Killer, I understand how you feel. I just finished hauling a bunch of XAH's tools, boxes of nails and screws, all that building/fixing stuff, out to my brother's pole shed since XAH wasn't getting it out of my house in a timely fashion. It was really sad--he is (or used to be, I guess) a man who could use all those tools competently and do a good job at a variety of things. He hasn't used most of them in years.
Years ago, he cut mats for pictures for me using a steel straight edge and an X-acto knife and did every bit as good a job w/as nice a beveled edge as the expensive framing places. This past summer I asked him to cut 3 mats for me. He outright ruined one and did a poor job on the other 2, w/notches at the corners and so on. He asked if I was mad about it. I said no, I'm just incredibly sad. Don't know if he understood...
And the loss of those skills is a loss of a big part of who he is, or was. He had patience, physical strength, attention to detail, the desire and ability to learn and pride in the end product. It's so very, very sad to see it go to waste. I miss my A too, Killer.