In Loving Memory...

This video is different than my usual gaming videos, but nothing has been usual for my family lately. This year has been a tough one for us. My mom has asked me to post this to keep their memory alive, and I wanted to show just a slice of the men who really molded me into the woman I am today and sparked my love for gaming. It's very difficult to summarize this:

My oldest brother, Jack, passed away on February 13th of a heart attack at 41. Getting that news was the worst day of my life up to that point. Out of the blue and so sudden. No chance to say goodbye or I love you one more time. He was a really great man and the best big brother you could ask for. We didn't have much growing up, but he always made sure to give us his "old" gaming systems he bought once he had a job. He loved final fantasy 7 and breath of fire 3. I used to stay up so late watching him play those games again and again, among other games he enjoyed. He was my role model. No matter how long between talks, we always could just pick up wherever.

Tragedy struck us again very quickly when on March 24th, my brother's memorial day, our dad also had a heart attack and passed away at 67. This video is for his memorial, but I couldn't leave my brother out of it. My dad helped raise him from 3 years onwards, and he never looked at him as anything but his son. They were two peas in a pod until the rest of us came along, and always shared their love of Thundercats and many, many games and sports and whatever else growing up. My dad loved the Halo series, and we would all play through every game together. He always loved IT and between working on his business, he built my siblings and I all our own computers, and then our first "gaming" computers once those became a thing. Some of my fondest memories I have are watching him play Decent, Command and Conquer, Doom, and many other games on the family computer with all of us perched around him back-seat gaming! We loved to watch Stargate SG-1 together. He loved to play games, but he loved watching us enjoy games more, and eventually once we were old enough he mostly passed the torch. He loved to hear about what we were up to as we grew up and started our own families, and he was a wonderful grandfather. It was really great watching him play Doom on xbox, comparing it to those early 2000's computer graphics and just being blown away about how much better games were now. We collectively bitched about the new Halos not allowing couch co-op anymore, but we still played the new ones and we discussed them. We were actually in the middle of the Halo TV show's new season when he passed, so that will be a tough one to finish now, without him here.

He not only enriched our love of gaming, he was always very involved and a problem-solver in our sports lives and extracurriculars growing up. He brought softball to the forefront when I wanted to play, and boy scouts into our little town, starting the troop when my other brother wanted to be in boy scouts. Just little things as kids that you don't realize are kind of a big deal to do. He always wanted us to be able to do what we wanted, to enjoy our youth and have fun just being kids, and he did whatever he needed to do to accomplish that. We had amazing childhoods because of him. He was the best dad anyone could ask for. Always either our coach for our teams, or a huge fan in the crowds, cheering us on louder than anyone else. A goofy, syfy-loving, family man that did everything he could and then some for all of us.

My parents had 38 loving years together. They have always been my model of what a good relationship should be. I never doubted that my parents were as madly in love now as they were the day they met. You can plainly see that with how they look at each other in these photos, there is always so much love there - or a goofy face from my dad to make my mom laugh. It is really tough because my dad was always the rock in our family. He knew just what to do in every situation. My brother was who I would call if I ever needed some perspective. Or just someone to chat with about anything. We were so much alike, and even more so as we got older. We all just feel so lost without them. The suddenness of their passings, so close together, has made it very difficult to process anything lately. There is just a huge hole in me and I'm walking around with a band-aid, barely clinging on. I have a wonderful family to help pull me through these tragedies, and we will all be leaning on each other more now than ever.

I love you, Jack. I love you, Dad. You will always be loved and missed. Until we all meet again, rest in peace.

Donald Richard Macomb Sr.
November 29, 1956 - March 24, 2024
Jack Edward Wooden
October 5, 1982 - February 13, 2024


Song credits go to their various artists - I'm not trying to make any money off this video. This should be de-monetized if I ever get to that stage, anyways.