smoked salmon and jesus

Last week my uncle passed away. 

It seems weird to move forward without acknowledging it, but at the same time it doesn’t even feel real. He fought a very valiant fight against pancreatic cancer and made all of us extremely proud by the way he carried himself from his diagnosis until the very end. 

He’s the first person close to me that has ever died.  I don’t want to make this about me in any way, however due to not being able to travel to his memorial (because of the pandemic), I’m having a bit of trouble coming to terms with his passing. So, I decided to write about it, as I do with most tough things. I want to honor him and remember him and have a tangible reminder of what an incredible man he was. 

I want to remember the man that coached his sons’ little league teams and would cheer for them to “send that ball to the moon and kiss it goodbye”. I want to remember the man that once paid me $2 because he didn’t believe that my little five year old self could eat two entire sloppy joes. I want to remember the man that would do absolutely anything for his children if it meant they were safe and happy. 

He loved his grandkids so deeply. I loved seeing him down on the floor playing with them or holding them in his lap and reading them stories. One of my cousins summed up the special bond so well saying, “Papa was their best friend”. 

He was incredibly generous. Right before he was diagnosed last year, my husband’s car broke down. Uncle Wray somehow managed to overnight us the exact part that we needed to fix it. He wouldn’t let us pay him back, because that’s just who he was. 

He was passionate about food (it runs in the family!). One year he raised a turkey and drove it all of the way to Little Rock from San Diego so that we could have fresh turkey for Thanksgiving. Turns out, he did such a good job that the turkey was too big to fit into my grandma’s oven. 

I’ve still yet to find a smoked salmon better than his. This man could get vegetarians to eat meat because he cooked it so well. (I’m not exaggerating, my grandma is living proof!)

The last time I saw him in person was the night before we were returning home after spending Christmas in California. My cousins, parents, grandparents, and us were all crowded in his living room. Somebody brought up how we used to have Wii competitions back in the day. My little cousin (ok fine, he’s in his twenties) found the Wii and got it connected. All of our avatars from 10+ years ago were still there. We ended the night crying from laughing so hard as we attempted to break our old records at the downhill ski jump game. 

It was the perfect last memory for me and so vividly represented who he was: a man who loved his family and couldn’t help but laugh and have fun. 

Wraymond Richard Schott loved well, cared deeply, and was always available to help however he could. There were some things that we believed very differently on, but what matters most is that he loved Jesus. For that I will be forever grateful, because one day we will see each other again. Until then, he’s dancing at the feet of Jesus while we are still trying to figure out how he made his salmon taste so good.