As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but to notice that everything seems so surreal to me at the moment. The past week has been a confusing blur of events and it seems my mind has run the emotional gauntlet.
Eight days ago, a friend of mine, Lewis Coil, died of a heart attack. Lew was a regular at The Game Room, a fine establishment here in Toledo that I’ve compared to the bar on the old television show Cheers; it’s a place where everybody knows your name. As expected, Lew’s sudden death threw us all into turmoil. I got to know Lew back in early 2006, and over the course of two and a half years, I became very fond of his well-timed humor, charming crankiness as well as his sheer passion for comics and those particular creators who make them special. I didn’t know Lew as long or as personally as my close friend Paul Shiple – the man who helps make The Game Room the great place it is – or some of the other regulars, like Aaron Weisbrod or Eric Palicki. Due to the lack of income, I’ve been able to make only sporadic trips to The Game Room over the last year and a half and I hadn’t seen Lew in a year. His passing fills me with regret, as I missed sitting next to him, listening to his opinions and his well-timed jokes before he passed on. Now I know it’s too late.
After the news of Lew’s passing, my mother – who suffered the amputation of her left leg above the knee a little over two years ago – sustained an infection in a wound on her right foot that required another traumatic surgery. Not only did they have to remove the lower portion of her right leg at around mid-calf, but they also took another section from her left leg because of a lingering infection inside the bone there.
With Lew’s passing fresh on my mind, I wasn’t optimistic of her chances. For a few eerie days, everything seemed a little darker than normal, the shadows in every room felt as if they were closing in with a malevolent sentience of their own. I saw my mom minutes before she was taken back in the operating room. I said what I had to say to her before having to leave.
It wasn’t until seven hours later when I received the word that she made it out of surgery okay. I exhaled a sigh of relief. I was elated that my mother’s time hadn’t come yet.
Which brings me to now. I’m preparing to attend a memorial service for Lew, a gathering that will have many – if not all – of The Game Room’s regulars. I’ll see many good friends there, and a number of them I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing in a while. It is there where we’ll celebrate our merry little band of marauders as well as Lew’s life. I have no doubt he’ll receive a truly heartfelt goodbye from the gang who loved him and looked up to him.
From relief over my mother to this. When I’m able to go to The Game Room more often again, there will be an empty space there that nobody can possibly fill, and I know the rest of the crew feels the same way. Max Lambdin – another regular – said it best when he posted that Lew was a “great curly-haired guy” on Facebook. Wednesdays will, most definitely, never be the same.
So long, buddy.