Greg Shekey

Eulogy

This eulogy was delivered at the memorial by Greg’s son, Aaron Shekey.

Thank you all for coming. I know some of you traveled a long way to be here. It means the world to us.

We all lost someone we loved. We lost a dad. A partner. A brother. We lost a friend. Maybe you lost a neighbor. We also lost a masterful shit talker.

So how do we get here? Well maybe I’ll start with literally how did we get here. On Saturday my mom was in Florida cleaning up her and my dad‘s winter home from the damage of hurricane Helene. She was watching the forecast and was feeling absolutely overwhelmed worried that her flight out on Thursday would get canceled and that we’d have to postpone this party. Too many worst-case scenarios.

So she asked me to come down on Saturday night to come scoop her. I told her to meet me at a hotel by the airport with her car and the dog and we’d get out of dodge. We were out before any of the traffic or gas shortages or anything of that nature. We got to spend you know 24 quality hours together driving all the way north. I’m glad you’re here I’m glad you’re safe. We’ll see what happens once people return to that neighborhood and assess the damage. We don’t really know.

We found out Greg was sick after he moved back to Wisconsin last May. He was at the bottom of the driveway feeling rough. Mom took him to the emergency room and they confirmed his diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis and that he’d need oxygen and all these things.

I think his biggest worry was that he’d have to spend another winter in the north. We had lots of conversations about what it might mean if we go to Florida. Maybe he couldn’t come back. Maybe he’d be stuck there. And so the question became way bigger than just “Do you wanna go to Florida for the winter”. After much talking, and a flare up last October he made it pretty clear. “I don’t want to die in Wisconsin”. I think he would rather die during transport to Florida than face down another winter in Wisconsin.

It took us until December to figure out the logistics of getting down to Florida. But that gave us time to have one last Thanksgiving together as an entire family. We even had our brother-in-law Ben… You see a Scottish man around here? He’s an incredible chef and he volunteered his time and skills to cook the family and my dad a beautiful steak meal. I just can’t tell you what that meant to us. Something will cherish forever so thank you Ben.

After thanksgiving we went home to Minnesota and rented an RV that had a generator that can run all of my dad‘s oxygen machines and it would allow him to be able to stand up and move around because he all the doctors were really afraid that he could clot and stroke out if he wasn’t moving around enough.

Turns out you can’t have oxygen on a plane either. At least not the big machine he needed. By then he had some pretty big needs, and again with the clotting issue, he might not have survived a flight.

But once we packed everything in there with the oxygen machine and the oxygen tanks it really didn’t feel that big. And we really felt like we needed to rush down to Florida to minimize the opportunity for something to go wrong in freakin’ Tennessee or somewhere random.

But we did it! Matt and I, we traded four or five hour shifts and we made it all the way to Florida without stopping. No overnights. Just potty breaks and refills for gas which felt like every 14 miles because the generator was such a hog. But we made it in 30 hours from Minneapolis to Fort Myers.

In hindsight, we could have taken so much more stuff. Tools, and dog toys, and TV equipment, other nonsense that I was begging my parents to just buy two of already. They’d been dragging a single TV back and forth for nearly 10 years!

So of course for months after we got down there if ever he was missing something from the house up north. Something like a toothbrush… he’d declare loudly “There was no way we could fit it!”

He was funny though. I think most of you felt that. I think he could be friends with anyone. I think that was one of his superpowers. Sometimes I felt bad for anybody working at a marina, because I’m sure some of you have understood this that it like maybe wasn’t up to you if Greg Shekey was your friend or not.

He would just kind of show up and start shooting the breeze. The way he showed love was to make fun of you. To roast whatever you were driving, or maybe something you were wearing or a technique that he hadn’t learned. He had the gift of gab. I mean I know some of you even ended up in his phone.

Toward the end of his life it was marinas but in the middle there God help you if you worked at a car shop. Mostly because we had kind of shitty cars our entire life and we spent a lot of time going there. But also because he was always a big gear head and if you had a nice shop he was interested in that. I think maybe he would’ve found a great community having been a mechanic professionally. I was never sure why he didn’t pursue some of that work. Probably a lack of formal training kept it a fun hobby.

It might also have had something to do with every engine he touched one day exploding. I know some of the boat guys are laughing at that.

I always called Greg dad. I was careful to never call him a father. There’s a really subtle distinction there, but to me dads felt less like the stoic dark creature in the corner of the room that tells you life advice but isn’t your friend. And there were moments when I was a kid when he felt like a father.

I remember being around 12 and getting really hyped up about staying over at a friend’s house. Or maybe they were gonna stay at mine. Around that time he was pretty stern and said no a lot. At that age, I’m sure I was absolutely annoying as hell.

