Jim Ceman

Entered God’s loving arms on Saturday, June 27, 2020, age 60. Honest, adoring, and kind Husband of Cee Cee for 33 years. Admired Dad and role model of Joanie Ceman (Troy Fredrick) and Chrissie Ceman (boyfriend Jon Jakse). Best Canine Companion Brady “Bradyman”. Fellow Disney loving Brother of Rick (Debbie) Ceman. Great coach, teacher, mentor, and friend to everyone he knew. Loved and missed by so many.

Gathering will be held at Krause Funeral Home, 21600 West Capitol Drive on Friday, July 3, 2020, from 12:00 PM – 1:45 PM. Celebration of Life at 2:00 PM.

In lieu of flowers, memorials appreciated to St. Jude’s Children’s Research or The MSA Coalition.

Dad,

I am writing to you, because I want you to know EXACTLY how much you mean to me. Let’s start from the beginning – May 25^th, 1991 is the day I met you. I was so excited to come into this world knowing that I was immediately loved by the best parents a little girl could ask for. And, those parents made a beautiful big sister, who I have looked up to as a role model since day one. I know I don’t remember that day, but I can only imagine how special it was to have you holding me in your arms, singing to me “Sixteen Tons,” “Silent Night,” and we can’t forget the famous, “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Your music has played a big role in my life. You’ve sang to me almost every night and I loved every second of it. Your music and singing brings me back to our family car rides from Church to Applebee’s, our long car rides driving Up North to “Graaaandpa’s Houuuuuse,” basketball/volleyball tournaments, putting in headphones listening to NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL THE 90’S cd’s at Barnes & Noble, Father/Daughter dances, holidays (Christmas, your 4^th of July playlist, creepy Halloween music, etc.)…the list goes on. I can confidently say that your passion for music, boxes filled with hundreds of CDs, and your singing have gotten me through the good and the bad. Til this day, you always bring the party with you and you have an enormous amount of people who love you.

I admire you so much; you are the most selfless, caring, sweet, loving person. You are an amazing Dad who has always been there for me. Ever since I was little, you made the best pancakes. I remember one morning when you accidentally didn’t fully cook the center of the pancake and I thought it was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten, especially because it was made by my Dad. Til this day, we will always refer to that as the  “goopy pancake.” Those pancakes will always stick out as a beautiful memory of you, because I remember when you would take time off of work to go to my school for the activity fair, in which you would make your famous pancakes by Flippin’ Flappin’ Mr. C! Even though you were making so many pancakes for all of the children, you always made sure to have a “goopy pancake” waiting for me. Those pancakes represent the love you have for me and how you would wake up early every Sunday to make me breakfast, and we would eat together as a family. I know one day, I will be making Flippin’ Flappin’ Mr. C “goopy” pancakes for my children and I can’t wait to tell them the story of how the goopy pancake came to be.

In addition to your love for your children, I also admire your love for mom. You are in a loving marriage that I can only hope/pray to have one day. Both you and mom have set a beautiful example of what a marriage truly is. You are both partners to each other and you’ve both raised amazing daughters who are best friends. Both of you are living out your vows to each other. “I, James Ceman, take thee, Celia Ceman, to be my wedded wife, to have an to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith and pledge myself to you.” I love and admire both of you for staying true to these vows. Your marriage is remarkable and has taught Joanie and me what love truly is when it comes to two people being partners and parents. You have definitely set the bar high for my future husband and I know he’s out there! And, I know that I will be happy if he is at least half the man you are.

I admire you as a Dad and role model. I seriously don’t know how you do it! You are in a loving marriage and raised a beautiful family. You’ve always been there for us no matter what. Growing up, I can tell that you put your family first above anything else. You had a fun/difficult job (I can only imagine now that I am in the working world), yet you always put us first and never showed us any stress you may have had from work. You don’t know how much I truly appreciate you being present in my life. Not a lot of girls can say that their dad was at every sports game, birthday party, Father/Daughter dance, holiday, school activity, parent/teacher conference, every night to sing me to sleep and tuck me in, and the list goes on and on. Every time I would cry or be sad, you were there to hold me / cheer me up. A certain memory sticks out to me, in which I was in trouble for having a messy room. I wasn’t allowed to go to a birthday party or my friends house because of this messy room. You wanted to help me, so you took off of work (or it was a holiday, maybe President’s Day or MLK Day) and cleaned my ENTIRE bedroom all day while I was at school. You also took a break and surprised me by bringing me lunch and eating with me and my friends. I thought it was so cool to have my dad bring me lunch and eat with me. I was/am the luckiest girl with the best Dad! This moment taught me how to be there for others, especially your loved ones. I love surprising people and doing kind things for others. It makes me feel good knowing that someone else is happy, and I enjoy helping others so that they are happy. I get this quality from you, because you are seriously the most selfless person I know. You go out of your way to include others, to make people smile, and to help others. I love that about you and admire you for it!

