Memorial Service Eulogy
Thank you all for being here today. I stand here before you not simply an individual, not just as the older brother, but as a representative of a family in grief. Of friends in grief, a community in grief. And we recognize that Kevin was not just ours, but yours as well, and thus we also offer our condolences for your loss.
I hope in some impossibly inadequate way to give some shape to our feelings, some perspective to the loss, some tribute to the man of the hour. Writing these words has been both the most difficult and most important task I’ve ever had: to be entrusted with putting words to the unthinkable, to do something at the very moment when nothing can be done. But I take it as a gift to be here in front of you today, to have the chance not to say the final word, but to start a dialog that I will continue for the rest of my life.
How does one summarize such a vast topic in a mere handful of words? Kevin and I used to discuss this very thing. He had a formidable vocabulary, and he often liked to deploy it as if he were sending out the troops in battle. If something could be written in ten words, he’d find twenty five, and half of them would have five syllables in them. I’d argue back with quotes about concision from Mark Twain or Shakespeare, but he’d hold fast, arguing, and I quote: "I actually try to use as few words a possible when I write something, but I also like being precise, and that can work against brevity." I find myself now in that very dilemma: to make this short and sweet, or to muse on in great detail. In some ways I’d like to speak forever, to go on with words for too long to compensate for a life too short. So in Kevin’s spirit, I’ll say my peace and hope no hook emerges to pull me off stage left.
What I cannot offer you today are answers. I have none to give. I do not know ‘why?' For some of you, 'why' may reside in God’s will, for others in the dance of the fates. What I can offer you today are three things: some context for our suffering, a tiny view into the many textures of Kevin, and lastly perhaps some reflection on what we can learn here.
The philosopher Marcel Proust wrote: “We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.”
So let’s confront some facts. There is never a convenient time for any of us to die. But nothing is promised. If he had left us ten years ago or forty years from now, it still would have been too soon. But thinking about time is our mistake: we must measure the impact of person not by the time they spend with us but by the halo they leave in our hearts. In that regard, Kevin may yet outlive many of us.
But it is reasonable and human to feel this depth of our sorrow. I stood up at this very position nine years ago and gave a eulogy at my grandfather’s funeral, my grandfather with whom Kevin shared a birthday, October 1. They shared similar mannerisms and hands, a similarly insatiable curiosity and piano skills. There was sadness and pain in that room that day. But this feels like an altogether different kind of pain. When an older person dies, we feel a sense of loss that is mostly our own, that we will no longer be able to enjoy that person’s warmth, their talents, their love. But the person himself lived a full life; we don’t feel that they were cheated, and we tend to find solace and happiness that they are in a ‘better place’, rejoining others who went before them. But when a younger person dies, that balance of emotions doesn’t exist. Our grief feels inordinate: our own sense of loss multiplied by the overwhelming feelings of lost potential, of too few experiences, of payoffs that will never come.
I won’t mince words, Monday was reality at its most surreal and ugly. For all the advances in science and civilization that we as humanity have brought to bear, it feels in the moment as if we are fundamentally ill-equipped and unprepared to deal with such tragedy; we are born emotionally bare by something so final. But another fact is that we are experiencing no unique circumstance; we hold no exclusive ownership over such tragedy. Most of you in this room have experienced something like this before, many of us will experience something like this again. We avoid or abstract ourselves from similarly wrenching tales in communities from the inner cities to the Syrian countryside. Different people, different circumstances, but the same raw, human experience. There can be dark conclusions from this inevitability, or we can find illumination, we can find the common thread that, by necessity, leads us to go down this path again and again.
That common thread is love. Close your eyes for a minute please. Picture yourself high upon the side of a mountain, or coming upon the edge of the Grand Canyon. Breathe in that pure air, take in the fantastic view. Imagine it as the most awesome, the most sublime you’ve ever seen, and sit with that for a moment. You can open your eyes. Love is a bit like the edge of that cliff. You can’t help but move close — the closer you get, the more majestic the view, but the danger is greater. You inch forward, and the two are inextricably linked. These are the two sides of love. To love someone so deeply, to open yourself into everything they are, is to make yourself so completely vulnerable. So vulnerable as to take away the very breath of your being if they are lost. Such is the price of love.