I remember saying to my friend at the time, “Ok, I’ll ask him if I can do the sleepover, but I bet he’s gonna say no. He only ever says no”. And I swear to this day he must have heard me, because he met me with an emphatic yes. And I swear from that point on our relationship changed a bit. He was warmer and met me with an energy that fostered the things I was interested in. Music and sports and building things.

He would tuck me in each night. I’d feel his beard on my cheek when he’d kiss me goodnight. We had time with his illness that I could tell him that it always made me feel so safe and loved. I think he admitted that my mom made him do that.

But it meant that when I was riding my bike to my buddy Andrew’s house to play music all day in his basement, and then riding my bike home—it was about an 8 mile round trip—he offered to drive me there. There was even a moment when he asked me if I wanted to drive. Are you fucking serious? Yes I want to drive your Plymouth Breeze. Are you kidding me?

He wasn’t much of a teacher though ’cause he didn’t explain that you had to be stopped before you put it into park.

But he always let me play rock shows late into weekend nights at scary bars like The Anchor Inn over on the east side. We were 15, playing these bars at 1am on a Saturday night. You could still smoke for fuck’s sake!

And he’d get me every hockey practice and all the games. He’d get me to this thing called zero-hour in high school so I could eventually be let out early when I was a senior.

He would eventually try to revert to being a father. During college and whatnot he’d shake our hand when we left the house. One small silver lining about him getting sick is he started letting me give him big hugs goodbye. Those were the best. I’ll cherish those like the kisses goodnight.

My dad would always say he never quite understood where my musicianship came from. And for a long time I didn’t understand either. We have a grandpa that played guitar and was artistic in his own right he was a fighter pilot and all these things and then eventually became an architect and so I always kinda attributed that spirit to him.

But I was mentioning this to his good friend of many many many years Rick Neeman. Nemo articulated it for me in a way that I hadn’t before and he said you know your dad is very artistic. It was just a different medium entirely. He had his engines and he had his boat. And he had all the projects around the house and they all had customizations they all had custom details and decals, names and tweaks that could only come from Greg and it made every tool that he had so obviously his.

There wasn’t a thing on earth that he didn’t zip tie to something else. Everything was labeled. He fixed and reused, and was excited to show you his contraptions. He had some stupid projects too. There was one outboard motor that eventually blew up that he hollowed out and turned into the world’s worst lamp that anyone has ever seen.

Every car he had something custom. A stereo or a decal or you know I was driving his Mustang the other day and on the mirror it said “objects in mirror are losing“. That asshole even had on one of his boats “fossil fuels are yummy“. Well he and I had a lot of differing political opinions but two hurricanes did just hit Florida so we’ll leave it at that.

His illness meant we had time. We had a year and a half to talk about his service, and his recommitment to being a veteran. I gave him the opportunity to talk about his service and unburden himself of anything. He was glad to receive care from the VA. We had time to talk about new projects, and a house I’m renovating. I got him access to every episode of This Old House and anything else he wanted to watch. He and I probably watched half of those episodes together growing up. He texted me randomly one day “Bob Villa’s a jerk“. That was pretty much the whole conversation, but he was absolutely right. He used to come up with projects that I could do around the house. A new faucet or a light. Maybe new leaf guards or something like that. My love language happens to be acts of service, so I was always so honored to help. I think he liked to watch when he couldn’t do it himself.

I’m going to miss sending him photos of things I’ve done so much.

The time meant we had few regrets. I remember sitting in the VA hospital with him last year explaining how so many of my peers and friends have complicated relationships with their fathers. But remember, I didn’t have a father. I had a dad. And I absolutely loved him. I was able to tell him to his face that I didn’t have any regrets. Whether it was intentional or not, he did everything correctly with me. And in these later years he told me he loved me too. I could tell he was proud. I felt it. I know he’s talked about me with some of y’all. I’m sure you’ve heard about some exaggerated version of my boring job.

So again I rely on gratitude. Of course, we thought we had more time. We were about 2 weeks away from telling him he was going to be a grandpa but we just ran out of road. Natalie and I are excited to keep the Shekey family name going and for his spirit to live on with us. With all of you here now. He’s got so many grand dogs too, don’t forget about the grand dogs. When gathering photos, I was shocked to see so many dogs in his life. He would never admit it, but he really loved animals and cared for them. He cried the hardest when we lost them.

So.

Thank you all for being here. Thank you for making this event happen. We’ve been through a wild month or two. If you’ve got a drink with you, I’d love to toast the life of Greg Shekey.

Glasses up:

Thank you dad.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for helping raise this family.
Thank you for being hilarious.
Thank you for all the rides.
Thank you for all the corned beef hash.
Thanks for tying all our hockey skates.
Thanks for checking out of here before having to figure out how to evacuate your ass from Florida.

Cheers, dad. Over and out.