Nicholas Dees 56, Vallejo

Shana and Alexandria Dees compare being their father’s daughters to walking with a giant. In a poem about him, they wrote: “You’re up with good down with bad in every walking stride.”

“He had a greatness in him,” Shana said. “He liked to project this general type, strong commanding type of person. That’s what he would like to always put forth in front of the world, but deep down inside he was a marshmallow.”

Nicholas Andre Dees was born in Oakland in 1964.

He worked as a groundskeeper for a golf course on a naval base, but after work, Dees followed the beat of his heart and played drums, cymbals and xylophone with the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps with his brothers.

After aging out of the B Corps, Dees failed an audition to place in the higher rank of the organization. But that didn’t stop him. Instead, he continued to use his talents by volunteering to train students at Hogan High School so that they were prepared to join the corps.

As a teacher and a counselor, Dees guided the members of his community to become giants too.

He got his steadfast spirit from his father, who was in the military, and his kindhearted nature from his gentle mother, Ozella.

Although Dees struggled in his schoolwork growing up because of his dyslexia, he excelled in his extracurricular activities, including sports, Boy Scouts and music.

“He believed in being a champion. A champion is not somebody who always wins, not somebody who always loses,”

Shana remembers her father saying. “It’s somebody who is unstoppable.”

His time training youths for the Blue Devils was interrupted by a struggle with substance abuse, according to Shana. However, he persisted after each relapse, and through his faith was able to recuperate.

After recovering from his addiction, Dees paid his sobriety forward by helping others recover from substance abuse.

“My brother’s whole life was always about taking care of everybody else. He was immersed in the Church of Christ,” Dees’ older brother, Harold, said. “He had a really giving spirit.”

After having a series of seizures, Dees was admitted to Sutter Solano Medical Center and was diagnosed with COVID-19.

“When I found out that my dad was diagnosed with COVID, I remember the first thing I thought was, ‘COVID has his work cut out for him because no way it’s gonna kill my dad,’ ” Shana said. “I don’t care if he’s a diabetic and has high blood pressure. It doesn’t matter because my dad always overcomes these things.”

Dees spent his last few days increasingly more disoriented and confused about his condition. He died May 20 at age 56 after going into cardiorespiratory arrest.

Dees is survived by his mother, Ozella; his wife, Annette; his brothers, Harold and Charles “Bill” ; his sister, Sandra; and his daughters, Shana and Alexandria.