Stargazer

My mom called me around 11:30 pm (nearly two hours ago) to tell me my dad, Wayne McCoy, had died. Back in early May, he'd had a case of acute pancreatitis and had been in the hospital since then. He got worse, then he got better, then worse, then better... he was scheduled for surgery next week to clean out some of necrotic tissue around his pancreas. But today, they found he was having trouble breathing and discovered a cyst on his pancreas had become septic -- very infected. They were going to try to give him some experimental treatment with antibiotics, but the bacteria were stronger than his failing body. He would have been 70 in October.

I'd actually gone down to see him a couple of weeks ago, a quick flight to Florida one day and then a flight back the next. He was in bad shape then, on a dialysis machine, several IVs and other machines and lots of tubes going into him. It was tragic to see him like that. Up until May, he was still full of life. Not two days before he went into the hospital, I'd talked to him and my mother via a Skype video call, on Mother's Day. They were going to come up here to Maryland the last week of June (last week) to visit, after seeing my brother perform in Aida in New York. That had gotten cancelled, obviously.

He lived a good and happy life, I will say. His love of music especially he imparted onto all of his children. He was also a skilled artist and was finishing up a novel and preparing it for publication. And to the very end, he was still very liberal and a staunch atheist and influenced me greatly in my skepticism and rational world view.

For anyone here in the DC area who knew him, I am going to organize some kind of memorial service or wake or something very soon. More details will be forthcoming.