NOT KEEPING SCORE

Because I’m just too tired to write anything new, I’m posting my speech from my brother’s Celebration of Life ceremony.

Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another. –Kenny Ausubel

There will always be the past to miss.
the headpats and teasing
elaborate chairs constructed to collapse under me at his cue
how i tried to trade in my Barbies for his Transformers,
“how about i just borrow this one?”
the messy room and exotic friends I wanted to be a part of
and how much he hated it when I yelled for Mom or Dad because he said they always took my side
or more recently, after my grandfather’s death
the pact we made about family priorities:
“I swear to prize above money, above pride, above selfishness,
the sentimental, the important, the family.
To take care of mom and dad. Each other.”
Feeling so lucky to have a sibling
which is really nothing more than a friend
promised to you by Life.
There will always be this past to miss.

There will always be the future to mourn,
its continual non-arrival.
The getting old together we will not do.
The aunt I won’t become.
The adventures we will not complete.
There will always be this future, to mourn,

But I won’t. I won’t, because there is, right now, the present to embrace.
The present is a spark – a snap in time, a burst inside that tells us Yes. You are alive.

* * *
My brother called me one night. In these conversations, we would examine life with teeny verbal microscopes, and would inflate life to see faraway possibilities, like giant hot air balloons. I could always call my brother. So this one night, I think we were talking about jobs. I had just decided to leave mine, admitted I was struggling to find the “right” answer, I didn’t know what I was doing. He said “Shannon, do whatever you most want. You have so much at your fingertips, go out and taste the world. Me? I’ve found my career, but you go discover something for you. Don’t worry about whether it is “right” or not, just go after your dreams.”

He actually said “Go after your dreams.” This, from someone who used to call me “Dumbo.”

That kind of confidence in me, from him, was invaluable. It wasn’t about success or money, it wasn’t about judgments or expectations, or even finding a job I loved— when I really listened, it was about soaring. It was about being ignited to the present. He was telling me that it did not matter, a job, no job, someone – my peer – believed in my power to live.

He taught me to open my eyes.

* * *

A son, a brother, a husband, a family member, jokester, a buddy, a precocious child, a best friend – Chris was these, and, after going to the El Cerrito High memorial last night, I can tell you Chris was also a damn good teacher, an inspiration, a hero.

A spark.

Something that catches and multiplies. A chain reaction, or as Chris would probably like, a chemical reaction, of life – Chris’ internal spark lit so many of us, and so many more that are not here today, children who will grow up to be adults, adults who will grow up to spark more children, and so on, carries this fire within them, a fire inextinguishable, even in death.

One spark starts a wildfire. I will carry my brother’s with me for the rest of my life. I will let him keep reminding me, wordlessly in death, that I am alive. And that my life is here to ignite another.

Let us all be ignited. Let us all be blessed with this kindling called Life, blessed with a Today, a bright thing indeed, made more brilliant by those who shown before.

For Chris – may we all live with such a spark inside us.