Ed

Early last year a very important person in my life, Ed Luke, the father of a dear childhood friend of mine, Zak, and the husband to his wonderful wife Debra, passed away.  His absence has weighed heavily on me and I imagine the lives of everyone he encountered.  Ed was a truly special individual—someone who exuded joy, selflessness, and wisdom.  

Ed Luke took care of everyone.  

Wherever he was, he was looking out for us.  Looking out for everybody.  

Throughout my youth and continuing into recent years, I’d see Ed drive around the neighborhood, initially in his white Ford with the Seattle Public Schools insignia on the side and later on in his black Volkswagen.  He felt like our block’s protector, not just as a one-man neighborhood watch, but as an ambassador—always checking in, always bringing with him his supernatural, infectious positivity.  He’d slow his car, roll the window down, and embrace us with that smile that stretched across his face.  We’d exchange pleasantries, “how you doings” and “how’s it goings”, and the conversations never lasted long enough.  One of us usually needed to move on or a car might pull up from behind his while another car would approach from the opposite direction, inevitably sending us our separate ways, two blocks away from each other.  Even if it was only for a moment these pick-me-ups could highlight a day.  There was something so substantial and so nurturing about his being that made you feel immediately injected with an energy you had been lacking or the boost you didn’t know you had needed.

Over the course of my life, Ed was a constant guiding light.  Early on, Zak and I would play on the same baseball and (mostly) basketball teams together. Ed was often, if not always, an assistant coach. I’m not sure he was ever the head coach, but he was that invaluable presence on the sidelines, in huddles, and in practice that could make all the difference.  I think he could sense when we were down or in a funk and, of course, he always instilled confidence in everyone—emanating a vitality that could help shake off the worst of shooting performances or the ugliest of moods.  And, if that didn’t feel like a permanent theme, he was the school district’s head supervisor, the overseer of security from when I stepped into kindergarten at B.F. Day Elementary and left Ingraham High School as a senior.  His company was so necessary.  You felt absolutely safe when he was around.  You felt good.  I remember learning that he and my dad used to see each other all the time before Zak and I were born when my dad taught at Rainier Beach and Ed was working security back in the 80s.  “Fast Eddie!”, my dad called him.  Just uttering the name could brighten my dad’s day.  

In the midst of COVID, back in 2021, I went over to catch-up and had a long conversation with him about his time with SPS, where he worked for 41 years, beginning at Eckstein Middle School back in the mid 1970s.  His perspective on the inner-workings of how a particular school was run or why a child dealing with challenges might behave a certain way was fascinating. He had such a beacon of knowledge and wealth of experience. I watched his face come alive when he would describe these stories from years and years ago, as if they were happening that very moment in front of him. Sometimes he would be called upon to diffuse a potential threat within a school or make sure no outside forces would come to make matters worse. Other times his role required him to interact with a student one-on-one. He’d listen. He’d give them space. He’d offer help. “Any child has to know that you care,” he said.

He delighted in the long-lasting friendships with some of his dearest colleagues—including other security guards at different schools—and reflected on specific moments in his career in which he utilized an uncanny ability to communicate effectively with anyone, whether that was the “higher-ups” downtown (through SPS), school administration, police, teachers, department heads, parents, or the kids—the students, the ones who he clearly cared most about.  He said he could have probably retired earlier, but he just hadn’t wanted to stop yet.  He loved his job.

What was most clear, when I was around them or even from a distance, was how important Ed’s family was to him.  It permeated throughout the conversation.  His wife Debra, his son Zak, his daugher Cebrina, and his grandaughter Maya, among others.  He was surrounded by them constantly.  

He spoke so fondly about coaching soccer alongside Zak. Trips to his native Hawaii.  Watching the neighborhood change.  Watching the city change.  

In the past couple of years there is a picture I haven’t been able to get out of my head.  When Ed’s son Zak and I were very young, each of us visiting our respective relatives in Florida, we used to meet up every now and again during those winters at a nearby beach.  We’d play in the sand, building castles, squint in the sun, and play in the water.  In the picture, Ed is in the middle, with Zak and I on either side, being led towards the ocean, with our backs to the camera.  This is how I will think of him.  

I will think of him always lending a helping hand.  I will think of the happiness I felt when I’d see him at school or entering a basketball practice.  I will think of Zak and I deciding on a movie from his enormous collection of DVDs in the basement.  I will think of his deep baritone voice, his toothy smile, his distinct laugh, the pep in his being and the pep in his step.  I will think of that white SPS car floating around the schools and rolling around the neighborhood, a symbol and reassurance that we were being taken care of and that we would be safe.  Indelible memories, whether I’m on my block or away from home.

Ed, thank you for taking care of us all.  I miss you.  We miss you.  

Thinking of you, always.  

The Leader

Dear Mr. Acena,

It’s been several weeks now since I heard the news that you had passed on.  “Terrible” and any other synonym feels like the only appropriate word that would fit for such a tragic loss, such horrible news.  I’ve been trying to let time run its course and to glean some sort of newfound perspective that would make me feel differently about the whole situation, but the truth is, I still feel sick about it.  It feels like a gaping void in the stratosphere.  And what we are left with are your memories; memories that we have of you, and we the lucky ones, have with you.  I suppose—no, I know, that is the real thing to be grateful for.  Despite the fact that your physical being might not be around anymore, your soul and spirit still feel as tangible as ever.  What a beautiful thing to revel in.