Yet upon reflection, we will encounter this burden again and again willingly, as the benefit far outweighs the cost. To experience that depth of love is perhaps our most human endeavor. What we have gained from our time with Kevin we would not trade for the world, much less the lifting of the heartache we feel today. So, for a bit, let us not focus on this moment in time, but rather the road we enjoyed along the way.
After all, I can’t stand up here and simply be morose: if Kevin were here, he’d find that inexcusably boring, and I’d hate to be blasé in his honor.
Kevin came along third to steal attention from me and our middle brother, Brian. The name Kevin is of Irish origin, meaning "kind, honest, [and] handsome”, and though as his older brother I’d never admit that last one to his face, I suppose the name was apt. He was a pudgy little one, and our mom often put him in bulky winter wear reminiscent of little brother Randy from A Christmas Story.
Despite their 18 month difference, Brian and Kevin spent most of their childhood being mistaken for twins. Like their apparent ages, their interests were almost indistinguishable in these younger years, from the summer when they watched Lady and Tramp likely 100 times, to many afternoons battling as ninja turtles, to ambitious collections of pogs.
As they grew, Kevin later found many art forms, but his brief theatrical career coincided with my directorial debut on the famed Upper Moreland Middle School stage in a Broadway-esque production of the Hobbit. Starring alongside Brian as the elves Fili and Kili, the local media took note of this promising debut.
Kevin also found a bit of sports in skateboard and golf, an unlikely match. He found success in skateboarding, enjoying it for many years. It was an expensive habit, as he’d go through a skateboard a month as a result of many tricks in development. He was once caught skateboarding in the high school cafeteria, surely much to his surprise as it seems like such an appropriate venue. Golfing was at the opposite end of the spectrum: although he worked on it in both high school and college, the end product looked about as coordinated and gangly as novice puppeteer.
His entrepreneurial work experience began early, both in years and in the hour of the day: he had a newspaper route throughout high school, earning something like a nickel per delivery and whatever gracious tips may or may not come later. He performed consistently and with far more diligence than I would have, given the required 5am wake-up, although my father and his truck may have a memory or five of saving the day from a missed alarm or downpour. He later had a slightly less successful run at Primos Hoagies, lasting no more than one day of training — just picture Kevin’s pace and precision in the midst of a deli lunch rush. Frankly I’m surprised he lasted 8 hours.
After high school he made his way to Penn State. Given his proclivity for watching sports — or lack thereof — he likely didn’t notice if the school even had a football team, but he got deeper into music and his interests in business and tech. He found good friends in his fraternity, Chi Phi, several of which are here today from afar. On a subsequent trip, our mother could not of been prouder walking up to the beautiful stone mansion the fraternity called home, posing for multiple pictures outside. Kevin’s mistake was to then bring her into the collegiate house of horrors inside, which somewhat subdued her enthusiasm.
But much like the outside of that house, Kevin sought out experience with the finer things in life, mostly with food. There was the time our parents took him out to dinner, and with the meal he orders a $42 bottle of aged beer, likely as much as their entrees combined. Fittingly, he proceeded to spill the elixir all over the table. Or the time in September 2005 when I went back to visit him at Penn State, and took him out to lunch on a weekday. I ordered something like an $8 chicken sandwich, and he orders the shrimp and scallops entree. He always knew who was picking up the bill.
Several of Kevin’s more memorable episodes dealt with his gift-giving. Among my favorites are the year he gave me a framed portrait for my office. The portrait was of himself. Or I submit exhibit B, this book that commemorated my 30th birthday, a book of photographs entitled “Extraordinary Chickens”... you can’t make this stuff up.
