Tynan McDermid - Sad News - Phoenix Diamond Tools

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

This past weekend our friend Tynan McDermid passed away after a year long battle with stage 4 lung cancer. In other posts on here many of you have posted sentiment for Tynan and his family. I would like his family to be able to read your thoughts and messages, so I am going ask Guy if there is some back end magic to merge the posts from that thread to this one, if not I am sure they will welcome a repost. Any funny stories, warm memories, inside jokes or the impact Ty made on you would be greatly appreciated.

Tynan's brother Brian will keep operating Phoenix Diamond Tools and I hope that all of you continue to buy from his company.

Brian is handling the all of the financial affairs for Tynan's family which as you can imagine is has been difficult with all of the medical bills.

Tynan's family will be having a private memorial service on Friday evening and a cremation on Saturday morning.

Tynan told Joe Durfee that he didn't believe in being put in the ground because that is a waste of a perfectly good golf course.

If you would like to send a gift in lieu of flowers, please send it to:

Brian Gaffney
131 Ludlow Road
Landsing NY 14882

Payable to: Brian Gaffney
Memo: Tynan Fund

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

Tynan's Post 11/10/11

I've never been great with words, or at being able to tell people how I feel, so I am having trouble now expressing how I felt a little earlier today when I received a package from Christina Briggs.

Inside was a flash drive with some pictures from the last workshop...some video of guys who OBVIOUSLY don't know how to forklift joust.. and video of your toast...I can count on both hands the number of times I have been brought to tears in my life, after today I will have to start using my toes.

Thank you does not come close to expressing how I feel, but they are the only words I know, so Thank You, for allowing me to do something I love for a living, for giving me the opportunity to be part of something so special, for your thoughts and prayers, phone calls, emails and texts...for buying so much of the stuff I have posted for sale (even though I suspect most of you don't really need them) but mostly for making me feel like I belong.

I do not know what tomorrow or the next day will bring, but I am no longer afraid of it, it will be whatever God intends for it to be, I will take each day as it comes and try to make the very most out of whatever time I have.

Thank you all for your support, it means more to me than you will ever know.

For more on reading on this thread: http://forum.stonefabricatorsalliance.c ... ilit=Tynan

[Joe Durfee]

I found out from Brian that he was the type of football fan that would have been an awesome coach. He could see the formations and tell you who the ball was going to and pick out the flaws of the defenses. Instead he choose to sell us tools.

[Tank]

First, I wanted to thank you all for the emails, text and phone calls you made to keep Ty's spirits up and keep him fighting, I honestly think it had a lot to do with him surviving as long as he did, I am simply amazed that people he never met had so much love and concern for him, and, even knowing all he had done to help strangers in his community that he had effected so many people’s lives.

My brother was a pretty simple person, not in intelligence, but in the way he viewed the world, he was very black & white, and rarely strayed into the gray area where a lot of people seem to live, his views, as some of you know, were pretty much set in stone and he tried to live his life that way.

The services on Friday were a little overwhelming, it was only supposed to be a small gathering of family, but we live in a very small town, we don’t even have a stoplight, but word of Ty’s passing spread pretty quickly and a lot of people showed up to pay their respects and later brought food to the house and spent time with the family telling the kids stories about the crazy things he used to do when he was a kid and how much they were going to miss him.

Saturday was probably the hardest day of my life, but for as long as I can remember, Ty never wanted to be stuck in the ground, “a complete waste of perfectly good real estate” or “great place for a golf course” were his 2 favorite responses when anyone would bring up cemeteries or being buried – there will be a small headstone for him on our family’s plot but his ashes will be spread in a few different spots. He believed that the body was just a vessel, and that the important part could not be contained so even if he had been buried, he wouldn’t really be there anyway.

It was always Ty who kept the family focused, he was the one we all went to when things would go wrong, or we needed advice, I didn’t realize just how much weight he carried on his shoulders for all of us, but it’s my job now and I had a great teacher, I will do my best to make him proud of me.

The last week has been difficult, I miss watching football games with him, getting crushed at Madden, I miss watching the GOP debates and hearing him yell at the TV when they say something stupid or get their facts wrong (the last couple debates would have been doozy’s!!) but the thing I miss the most is being able to talk to Ty, he had this way of explaining the most complicated things in the simplest way and not make you feel stupid for not knowing it already, in the last week I really could have used his advice.

Some things you may not have known about him…he loved hunting and fishing, though he hadn’t been hunting in a few years, he was an excellent chess player, when he was younger, 5 or 6 years old, he use to play chess with a Cornell professor named Carl Sagan, who, according to my mother, told her that Ty had one of the most focused minds he had ever seen, but mothers can sometimes remember things how they choose to..they kept in touch until Carl passed away in 1996.

Ty loved children, I think it was because of they way children see the world, with wonder and amazement, and he loved his country, I think one of his few regrets was that he was not able to serve in the military because of his knees, but he preached the greatness of America to anyone who would listen and often to some who didn’t care to hear.

Up until he got sick, Ty would have a group of people over to his house once a month, parents, neighbors, kids (but especially the kids) to read and discuss real American history and the Constitution - I remember once, his daughter came home and showed him some things they were learning in history and told him some of the things the teacher had said about America being a bad country and being responsible for all the trouble in the world, I do not know exactly how the conversation went, but I’m sure that teachers backside will heal up eventually !!