I came to Hamilton Middle School not knowing too much of your history, but over time was exposed to the various myths and legends surrounding your existence.  Even before I officially met you and witnessed your aura and larger-than-life personality, your reputation preceded you.  I had a good friend who attended Bryant Elementary and he, as well as his family, spoke of you in the highest regards.  “He knows everyone…and he even knows everyone’s names.”  This somehow felt like an impossibility.  How could one person, one man, know so much.  So many kids.  So many names to remember.  What was also true was that the Bryant community mourned your departure when you were transferred by SPS to Hamilton in the early 00’s to resurrect what the Hamilton community (and SPS delegation) believed needed to be restored.  I’m sure you missed Bryant like they missed you—but I also wouldn’t be surprised if that “no-nonsense”, “turn-the-page” mentality took over and you welcomed the challenge that SPS had put in front of you.

I remember touring the school as a 5th grader.  I had known many kids who had already made the transition from B.F. Day to Hamilton, to the point that my future attendance at the school seemed like a foregone conclusion.  What’s strange is that I can’t necessarily remember you being at the tour.  I know you had to have said a few words and gave the brief spiel, a formality, but it didn’t seem like you were much for the self-promotion game.  You were personal and intimate, never overbearing.  Maybe you just knew that if we did decide to come that we’d be in good hands.  I feel like I remember the first day of school much better, though.  There, you weren’t just a profile or a silhouette or a myth or an urban legend—instead, this time—a man. And maybe even an intimidating one, initially, to some of us. We were all so little and so young, but at least we knew: This was a principal. This was our leader.  

Did you always have a limp?  I never got to ask you. How’d you get it? Was it real or was it just part of the flavor and persona?  Were you always so charismatic?  Were you always so positive?  Did you ever get in bad moods?  Were you ever fearful or threatened by anything?  At our school?  Anywhere?  It must be foolish to say—but to us, you might as well have walked on water.  Limp or no limp.  It didn’t matter.  You never seemed phased by anything.  You never seemed to lose your cool…ever.  And if you did, you certainly didn’t show it.  

Who could forget how the days would start, how the intercom would come on and we’d hear a voice clearing—a phantom “ahem” before a salutation of some sort, maybe a “good morning…” and then followed by, “…this is your leader…”  I have to believe this was followed by an impenetrable school-wide silence. Even if you had been speaking from the main office, we wouldn’t dare interrupt you.  When you spoke we listened.  When our names begged to be called, you answered.  You were our guy.  You were our Mr. Acena.  I do believe that there was a collective sense of pride that you represented us and we knew and felt so deeply that you were the best, the coolest, the most G principal in the whole district.  Everything that came with you. 

How you always used to tell us that if we were caught sagging and could see our underwear you’d make us wear a rope through the belt loops.  “Nobody wants to see your booty,” you used to say.  How you’d roam the halls with that walkie talkie and maybe see one of us doing what we weren’t supposed to be doing or catch us in a place where we weren’t supposed to be, you’d give us that goofy little grin, that goofy smirk, with one eyebrow raised, as if you couldn’t wait to hear the ridiculous excuses we were searching for in our scatterbrained, off-the-wall adolescent minds.  No doubt getting ready to dole out the infamous lunch detentions or in-house suspensions, or even Friday after-school bonding sessions.  You were fair, even when you weren’t.  Did I deserve the punishment for half the times I got into trouble?  Who knows.  I think at a certain point, the shared consensus amongst us smart-ass wise-crackers, deviants, and troublemakers was that more time spent with you or near you, either trying to get into trouble just to get sent to your office, spending all day in a cubicle for in-house, or cleaning desks and classrooms after the Friday dismissal bell rang (which should have sent us into the weekend) for “bonding”, was time well spent.  A privilege.  Almost a reward, even.

I’m sure everyone has a their own individual accounts of their interactions with you.  And I can imagine that a whole lot of the crowd control and deeper and more personal connections that you had with the kids and their families went on quietly behind-the-scenes.  I know that it was a personal mission of yours to take care of that school.  Of our school.  To fix it in the ways that it could be fixed, with you at the helm and the countless other staff members to help sturdy this new foundation, in order to create a respectable institution.  I know how much pride you took in the fact that we were Hamilton International Middle School.  A student body of many different faces, flags, colors, languages and communities.  A sort of anomaly in the north part of Seattle—a melting pot.  A representation of what could be.  A representation of your vision.  

I wish you knew how often I think of those days.  Those three years.  Three of the best, most formative years of my life.  Days and years that I can remember as if they had been yesterday. Days and moments that I dream of often.  I wish that I somehow could have communicated that to you after we left and moved on to our next chapters and after you had left Hamilton a couple of years later to move on to your next project. Your next school that needed saving.  I think that if all of the communities affected by you, your leadership, and your presence had had the opportunity to flood the doors of the schools you helped to empower, there would be a sea of people as far as the eyes could see.  Beyond the horizon.  I wish we could have provided that for you, if only to give you one more opportunity to know who you were for us. To thank you. To thank you for seeing us—at a time when the importance of being seen cannot be quantified.  Instead, there will be, without a doubt, an interminable amount of moments in our lives, in which we will be blessed with your memories.  