Another memory that truly shows how awesome of a Dad you are is our famous Father/Daughter dances. I wish Joanie could have gone with us to at least one, but I am happy that you and I always had our Dad/Chrissie date night for those dances. We would get dressed up and head over to a beautiful ball room. I felt like a true princess! We would meet up with our friends and you always got us gals your famous Jimmy C cocktail. We would then proceed to dance the night away. I wasn’t as good of a dancer as Joanie and I was definitely more shy, but you always made a point to get me out on the dance floor and to break me out of my shell. You’d never fail when it came to getting the crowd to form a dance circle. And you were always in the middle, you were the best dancer by far in comparison to the other dads! You were so good at dancing to “Brick House” – “She’s might mighty, lettin it all hang out.” However, our song was always, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! I’m not sure if you remembered that ever since I was a very little girl, I loved that song and you would sing it to me all the time. That song always makes me think of you smiling and singing. I’m not sure why this became our song, because it’s actually a very weird song when you listen to the lyrics, but I still love it and the beat is awesome! This has been our song for every wedding and every Father/Daughter dance. Every time the song would come on, I’d go to find you and we’d dance and sing together. 😊

I specifically remember when I was up late one night and I got into very deep thoughts about Life, Heaven, and God. I was young and I didn’t fully understand Heaven. I was scared, because I didn’t want to pass away eventually, and I didn’t want any of my loved ones to pass away. I came downstairs and you were reading the paper while watching Fox News, and I was crying. You asked me what was wrong and I explained. You had me sit on your lap and you explained that everyone passes, but it’s what they do in life that leads them to Heaven. You explained that Heaven is a beautiful place where you are with God and your loved ones such as Grandma, Grammy, Papa, etc. You explained that in Heaven you get to look down and watch over your other loved ones. This conversation comforted me and I will never forget it. This conversation taught me the true meaning of life and that Heaven is the next chapter full of happiness. This conversation has stuck with me and has gotten me through the hard times of Trooper & Coach, Uncle Cal and Grandpa passing. It has comforted me knowing that they are not suffering and that they are happy. They joined all of our loved ones and they are doing exactly what you said, looking down and watching over us. I believe in God and I believe in Heaven, and I thank you for teaching me that and for always being there to comfort me when I am sad. I know that eventually you will be in Heaven where you will look down and watch over me, and I will look up to you as I always have and forever will. I LOVE YOU!

I wanted to thank you for always being my partner for game nights. You and I were the perfect dynamic duo! We would play UNO against mom and Joanie, and we’d always win – Hence, why we had to come up with our own signal where we both point our index fingers slowly to each other and say, “ssssss aahhhhhh.” We’d even do our wheelbarrow races upstairs and would we win?! YES! You can’t forget about how we would make the family room into a mini volleyball court, using pillows as the lines and use a balloon as the ball. That was so much fun; you and mom were so creative when you would play with Joanie and me. I loved every second of it! Side note: I also enjoyed beating you at the memory game! Thank you for teaching me how to play and I truly believe that game did help enrich my mind. You taught me how to be competitive, a winner and if I lost, then you taught me how to be happy for the winning team who deserved it. It’s crazy to think how much a child can learn based on playing card games or any type of games! To this day, you will still play a competitive card game with me and I love you for it!

I’ve also admired your passion for sports. Now that I think about it more, I believe that it’s not necessarily the sport that made you so passionate, it was the idea of a team and the characteristics that it takes to be a champion. Ever since I was little, you’ve taught me how to be a team player, how to work hard in order to achieve your goal, how to follow the rules and respect your Coach, and that you must celebrate your success and be happy for others when they achieve greatness as well. You went out of your way to be my Coach, not just in sports (basketball, volleyball, softball, etc.), but you’ve always been my true Coach in the game of Life. To be a Coach, one must be a leader, teach his players right from wrong, unify the team, understand the strengths/weaknesses of each team member, support his players, be the cheerleader to motivate his players, push his players to be above their greatest potential, fight for his team, and most importantly celebrate and love their team no matter the ups and downs that come their way. I can confidently say that YOU exemplify the true meaning of being a Coach and you will always be my number one Coach. Thank you for always being there for me, coaching/parenting me, coming to every single game/every life event, supporting me by paying for my entire education (words cannot describe how thankful I truly am for this) and for being my biggest fan. You made me a Champion and I can’t thank you enough for that. From the words of Queen, “We are the Champions, my friends, And we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end, We are the Champions, We are the Champions, No time for losers, ‘cause WE are the Champions of the world.”

Although life sometimes kicks us in the toosh, you have taught me to fight back. It makes me angry that you are going through something that you don’t deserve and didn’t ask for. You are the last person on this earth who should be going through this disease. However, even though this is happening, you still thrive and fight through it. You stay positive, find ways to bring us all together, you travel to see the world to soak in its beauty with your beautiful wife, you laugh and smile, and most importantly, you continue to show us your love! During this journey, it is very obvious that you are beyond loved by so many people. And when I say so many…I seriously mean SO MANY PEOPLE. You have impacted many lives and I am so proud to say that I am YOUR daughter. I promise to live my life to the fullest, to utilize everything you taught me such as how to love/care for others, what it means to have a strong work ethic, to have passion for sports/teams, push myself to be the best of my ability (give it 110%) and most importantly, “do not put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” I am excited to eventually fall in love and raise a family, and I know that through the good times and the bad, I will make the right decisions based on everything you taught me. I am part of your legacy and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! (You also taught me the difference between “love you” and “I love you”…and boy, do I LOVE YOU, DAD! XOXO

With the most love,

Your loving daughter, Chrissie