I wanted to include the one photo I really love of him. These were taken inside my families old mud house on Christmas Eve one year. We would have our whole family crammed into that house, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents all getting together for Christmas Eve to exchange gifts. He always loved Christmas and giving gifts, he was always happy to give. When I was newly born I spent my time growing in this house, I grew up in this house until I was about 5. This is the house I would run away from and end up at Reese’s family house.

This is the first frame from this roll. This frame really makes me sad, it makes me think of him almost like fading away and blurry.

Second photo on the roll, I shot again and got this one. I like this one. He was happy.

A Haircut

Ok, it was just an excuse to post another selfie. So ever since lockdown my wife Talia was wanting to cut my hair I honestly had no problem with her cutting it. I figured it was the middle of the Arizona summer and if I had to I would just shave it. It was hard for her at first because we had no trimmers just a pair of scissors, she made it work though. Even now I have her cutting it. It reminds me when my mom would send me and my brother half a mile down the road with a 5 dollar bill to the old man named Lester who would set out a little stool and cut me and my brothers hair. I don’t miss those trimmer cuts or hair pulls though.

We hardly ever venture to anyplace except me to work and the store. I still haven’t set foot in a barber shop since March, I just feel like taking a risk for a haircut is silly and very selfish at this point. But that is just my opinion. I always wonder what they did during the pandemic of 1918, were people still running around doing normal things, were haircuts and salons just as important? Were people protesting to open barber shops and salons? Were people wanting to get back to a normal life so fast? I don’t know about all of that, but I do know I happy with my haircut.

Selfie Mode

February 5, 2020.
4 days after turning 40 years old.

March 13, 2020
Last haircut before everything shut down here in Arizona.

March 23, 2020
First day of working from home. Even have a work T-shirt on.

August 18, 2020
Make it fancy.
Back to work 3 days a week.

Probably need to update the selfie at this point since I haven’t taken one since August.