Memories like:

“I think he was Filipino…I could have sworn one day he spoke Tagalog to me.”

“You know my dad said Mr. Acena hoops here on the weekends?  I heard he’s nice!”

“That Bob Marley shirt is gonna have to come off, son.” (I had been wearing a shirt that had marijuana on it)

“…now, If I, or any other teacher, see that you attend this fight, you will also be suspended for instigating…”

“Shooooooooot.”

“I don’t want to hear any of this, ‘He said that she said that you said that I said that they said, your momma’s a B.”

Your Hawaiian shirts.  Gym teacher sweatsuits.  You always had us wondering.  Guessing.  On our toes with anticipation. Forever maintaining this air of mystery. Yet, what was better than you popping into our classrooms every once in a blue moon just to make sure everything was alright. Checking on us, asking about our families, encouraging us to try new things, wanting the best for us. You were the giant who always had our backs. You were the father, the uncle, and the grandfather all-in-one.

Mr. Acena, you leave behind a legacy and an ever-loving embrace to hold us all.

There are, unfortunately, too many of us that have passed on. Too early.  Too many.  And that’s just from my graduating class.  There are too many from other grades at Hamilton, as well.  In my heart, and feeling like I might have known yours, I imagine that you are taking care of them.  Keeping them company.  There is solace in knowing that you are by their side.  Know that we love you down here.  May you continue to watch over us kids, adults now, who adore you.  I, and countless others, express our deepest gratitude.  In this lifetime and the next.

If you are the star, then we are the sea.

We embrace you.

And you can be sure that we will always remember your name. 

---

(Below is a link to an obituary for Mr. Acena published in the Seattle Times)

Obituary

To give credit where credit is due

It’s a bit hard to put into words how appreciative and grateful I am that I was able to experience a night like I did on Wednesday.  

It’s a bit hard to put into words how amazing and incredible it is to attempt a Kickstarter campaign and have 137 people decide to back your project and ultimately help you accomplish your goal.  

It’s a bit hard to put into words how many people it really takes to make a creative idea possible, an idea that after countless drafts and continuous edits and last-minute iterations could somehow become an 18 minute piece that can be called a short film.  

It’s a bit hard to put into words how overwhelmed, humbled, and touched I was to look out at an audience of 100 people; my family, my dearest friends, my community, members of a beloved circle, members of the cast and crew, that showed love in the greatest way—coming together to watch a film, albeit short, that could not have been possible without an entire village that helped to make it happen.  That took an entire village to be able to walk, to run, and to fly.

I spent most of my time during the event struggling to process everything that was in front of me.  It felt like I was on cloud nine.  These moments that turned to minutes, minutes that turned to hours, hours that have turned to days wondering, even now, did that night really happen?

I am encouraged and strengthened to have lived a moment which I will never, ever forget.  A moment that I will never take for granted.  A moment that, despite my very best efforts, feels absolutely indescribable.

When these moments occur I often rely on the only phrase I can think of…

Thank you.  

Thank you to those that I’ve known since the day I was born.  Thank you to those who I’ve grown up with—through elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and beyond, and all you teachers who sowed the seeds, guiding me along the way.  Thank you to all of you—you friends of friends, you parents of my extended brothers and sisters, you restauranteurs and connoisseurs, you champions of us all, champions of art, champions of creativity, champions of depth.  Champions in every right.

The blessing that was Wednesday seems to be that there was a night where we were all together.  Where we were sharing space and sharing time.  Sharing love in the company of so many truly special people that breathe life into my days.  

That “Chasing 24” was able to do that on May 25th, 2022 in a time of so much uncertainty and turmoil and confusion feels like the greatest gift of all.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some people who I’ve been kicking myself nonstop for forgetting.

Valerie Niemeyer, Noah Gallo Brown, Ahmad aka Retro Futurum, and Victor Roman who contributed their original artwork to help promote the film.

Rebecca Sullivan, who spent countless hours offering me her beacon of knowledge and constant advice and being the ultimate assist with respect to the gift fulfillment. Thank you for your never-ending encouragement.

Brandon Dolson, the colorist.  Kevin Middleton, who contributed to the sound.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t re-mention cast and crew members, who I really, really wish could have been there.  Aishé and Victoria, fellow actors.  Haley, the director of photography.  Evelyn, the editor.  And Taigé, our director.  

Truong, who took photos despite a freshly broken toe! Thank you!

Luam.  My man.  My brother.  My family.  I wish you had stood up and taken a bow, so the audience could have had an appropriate opportunity to salute you.  Thank you for being a co- executive producer on this film with me.  For believing in me.  For believing in this project.  

Justin, thank you for opening the theater up and giving us a platform to celebrate.

Thank you every one of the 137 donors.  

To every single one of you in the audience…it’s a bit hard to put into words.  

Thank you.  Thank you forever and ever for sharing that night with me.  

I saw my life before my eyes.  

With love,

JCY   

The Scale

Dear Robin,

The world is simply not the same without you.  Film screens.  Stages.  Comedic.  Dramatic.  Humanitarian.  They are missing.

