Help Us Honor Jay Metcalf's Memory with Cremation

On July 22nd, 2024, this earth lost someone who was easily in the top 500 of the most wonderful and just downright amazing humans to ever walk on it (probably top 100). James Lloyd Metcalf... Well, to anyone who knew him personally, or has been a Bishop area resident since the 60's, you knew him as Jay Metcalf.

And I am his oldest of two sons, Caleb.

Now, let me just start off by saying, if you are one of the many people who got the chance to meet or know my dad, you know that top 500 statement at the top is not a joke. He truly was an amazing man full of love, humor, and joy and made it his goal to spread that love, humor, and joy, as well as the message of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to everyone. Family, Friends, Family of Friends, complete strangers, people on the TV who couldn't even hear him (I wish that last one was a joke)... My dad really was a truly awesome person to be around.

Here comes the sad part that I've been stalling writing about, but the reason we are here on this page.

This past Monday (7/22) myself, my mom Pam, and my little brother Tom were thrust into pain, shock, and heartache that none of us could even imagine when in the early morning around 5:30 AM my dad woke my little brother Tom to help him sit up. He suddenly went into a state that my mother Pam had to call an EMT's to bring him to the hospital. He went into cardiac arrest at the hospital multiple times, but they were able to get him back again. Even during these events we really knew in our hearts that he would pull through it, though. Our main fears were regarding how he would be after going into cardiac arrest multiple times and being brought back, his brain state from lack of oxygen, his ribs from the chest compressions, that was our fear.

No.....

At 12:56 PM doctors at Northern Inyo Hospital gave us the news that we never imagined we would ever hear, my dad had died.

We had not planned at all for this, my dad had health problems, but nothing that led us to believe he would die soon. My little brother Tom was working at the plastic factory on Dixon Lane, but they very recently ceased normal operation and laid off all the machine workers. My mother gets SSI but it is a little more than $500. And I have medical issues myself that prevent me from doing my normal work and I am actually also regularly in and out of the hospital.

There is no way we are able to give my dad the funeral he deserves, so I figured at least we can do is get him cremated and spread some of his ashes at one of his favorite places. Mount Tom.

But come to find out even that is not in our realm of affordability as the mortuary has informed us that they will not even cremate him until we pay them the total cost upfront.

$2,503

I normally don't beg. I hate to even ask for help opening a soda bottle when I'm weak due to my medical issues. But I am begging. I am Super Duper Duper begging. Because my dad was amazing, he actually deserves a grand funeral. The last thing he deserves is for his body or ashes to end up in some potter's plot that he has 0% connection with, unnamed and forgotten. He passed on so unexpectedly, literally, with no warning at all to even slightly prepare for it. He passed on at such a bad time financially for our family.

So please, please, I beg of you, help me get my dad cremated so I could take some of him and spread him somewhere he loved.