He lived for several years in Philadelphia, loving the art and music scene, the energy; seeking, in his own words, "the best experiences in all of life's randomness.” He found love for a period of years, touching off a romantic idealist side he didn’t know he had. He traveled to far-off places like Hawaii and Korea, and explored many others in books and music. Much of his love recently was shared with his niece Emma: he took heart in her innocence and was always available to build a castle or offer a shoulder ride, even though she often (sometimes correctly) blamed her missing snacks on his voracious appetite.
In this latest stage he started recording his own music, even very recently starting to sing on some tracks. He also founded his own web development shop, Symphonic Web. I’ve recently started a business as well and we spent much time talking about tactics and challenges and goals. It really was a source of light for him, as even at midnight the night he passed we were going back and forth on an email thread he started with the subject line Bold advice on persistence.
So. Now what?
Kevin has often been described as quirky, unique, marching to the beat of his own drum. The funny thing is, if we’re being honest, we’ll admit he really wasn’t all that weird. Each and every one of us are actually as unique as Kevin, but we’re just more afraid to let those parts show, or we’ve hidden them for so long they have almost disappeared. We suppress our natural tendencies, our flair, consciously or not, for reasons of social acceptability, and that is our loss. If nothing else, we should learn from Kevin that it's okay to show others our true selves. Just look at the respect it earned him from everyone here today.
The famed John Cleese once said, in another eulogy nonetheless: "You see, the thing about shock… is not that it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realised in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.”
Kevin’s little moments of shock gave us those momentary joys of liberation. So think now for a minute: what is something Kevin did that you would never have done yourself? Embrace his freedom and go do that thing later.
In the last two years Kevin and I started reading the teachings of stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy, which is rather different than the definition of the modern word stoic. The main goal of stoicism is to live in peace and harmony with nature by being rational beings, full of empathy for our fellow man. The concept is that it is not circumstances but emotions that lead people to make bad choices; if one can learn to view the world and relationships logically as opposed to emotionally, one would lead a more peaceful life. This focus on internal stability can also be found two thousand years later in the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
Please hold hands with the people next to you for a minute. If it’s someone you know, wonderful; if not, even better, because we can all use a little extra strength right now. Let us focus on the peace we have in this moment right now; let go of all other preoccupations and distractions, and just sit in the presence of friends and family. It was once said: "Yesterday is the past. Tomorrow is the future. Today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."
The number 29 may seem too small. So let’s not remember Kevin in years, let's remember him by his 10,764 days. By his 15 million minutes. By his 930 million seconds. That’s a lot of moments to be present in, and Kevin took advantage of them.
Thanks for bearing with me today. I’m going to share a poem and some final remarks to close, but then after I leave we’re going to play one of Kevin’s songs he recently recorded. We don’t have access to most of his recordings on his computer and phone, or unfortunately to any on which he sings, but this way we can enjoy his talents while we’re all together here.
In our house recently, thanks to my niece Emma, the movie and soundtrack for Moana has gotten a lot of play. It’s about a seafaring people who have become confined to an island by monsters and fear, until the young daughter of the chief embarks upon a journey across the ocean to set things right. Beware, the songs stick in your head like glue. The soundtrack was playing again the other day at the very moment a friend of mine currently in Australia sent me a short poem of consolation.
Entitled The Little Ship, it immediately found its way into my heart:
I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea. The setting sun tinted his white sails with a golden light, and as he disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered, “He is gone”.
But the sea was a narrow one. On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation. Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and, at the very moment when my companion had whispered, “He is gone” a glad shout went up in joyous welcome, “Here he comes!”
To my parents, to my brother Brian. We cannot but feel a weight upon our shoulders, a burden that sits heavy with other paths and second guesses. But Kevin would not stand for that: he saw his circumstances with clear eyes. He knows he is loved — he said that clearly and I have it in writing as proof — and he loves us back. That love knows no bounds, certainly not space nor time.
As Paul McCartney wrote for the Beatles, "And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give." Judging from what I see in this room, he must of loved us an awful damn amount.
- Chris Rosenbaum