You were a light that shined and shined eternally and lately it has become more apparent—your impact, your humanity and love for everyone, which cannot be duplicated nor denied.  I grew up with you.  I grew up with your voice.  I was inspired by you.  I think, if only for the length of “Flubber”, I might have even liked science!  Your characters encouraged me to stand on desks and lose myself to art and creativity.  They encouraged me to think happy thoughts and fight evil.  They encouraged me not to think too hard and let the energies and voices inside of me scream and yell out, to sweat, move a mile a minute and to express myself.  I’ve never been able to take golf seriously since listening to you create genius turning it into a comedy act.  There was something about the way you bounced off the walls one second and then subsequently expressed the frightening calm that made me feel like my two extremes had a home.  You didn’t show me that a balance was necessarily required, but that these two opposite sides of the spectrum had a place.  I’m constantly reminded that there will never be another you.  I can’t deal with these remakes of your original characters that were guided by your soul.  Board games one moment and granting three wishes the next.  I think lately it’s been your troubles that have drawn me closer to you.  I wonder what you could have been going through and how lonely you must have felt.  I wonder about this proximity.  This proximity to so many things.  

Your news has always been so terrible.  It hurt so much that day and it still hurts so much to this day.  I wonder inside what those last moments could have been like and I hope more than anything that they were of peace and love.  I hope that you know how much we all loved you and revered you.  I know that fans loving a celebrity might make that love and reverence seem superficial, distant, or inauthentic, but it was so real to us.  To me.  I remember when I was in San Francisco for a little while and the family I had been staying with knew you because you lived in the same neighborhood.  I think they had met you several times and used to see you often and knew your son or your family, but in all of those interactions they had with you there was this intense fondness and kindness and humility you displayed.  There’s something to be said about those traits in a person.  When you had every reason to have an inflated image of yourself you stayed true to your humanity.  I grew up with “Jack.”  I used to wonder what it might be like to grow that fast.  I probably wondered the agony of having Jennifer Lopez as a teacher too, but that’s another story.  Maybe I considered being a radio personality because of your performance in “Good Morning Vietnam” or a healing doctor in “Patch Adams” or “Awakenings.”  I wondered what it might be like to be a divorced dad who would pretend to be an old lady babysitter to get their wife and kids back.  Again, there are great actors and there are people who sink into those real life characters and make you start to think about those situations.  To the point where they substitute you in to see how they might play out.

What are you up to now, Mr. Williams?  Do you reflect on a wonderful life lived?  Do you watch over your loved ones?  Do you whisper suggestions with the hope that people will listen?  As such a source of guidance in your films I do believe we keep our ears peeled for those words of wisdom.  Maybe we watch your films religiously in the hope of finding new meaning in them.  I know that the first time I watched “Dead Poet’s Society” after you had passed and we arrived at that final scene that I could not hold back my emotion.  It was an imprint left in me since I was a child—a performance, but also a man that lived behind the performance, leaving me with those ingrained attachments that triggered an emotional response.  That must be you.  Inside all of us.  Inside of me.  Eternal and forever.  

On your 70th birthday I give you words of love and appreciation and gratitude, as I’m sure everyone that adored you and was lucky enough to take part in your aura over all those years gives you as well.  You are a shining sun.  On a clear day.  That breaks through the clouds.  That waits patiently behind a storm.  As all of these are.  So were you.  So are you.  So will you be.  

With love from down yonder, sent up to the heavens.

12:25:00 NYE

Dear Emma Thompson,

I must admit I’m not entirely sure where to start.  In different iterations of this letter I started with expressing a hope that if it was lucky enough to be seen by you, that you might respond but, at the end of the day, I really just hope that this letter finds you…and finds your eyes.  

I grew up watching movies with my mother and father, although never together.  With my dad we’d go to the theater to see a film on the weekend and with my mother we’d usually pick one out from the local video store.  That’s how it went for a while.  Watching recorded cassette tapes, a two-for-one deal at “Video Isle” or “Rain City” (Seattle locales) and then a trip to the cinema.

One of the first movies I can remember watching was the recorded cassette of Much Ado About Nothing.  I was too young to know everything that was going on, but as I got older I began to understand the story more, coupled with classroom introductions to Shakespeare.  In any case, I knew from the very beginning that you were electric.  I wondered how someone could capture an entire screen, be so graceful one moment and hilarious the next.  There was a grasp of language, an ease, and a familiarity that not only captivated my mother and I, but made us inch closer and closer to the action you were involved in.  We could see, without hesitation, that your ability to perform, act, and live was so high that you could play and have fun and bend the world around you.  During every scene with Benedick there was an energy that two masters wielding only the most powerful skill could exhibit.  And as I’m sure you can attest, the play—the film, always worked.  It was a movie that my mother and I watched often and I think one of my favorite parts about the experience was taking the occasional moment to glance at my mother, who was so immersed in your performance.  I watched her watch you.  Watched the way you could make her laugh (my mom’s laugh is as contagious as they come).  Watched the way you could turn her severe—absolutely engaged and distressed during times of wrong and woe.  Watched the way you could screw her face up and make her cry.  I don’t think I’d ever seen an actor have that type of impact on her before.  I wonder if she saw some of herself in you, related some of her experience, energy, and charm to the magic you exhibited moment to moment.  

