Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. That's a wonderful eulogy, though.
Sad, though I didn't know him. As Mrs Y remarks on these occasions, "Why can't some of the bastards die young occasionally?"
Sorry to hear this. He sounds like a great guy.
Thanks, you guys. I've been bursting into tears all day.
Oh, LBJ, I'd known about your stories and the location and I'd known about his decline and now death from all my many fb friends who were fond of him. He sounds like he was an amazing person as well as a great thinker.
I recently lost my own Madison-area uncle, whom I wasn't able to see after his cancer diagnosis. I have really appreciated getting to hear about your experiences visiting and processing this.
I'm so sorry for your loss, LBJ. And for yours, Thorn.
Sending love to you and yours. It's clear how much you loved him.
My sympathies. He seems like a really wonderful guy.
Condolences to you too, Thorn.
Now I feel bad for stomping condolences, which was not my intention! I'm doing fine with it and my aunt is holding up fairly well and being very honest on facebook about what her grief is like, which I also appreciate. Keeping condolences on-topic is fine!
You should feel bad that you feel bad about so many things.
19: No, Thorn shouldn't feel bad at all. But if she does feel bad, she shouldn't feel bad about that.
It's funny, LBJ -- when I saw your uncle's name it was immediately familiar to me but I couldn't quite place it, and still can't. I don't know if I saw it on fliers for talks around downtown Madison a lot, or other local settings... anyway my dad is a friend/former colleague of the wife of Harry on CT, who wrote the eulogy, so the world seems small. (I'm also a tiny bit spooked by this mini-cluster of Madison-area cancer deaths among relatives of commenters, but my dad's surgery last week went well, so hopefully this is the end of the misfortunes. Still, my condolences to you two and your families are fairly literal.)
21: My brother is a professor (biophysics, so probably doesn't know any of these people) in Madison. Also my best friend's brother-in-law (Environmental Sociology, so maybe more likely to know?).
You people are so stereotypically cosmopolitan.
Are you insinuating that Columbus is less than cosmopolitan?
I know some of the math people in that department. And I know one of them is related to a former commenter here.
My uncle wasn't university-affiliated but was probably stereotypically Wisconsin in coming back from a winter fishing trip to finally admit he couldn't handle the pain anymore, so by his first doctor's appointment the colon cancer was already in an advanced stage. I did make a shawl he wore daily during his last year. Bringing the girls to the funeral or going without them wouldn't have made things any better. But I'm still sad how hard it is to keep up with family while having a family.
25: Just that Columbus and Madison are relatively close together and in the same country. It doesn't seem like my having ties to there would seem particularly cosmopolitan to you.
Madison and Columbus are nearly eight hours apart by car.
I'm so sorry, LBJ. From what you've written elsewhere, he had a wonderful last few months saying goodbye.