A Death In The Family, by Michael Davis – Straight No Chaser #265 | @MDWorld

April 18, 2012 Michael Davis 1 Comment

Mike Gold used the above title for a piece he wrote for Comicmix. Try as I might I just could not think of a better title…

John Tebbel was not a member of my family.

That could have fooled me.

I loved hanging out with John as rare as that was. There’s one time I think of often, John and his dear wife Martha Thomases were in Los Angeles and we all met for dinner and karaoke.

Karaoke is a big deal for me. I take that shit seriously. No one dares complete with my karaoke expertise. No one.

John dared. He went there.

John not only went there he went there with some serious skills. I dare say he was a worthy opponent and we ended the evening in a draw.

That’s the day I fell in love with another man…

Martha and I have a wonderful relationship. More than once Martha has talked to me when I was at my worse during my DC/Milestone days. She actually stopped me from pimp slapping a certain guy named Bruce once…

When she and I reconnected after years apart at a Comicmix meeting we hugged like we had not seen each other in 20 years because it sure felt that way.

From that moment on I felt that Martha was family and by extension John then a few years later my extended family grew again with the addition of John and Martha’s son, Art.

John passed away a few days ago and the fantastic week I was having instantly turned bad.  I called Martha to give my condolences and the moment she answered the phone the tears started flowing.

You know what Martha did? She made me feel better. I called to see if I could ease her pain if just for the briefest of moments but she made me feel better. She even made me laugh. It’s almost impossible to make me laugh and it is impossible to make me laugh when I’m miserable and crying.

Martha did the impossible and I’ll never forget that.

I’ll miss John. I’ll miss looking forward to seeing him at conventions, I’ll miss having dinner with him and Martha when I’m in New York and when they’re in L.A. I’ll miss his wit-damn he was a smart guy, I mean really, really smart.

Most of all I’ll miss how Martha would say; “Are you in New York? Can John and I feed you?”

Those dinners were just awesome. John was simply awesome; Martha and Art are simply awesome.

Knowing John his wit, his humor and his point of view, again, awesome.

Goodbye dear friend-I’ll sing a song just for you the next time I’m at karaoke. I don’t know when that will be; I don’t think I’ll feel like singing anytime soon.