Down the road, the next piece we were drawn to was, of course (as I imagine you tire of hearing it), Love Actually.  I know, I know, I know you’ve been told this time and time again.  In a recent interview I learned that Kit Harrington also shared the sentiments that your scene in the bedroom after she realizes her husband is cheating on her could very well be the holy grail of acting.  Is it a couple of minutes?  Is it a few or several?  The truth is I don’t think any of us know for sure because you made time stop.  We listen to Joni Mitchell singing and we watch you experience heartbreak and then we experience heartbreak watching you.  It is painful.  It is breathtaking.  I think you must shrug it off at a certain point when people come up to you and express such admiration for a small piece in the grand scheme of your entire career, but I’m telling you, I don’t think there are many actors that have ever touched that reality before.  We love and hate that scene.  You wreck my mom during that scene.  You wreck me during that scene.  Shit, you wreck me having to watch my mom go through watching that scene.  You wreck us all.  You’ve said that it’s the fact that she tries to cover it up, keep it together and move on with the night that really sticks out to you.  I agree.  When I watch it again and again I am always drawn to your initial stillness.  I am drawn to the detail of trying to tidy up the bed.  Watching you experience the most powerful battle inside.  

Then there is Wit.  Oh my god.  Wit may very well be one of the hardest movies I’ve ever seen.  There is no letting up.  None.  Truthfully, speaking about your performance in that film is as difficult as it is to watch it.  To witness someone go through the agony of cancer.  Speak right to the screen.  Talk directly to you while it’s happening.  It is impossible to look away.  It’s terrifying.  Again, I watched this movie with my mother.  And again, I had the very uncomfortable experience of watching my mom navigate such deep levels of pain through your performance.  I don’t think any scene hurts my mother more than when the teacher accompanies you in the hospital and reads to you from “Runaway Bunny.”  It’s hard to process thought during that scene and after…

I don’t know.  There is this divine connection between you and my mother.  Somehow you two are intractably linked through your performances and there is this way that you pull at something within my mom that makes her very vulnerable.  It is beautiful.  It is also very scary.  My mom is the strongest person that I know.  Something in the way that you display humanity grabs at her like very few things do.  Just like my mother you are as one of one as it gets and I must thank you.  

Thank you for being a Dame and a Badass.  Thank you for never being afraid to speak up on issues in the world and within the industry (most recently, the Culture Blast podcast).  Thank you for being a role model to women and to men.  Thank you for being the only person ever to win an acting and writing Oscar.  Thank you for Angels in America.     

Thank you for being here on this earth and speaking to my mother through your beauty and your performances.    

One day, I hope the two of you have a chance to meet.

Peace and blessings be upon you.  You deserve all of your flowers and more.  

20/20

Dedicated to the eight departed classmates from Hamilton Class of ’06 and high school class of ’10.

Dear Rodney, Britney, Kelsey, Jarve, Ryan, Katherine, Devin, and Rikki,

Today was Thanksgiving 2020.  

I don’t know what else to say other than it was a weird time.  

Truth be told, it’s been a weird year.  Families separated from each other.  People getting sick.  People passing on.  This is the holiday that always feels like it brings people together—relatives that don’t typically see one another, an opportunity to take a cross country flight or make that long, once-a-year road trip.  

Words are exchanged.  Hopefully the gathering of all the family brings some semblance of joy and happiness, although I’m sure there’s always some tension in the air when it comes to family history.  We argue about what tastes good and who made that one dish that nobody touched.  We get political.  We criticize.  We laugh.  We reminisce of the past.  We wonder whether we must tremble or anticipate a much needed future that looks closer to a world we’re used to.  We have these thoughts.  

When we are here.  

Somehow, for reasons I do not know, for reasons I must only look to the sky and shake my head, you are not.  

Those of us who knew you and those of us that knew you well are left to ponder your absence.  To wonder why.  And how.  But mainly why. 

We see your grainy silhouettes in front of us.  We conjure up your memories like magicians with arthritic wrists bearing immortal wands— as if your beings had visited us yesterday or as if you could reappear by mere mention of your names, mannerisms, gestures, and idiosyncrasies.  We clutch your photos as if you are still in them, our eyes glazed, trying to make sense of the scene.

We cannot walk or breathe.  We cannot think or act.  We cannot do without thinking of you.  We live—or try to, still in a state of shock mixed with a state of bliss, this disjointed feeling of succeeding to hold on and failing to let go.  Embracing something that is as soon there as it is not.  

Rodney, I can see your command.  I can see it as clear as day.  I can see your mustache—fully grown, just as it had been the moment you step into third grade.  I can see myself in the basement room at your grandparents house on Corliss.  I can see your hair growing longer and longer, completely covering your eyes, yet somehow not capable of blocking your vision.  I can see your fingernails painted.  I can see you as the president of our middle school.  I can see the beam in you grow and grow as the years go on.  The endearing leader.  An open heart for everyone.  

Britney, I can see your current.  I can see your vibration.  I can see the mistake in judging a book by its cover for you never know the power that lies underneath.  I can see the brightness behind the eyes and the welcoming of being misunderstood.  I can see the individuality.  I can see the desire to walk to your own beat.  I can see the jewelry and the dyed hair.  I can see your fire.    

Kelsey, I can see your creativity.  I can see you in eighth grade.  I can remember thinking that there was no way you had been at school all three years because I for sure would have remembered you.  I can see your calm and the way you keep to yourself.  I can see the way you make an immediate impact on those who must have been awaiting your arrival from the very first day.  I can see the way you work in deep thought and then subsequently join classmates and play around with wood/metal shop tools as if your mind had been two places at once—developing your next work of art, but allowing time for shenanigans, too.  

