Octavio Gonzalez de Castille

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Contents 1 Modernly 1.1 Awards & Honors 2 Kingdom Awards 2.1 Households & Guilds 2.2 Interests and SCA-related hobbies 3 Miscellany

Modernly

Octavio wore an eyepatch for modern reasons. He had cancer as a small boy and lost his eye in that battle. The chemo also weakened his heart and in 2005 he had a heart transplant. (Annually on the anniversary of his transplant he thanked his donor and her family in a facebook post.) Thanks to her we got him for 13 more years! link: http://giftoflifefoundationmi.org/to-contribute/

Sgt Octavio passed away on October 6, 2018 of a heart attack. He and his new wife were in a hotel for Vikings Come Home.

Awards & Honors

Kingdom Awards

• Award of Arms Awarded on 7/8/2006
• Willow Awarded on 8/2/2016
• Red Company Awarded on 6/24/2017

Households & Guilds

House Ironwolf

Interests and SCA-related hobbies

Armored Combat, Rapier Combat, Siege Crew, Archer, Leathermaker

Miscellany

• Sir Osric wrote this in his memory:

IRONWOLF!!!!! Join me in brokenhearted sorrow… As I stumble through deep grief. Crushed beneath my many brother-sons' empty armor. To me, this is all too surreal. Bitter and burning. I find it a Fearful Thing.

So too is to love what death can touch. A fearful thing to love, to hope, to dream, to be my friend, my squire, my WarLord– to be, and oh, to lose.

The Chapterhouse welcomes one more to stand their watch, Octavio, now a holy thing, to love.

For your life has lived in me. Your eagle's eye always saw that which I missed. Your laugh, countless times has lifted me. Your words were gifts of sage counsel to me. To remember this brings painful joy.

It is a human thing, love. A holy thing, to love what death has touched.

I shall see you again my Brother-Son. But for now all I can do is cry, rivers of wolf tears for my loss… IRONWOLF!!!!!

• Dame SaehildR read this at his funeral:

At my first Pennsic, I met an attractive guy around a campfire in the dark. He was funny and had some awesome stories. I had a little crush on him that only grew as I got to know him better. We exchanged phone numbers because we were caravanning to an event. I think I was riding with Vegor and he was with Burgolf and we were texting silly things back and forth. “Hey want a date?” “No thanks, but I wouldn’t mind some prunes.” Sometimes we would text while sitting next to each other in the back of Osric’s car or Burgolf’s van. Laughing at private jokes. One day, two or so years after we met, I was talking to Sir Osric about life in general and he straight up called me out on my “Torch for Rocktavio.” He lectured me on dating within the household and warned me against breaking the fragile new heart of his Squire. But! He suggested that I be Brave and ask him out. (I think his exact words were “Grow some balls SarahJean, and just call him.”) It took me about 4 months to work up the nerve. I had never made the first move before and I was soooo nervous. What if he said no? What if he said yes and we dated but then broke up and destroyed the household - would Sir Osric actually kill me? Or him? I sent a text that said, “Hey, so I have this Tuesday night off, would you like to go to the movies with me?” An hour later he said “Sure.” And so we agreed to go to the Cinema in Novi because it meant we’d each drive about 25 minutes. When we arrived some guy in front of the movie theatre offered us free passes to see ‘House Bunny’, but we were there to see ‘Tropic Thunder’ and declined. I was super nervous, and went to pay because I did the inviting, but he was a gentleman and insisted that I put my money away. I forget what happened but we ended up getting a free upgrade to their new theater with reclining seats and free wine tickets (that we never used.) Not only did the seats recline, but you could lift up the armrest to make it a “loveseat”. We messed around with the armrest but after an awkward elbow bump we put it back down. I had hoped for this date for two years but it was just weird. Alone with him, it felt like I was hanging out with a cousin. After the movie, I said, “I’m sorry, but this is weird, I feel like I’m on a date with a “ he interrupted me with “cousin?” “Yes! You too?” He nodded and said, “We should do this again, but next time we should invite Vegor or Burgolf.” I agreed. We talked for about 40 minutes about Household stuff before hugging and returning to our own homes.

We had a great friendship. He was exactly two years and one day older than me. We talked about how we found Ironwolf, how he can’t have grapefruit because of his heart transplant but that he can drink Squirt because it’s not real but he wouldn’t want to because grapefruit is gross anyway (to which I took offense because it is my sixth favorite fruit), how the game “draw something” just sucks because people don’t draw the picture they just write the word you’re supposed to guess. We talked about the meaning of life being more than just 42, and about his weird experiences with organized religion and my life as a “Jewtheran” and we shared this weird joke about photoshop ideas involving our household brothers and sister that we never got around to creating, we just talked about it - like “what if we replaced Bear’s sword with an actual teddy bear?” Or “What if we added pigtails to a photo of Vegor in his kilt and a pair of Chucks?” We talked about music because Jay was passionate about music and going to concerts with his cousins. He talked about his cousins a lot. They were really close.

Then he met Julia. That’s when he mostly just talked about Julia. He told to me how awesome she was. How much he liked her. That she might be “The One.” That when you meet the right person dating is no longer awkward or weird it’s just fun. Because that’s how it was with Julia. That he wanted to propose to her but wasn’t sure if he was good enough. He told me he kind of wanted kids but that with both of them being organ recipients and immunocompromised that germy kids would be dangerous to their immune systems. I said “You should just adopt a kid who is also an immunocompromised organ recipient, then you can all live in a little plastic germ-free bubble together.” He threw his head back and laughed that laugh he had that ended in a hiss. The infectious one that had me rolling too.

He recommended movies and tv shows to me and got me hooked on Stranger Things. We posted silly jokes to eachother’s facebooks and always Happy Birthday. Just last month I shared with him this silly story about a little girl who discovered a Dead Kennedy’s album at her library and decided to be punk now. She punctuated her note with an adorable blue butterfly. I will miss our conversations. I will miss his stories by the campfire. I will probably continue to look for him at events and household gatherings. When we lost Vegor (Matt Lukasiewicz) Jay said “Just remember him and all the memories you have will keep him with us.”