I’m sorry for rambling, there’s just so much inside my head right now and I know this is a place Ty felt he could come and share his thoughts so I hope you will all allow me to do the same thing.

I think he would tell me that I have been mourning long enough, to put on my big boy pants, pull up my boots and get doing what needs to be done, that people die and life goes on, in fact I’m sure that’s what he would tell me, so, I will take a few more days to get my head back on straight and then I will begin where he left off.

Thank you all for looking out for my big brother.

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

I would really like to hear more about Ty, so please anytime you want to post something, I want to read it.

I can only imagine that teacher... WOW!

Thinking of you guys!

[Joshua Hopkins]

As Jean said... same here.

[Joe Durfee]

Very well said Brian. If you need to talk about anything you have my phone number. I haven't brought myself to change the entry from Ty's name to yours yet though.

[Stonecuttter]

This was awhile back, I forget just when. I am a VERY small-fry fabricator who works for someone else when I can, but had gotten laid-off (again) as the economy guided my then-employer to shave costs by downsizing. I had decided to start fabbing and selling smaller granite and marble items here at home, out of my backyard shop, and I needed a new set of pads and a turbo-blade and maybe some glue. I forget exactly what, but it wasn't much, because forking over a hundred bucks or so was MAJOR to me, and I was embarrassed about it. Anyway, I bought from Tynan, and we talked on the phone.
Next thing ya know, I'd been on the phone for like an hour, and felt (in the first 5 minutes) like I was talking with someone I had known a long, long time. Here I was, feeling sorry for myself, and this guy's telling me about his whole basement flooding and how he was practically rebuilding an already-existing business that was doing well, from scratch!
We BS'd about our personal situations, and it went on and on. Tynan ended up shipping me much more than I'd paid for, with a "try this", and a "try these out and let me know back how they work", so of course I went with him the next time I needed something. Needless to say, we talked more on the phone after that.
He'd recently found out he was sick, and we talked some about that too.
Last July, I lost my Father to lung cancer. He was 87, and hadn't smoked a butt in over 45 years. By the time he was diagnosed, it had metasticized (sp?) to 7 places in his skeletal structure. He went down faster than the Hospice docs had ever seen, but with AMAZING dignity and grace. Hell of a summer as he went down, then passed. I'd been hired again, and we were doing a MAJOR steakhouse account and our bosslady was working us from 5am till 2am kinda hours due to a jacked-up opening-date. I'd get home totally exhausted, just as 30-50 of my family members from 5 states around, were leaving whatever dinner it was that night. Once, even in my own home, which I totally missed due to getting stone into this steakhouse.
Here's the kicker - Because of my "friendship" with Tynan (even though we'd never actually met) His decline and passing has affected me every BIT as much as the passing of my father. You see, I've smoked for 35 years. Some 5 years ago, I decided to "drop out" of health-care, and haven't seen a doc nor a dentist since. I'm recently divorced, and since then, have fallen in love with a high-school sweetheart. We intend to be married. Between her, my father's passing, and Ty's illness, I was convinced to re-enter healthcare-maintenance. Of course my old doc had retired. I made an appt at the same practice, and had my first checkup in over 5-6 years this past Monday. I asked for chest x-rays. My new doc said they, and the EKG, and everything else looked fine, and I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.
Well, the doc called this VERY damned morning, and told me that the radiologist had seen something on the films that he hadn't caught. An "opacity" that shouldn't be there. Left mid-lung. SAME place, exactly, as a searing pain brought me to my freaking KNEES on Christmas Eve, in California at my finace's place, and laid me low for days. NOW I'm being scheduled for a CT-scan, ASAP, and was have been kind of freaking the hell out today, as I did the best I could on some of the same steakhouse's tables and a homeowner's laundry-room top and splashes.
Tynan's, and my Dad's exhortations about quitting smoking cigarettes is central on my brain.
As is Tynan's friendship, support, help, and easy-talking kinda "regular guy to regular guy" contact, and yes his concern for ME.
I wish you well in Phoenix Tools, man, you're taking over from one HELL of a guy, but you already know that. I wish you and the whole family comfort and peace. Y'all've been in my thoughts and prayers for quite some time now.
RIP Ty, my friend. I WAS listening, and I AM trying. Harder now.

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

Stay positive Sam!

[Rick George]

Thank you so much for sharing all that Brian!!! I never met Tynan as many here, but felt I knew him somewhat thru his posts. He will be greatly missed and noone knows that more than his family so thanks for sharing!

Sam- keep us updated and stay positive!

[Ger Vanderbas]

Just a note, that I spoke to Tynan a few times, never met him, but he had quite a charming way about him when you spoke with him that you couldn't help but like him.

He did some productivity testing for me on the arix fingerbits which allowed me to show some life advantages to our customers, which I know helped us and he will be missed.

For those of you with the Fabcenter concept, Tynan helped us develop a quite nice silent core blade which our customers really liked because it had really good success even cutting polish down minimizing any blowout.

A gentleman and a guy I would have loved to play 18 holes with.

An Impact guy. A sad loss, but I believe there are golf courses in Heaven.

G

[Steven Hauser]

Hello,

Tynan was a scholar and a gentleman. He never failed to relay the positive aspects of living life fully.

He helped me develop some products for exterior treatments and provided such great feedback and information that we were able to create another product category for his clients.

He will be missed.