Raymond Howard Sweeney

Ray lived 89 full years and had celebrated his most recent birthday in April with a socially distant bagpipe concert in his driveway. Ray was born in 1931 in a tiny apartment at the heart of the greatest city in the world: New York, New York. His life soared across miles and decades. New York City would always be home for Ray, but he made other homes in Dunwoody, Georgia; the San Francisco Bay Area; Hilton Head, South Carolina; Tullamore and Grafton, Vermont; and at last in Camden County, Georgia by the salt marshes and the sea.

There is no way to quantify how many peoples’ lives won’t be the same without Ray; the loss is incalculable. But he is remembered and still loved, always, by Jean, his bride of 63 years. The six children Ray and Jean raised together love and remember him, too: Kevin, Colleen, Kathy, Dennis, Chris, and Beth. A boatload of grandchildren (22 of them) and a growing number of great-grandchildren carry his memory into their long futures, as do his siblings Joe, Bea, and Jimmy. And even with Ray’s passing, let no one ever doubt or forget: the original New York Jets are forever. In other words, Ray is no longer in the world, but his life will continue to shape the lives of others for a long time yet. Generations of people stem from him and grew with him. An Irish Catholic from beginning to end, Ray rests easy with his Maker, and he makes way for the rest of us still to come.