Jarve, I can see your charisma.  I can see you in the hallways.  I can see the way you take up space.  There is a joy and aura about you that can fill up the entire school.  I can see you being one of the few people that actually seem to fit into the big things we are wearing at this time, all those oversized jerseys and shirts we try to wear.  I can see you playing basketball outside on the blacktop and later in Ms. Docter’s gym.  I can see the way you run free.  On your time.  I wonder what it must feel like to be a giant.

Ryan, I can see your evolution.  I can see the timid, elementary school version of you.  I can see the more confident edition I see at Hamilton, who can win over anyone with your tall lanky frame and shaggy hair.  I can hear the bass in your voice and how your sort of chuckle-mixed-laugh and growing sarcasm start to raise us all up.  I can see the changes, albeit not in your ability to whoop my ass in any video game, blindfolded.  I can see the finding of yourself and the settling in.    

Katherine, I can see your patience.  I can see your gift for refusing to judge others at a time when we are judged the most.  I can see your reason.  I can see the way your quietness and gift of listening give your dearest friends strong shoulders to lean on.  I can hear how the very mention of your name can bring joy to others.  I can see your adoration for the Mariners—the shirts, the attendance at games.  I can see the marvelous way you are able to smile with your eyes.  I can see the sense of humor, the compassion, and the mischief there.  

Devin, I can see your gravity.  Like Kelsey, you show up in 8th grade, but it couldn’t have taken more than a second for people to realize that you bring a power with you.  I can see the respect.  I can see the way you treat everyone the same.  The way your time had no name on its inscription.  I can see the magnetism—the way you are never by yourself for too long because there is an energy that gives us all life that we have to attach to.  I can see the way you are wise beyond your years.  Mature.  Somehow further along than the rest of us were in the way you hold yourself.  With all of that, how are you able to be so easygoing and even-keeled?

Rikki, I can see your attitude.  I can see it from a mile away and, in turn, that bright spark hiding just beneath the surface of that body armor.  I can see your blonde hair, puffy coat, chip-on-your-shoulder and take-no-shit-from-nobody character.  I can see your devilish grin.  I can hear your cadence. Oh the cadence!  I can see the way people admire you.  Listen to you. Still listen for you.  

These are the things I see.  And feel.  Sometimes more than others and to varying degrees.  Sometimes it is a sound.  A look.  A laugh.  Sometimes it is a state of mind.  A mood.  A color.  The weather.  A mention of a name. The way a cloud parts and the sun shines. Well, that has to be you, right?  

There are immeasurable powers in your memories and these are gifts that need no wrapping for they will always be open, so long as your spirits remain alive.

You were all taken from this earth way too soon and it will never, ever, ever seem fair. 

The way life works in equally mysterious and unforgivable ways…

We continue to miss you.  

We continue to love you.

We continue to remember.

6:20

Dear Gaby,

Gaby, Gaby, Gaby.

I’m gonna try something here and I hope it works.  

I’m gonna try to write this as fast as words will allow because three and a half years after your passing they are as lost as ever trying to find their way out of whatever forest of expression they’re locked inside.  

When you passed away I wondered if there would ever be a time when words would come.  I had been in the habit of writing every day that year and then it was as if I couldn’t write anymore.  Sentences lacked syntax.  Words fumbled.  My tongue took up my whole mouth.  

All of these memories flooding like the tears that poured out of my eyes when I hugged you inside of 825 and shut the door while the whole family was still gathered inside.  I shut the door and lost my footing and lost my breath and lost the ability to keep my eyes open and mind straight.  I lost the breath in my body and the oxygen in the air because the world was tumbling and I felt helpless to stop it.  Inside I hugged Ari and began to tremble.  Inside I hugged Don and began to shake.  And lastly, I hugged you…

…you who couldn’t have possibly been so frail considering the unbelievable—I’m talking un-fucking-believable amount of strength that it took to live the life you lived and battle and battle and battle and say, “FUCK YOU” to the advanced stages of gastric cancer for four years.  

When I hugged you I felt it.  All of the strength that a universe could muster.  I felt your fight.  I felt your energy.  The warmth.  I felt your love.  I felt it all.  I felt you trying to hold me together.  You, who was going through the unimaginable, trying to hold ME together.  

Leaving felt like turning my back.  And then, like a balloon pierced with a knife, the ability to comprehend or move on or accept or try to process and figure things out sort of fell right on its face and standing on two feet seemed impossible.

Gaby, Gaby, Gaby.  

I can’t help but think of a table suddenly empty.  

A table of dialogue.  A bridge.  A table filled with people.  Celebrating holidays.  Celebrating each other.  You were a celebration.  

Where has the table gone?

There used to be a time where there wasn’t enough room and not enough seats, so then more seats would come and line along the border of the dining room and stretch into the living room.  

You were unmissable.  A force of nature.  A gravity.  A rare piece to hold us all together.  

And I haven’t even mentioned the food.  Oh good lord, the food.  

“If music be the food of love, play on!”  How you played Gaby.

How your creations in the kitchen were manifestations of a love that kept growing and never disappeared.  The Greek Salads.  The pastas.  The spanakopita.  The rugeleh.  The knishes.  The way you’d make fish.  The salmons.  The halibuts.  The “break the fast” spreads, platters filled with lox and cream cheese and onions and tomatoes and capers and and and—

Gaby! Gaby!  Gaby!                    

How you made life beautiful!  How that kick-ass attitude from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn sung and weaved and jumped and fluttered in laughter and love.  You were a second mom to me.  You always were.  

You were a woman of the people, deeply invested in service to the community.  Staying over at the synagogue.  Assisting shelters.  Getting us to teen feeds. Making sure we were all getting involved, too. 

Sometimes I wonder if you had access to a 25 hour day and whether you were so involved in the lives of others that you didn’t have enough time for yourself.  

I have so many of your emails saved.  The words, reach through the screen and comfort my heart.  They possess powers.  They are living words.  Immortal.

Gaby.

I remember Sundays.  Sunday mornings, specifically.  I remember how you used to walk with my mom.  Sometimes with Laurie and Cathy and Mary, too.  But in this instance I remember just you and my mom.  Sunday mornings.  I know those walks were so special to you both.  In rain or sunshine.

And I remember the voicemails you used to leave at 206 547 5024.  

“Hey Meta, it’s Gaby…”

Before we got rid of our home phone, I made sure to record all the messages of you that we still had left.

6 minutes.  20 seconds.  All you.  

L’olam.  Va’ed.

Love you, Gaby.  

13 years

Dear Nick,

To this day it feels like some huge type of mistake.  

Like a computer that’s encountered an unrecoverable error that can somehow never be corrected.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked back at that time, those stretch of weeks, that day itself, and thought…

What the fuck.

What the fuck happened?

I don’t have any fucking idea.  Still.  None.  

That whole trope about a character going on vacation and never coming back.  

What the fuck.

…

Today is Dia de los Muertos.  My family has never really been in the habit of celebrating, but your connection to Mexico seemed to be a burning flame that was forever ignited.  You used to come back with new stuff all the time.  Skeletons holding instruments.  Small canvases with Spanish poetry.  Iguanas and other animals, colorful and alive in spirit, despite their expired bodies.  The living room and kitchen always seemed magical in that way.

I imagine that it was after you had passed that Laurie had set up a sort of forever altar in your honor.  An altar fit for a king.  An altar fit for a god.  

Some people truly are gifts.  They live life with a full glass, share their beauty, their selflessness, and thus enrich the lives of others.  The ways you made our lives—my dad, my mom, my sister and myself—every single one of us, better.  You were one of one.

… 

I remember the day Gaby arrived at my mother’s door and told her the news.  I remember my mother breaking down.  I was in the kitchen.  Again, that error in processing.  Nick?  Not Nick.  Not that Nick. Nick…

Feeling numb and hollow is overrated. 

I remember the memorial. A strange, strange day. It felt like nobody understood what was happening. A collective doubt and confusion. Arriving to a formal ceremony where the man was still so alive. Words being spoken. Tenses being confused. A gray day. Exiting the chapel to twilight. Mist on the ground.

How?

…

I remember being upstairs with Noah.  Maybe we were watching something on the computer or playing Half-Life or something.  You coming up the stairs with two small glasses, some orange substance inside.

“Try this.  Let me know what you think.”

Sip.  Sip.  Echhhh.

Noah didn’t seem to have a problem, though.  

You stood there for a moment, sort of gleaming in the majority success of your latest concoction, and smiled that smile, with that toothy grin and full beard, eyes squinting from too much joy, and went back downstairs ready to supply the other visitors after the margarita taste test had been complete.  

Oh, Nick.  

I remember movie nights in the movie room.  Watching “Red Rock West” and “Kill Me Again.”  My dad mentions, and the memory is indeed vivid, how you used to sit so close to the screen, taking everything in.  These nights were an education.  Movies I’d never seen nor heard of.  Film noir.  Michael Madsen.  Noah and I transfixed.  UW Football games against UCLA and us getting run over by Maurice Jones-Drew.  Me, so utterly uninvested, you, so utterly disgusted at a wasted opportunity by the Dawgs.  

The mythological horse track.  What my dad and I were doing there when our guesses were as good as random, while you, Alex, and Noah had the whole fix down.  Studying the papers.  Watching the horses pace before the races.  A focus mixed with thrill mixed with calm like no other.  I remember when Noah hit the trifecta one time.  

Who could forget the music in the dining room?  The stereo of 60s and 70s sugaring us all up with some sweet R&B from the likes of Al Green or rocking out and jazzing the house to a soundtrack of The Band, Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan. Soothing us with Tracy Chapman.  

How you welcomed us all on Tuesday nights before Hebrew school.  The door always open.  

How you scooped up short hops, casting a net across the infield.  

How you mediated, how you listened.  

How you wrote and wrote and wrote.  

How you became a second father to my sister.  

How you became such a trusted friend to my mother.  

How you used to pick me up in that white car when I used to get migraines.  Walk me to the car.  Lay me in the back seat.  Take me to Ravenna.  Walk me inside the house.  Pick me up and lay me on Noah’s bed to sleep it off.  

How you became an irreplaceable brother to my father.  

—I can see him at his table, sitting.  Looking at the pictures on the table.  Looking at pictures of you on the wall.  Looking up at the ceiling for you and wondering where you might be.  Rubbing his eyes from behind his glasses.  

“That one will never make sense to me, Joshua.”      

How?              

…  

Nick—

I can’t help but notice how much we all miss your powers down here. How we do our best to carry you on.

We love you so much.  Every day more and more.  We miss you, we miss you, we miss you.  We love you, we love you, we love you.  

My family didn’t have tequila on the altar this year.  Forgive us.  We’re a little new at this whole thing.  But we’ll have a bottle waiting for you in the next.

Que sigas disfrutando de los nubes…que te sigas durmiendo suavemente, con comodidad, y que las almohadas estén llenas del amor que tenemos por usted…que nunca parren tus viajes arriba.  

Salud.  Dinero.  Amor.

Te amamos para siempre.     

616 Battery St.

Dear Elephant Sign,

I took you for granted.  I really did.  I think when you grow up in a city and you see certain things all the time you sort of just expect them to always be there.

From what I read it was a mixture of things.  The lot was getting too expensive.  The rent was getting too high.  And with COVID?  It was just too much to manage.  

I get it.  So the world turns, these days.  

But I thought you were superglued to that cement on Denny Way.  I thought that neon sign of pink, green, white and orange would be able to illuminate this city in even the darkest of times, or at least until things became bright again--and I think we’d all like to know when that might be.

A little bit ago I found out that you would be be getting removed and sent off to the Museum of History and Industry, which has been aptly described as “A graveyard for Seattle landmarks.”  While I must admit that I was a bit down that you’d be getting removed at all, there was some solace in knowing that you would be spending some time in restoration and then eventually preserved, so that future generations of inquisitive Seattleites and maybe even some nostalgic types could revel in your glow in perpetuity.

I heard the people that own the lot tried to play some hardball.  They tried to deal with you quick.  “Take care of you” before people even knew what hit them.  I’m glad to hear that they were checked, faced with a petition, and that you will still remain for the time being before the imminent transition.

I even tried to immortalize you in a short film recently, but alas they made sure I couldn’t create the dream that I envisioned for you.  For context, earlier this year I saw the Seattle documentary “Streetwise” and there is a beautiful moment where one of the protagonists is stationed right in front of your sign smoking a cigarette.  While it might not make AFI’s “Top 10 Images in Film” list, it certainly made an impact on me.

A couple of weeks ago as the film neared, I made sure to check that you would still be glowing in the moonlight and you were, albeit with about half of the lights defunct.  Still, it was like you were still alive.  

And then, wouldn’t you know it, I went to check again the day before we started shooting and you had gone dark.  Your lights were all off.  The spinning that had stopped such a long time ago seemed more still than ever.  Those happy little elephants at your base looking so vacant.  Bleak visages.  

When did you stop turning?  

Why did your lights have to go out?     

A couple of days ago I read that your sister sign had been removed.  Just like that.  Vanished in the night.

What robber?  What thief?

…  

I took a run in the early evening today.  It wasn’t until halfway through the run that I looked up to see a sunset.  Of pinks.  Of oranges.  Of blues.  Of greens.  Of whites.  

I think that could have been you…washing the sky with your memory.  Cloudy cars and soaring souls.  A World’s Fair up above.  

I’ll bet that Elvis and his pink Cadillac don’t mind having you around.        

The most photographed landmark in Seattle.  Even more than the Space Needle.

Thank you for giving us something to be proud of.

Until the next sunset…   

2nd-3rd

Dear Mrs. Thompson,

I don’t even know where to start, really.  

In late March I returned to Seattle for what I thought was going to be a two-week trip back home, while I thought naively that this COVID wave was going to be dealt with and dealt with, swiftly.  How very wrong I was.  Seven months later and here I am while the country is still in a state of turmoil before the election next week.

I remember thinking of you in early April, as I so often do at any time of the year, and wanting to reach out.  How must Mrs. Thompson be dealing with this current predicament?  What would she do?  What wise words would she have for me, for all of us?  

And then to find out that you were no longer with us?  

It is at this very moment as devastating as it was when I first found out.  Like having a full stomach of air and then having it completely ripped from your stomach, just as quickly.

Where have you gone Mrs. Thompson?  

While I know that you are high above us, undoubtedly enjoying some pain-free relaxation amongst the clouds and gates of gold, I still yearn to hear those beautiful words that you used to say.  Keeping me in check when my attention was lost.  Challenging me to do better.  Keeping us all together and supportive of one another.  Creating the type of environment that one would hope could exist outside of the classroom and within neighborhoods and communities and even cities and states all over.

I miss your voice.  I miss your smile.  I miss your haircut. I miss your style. I miss the way you used to chew gum.  I just miss you.  

Do you know I have kept your name in my phone?  I refuse to delete it.  I think that I hope one day, out of the blue, you might call.  Or maybe I might call you and the cellular service will be so strong that I could reach you where even planes get no reception.  

Your daughter said there is a spot that I could go visit in Oregon.  A bench and plaque made (or to be made) in your memory.  A tree that you used to frequent when you were sick.  

Your presence is so, so missed, but your spirit is so strong that it gives me such life and energy when I think of you, utter your name, and reflect on the impact that you had on all of us.

I am giving you a huge hug, Mrs. Thompson.  

I might not have given you enough flowers then, but I promise you I will continue to give them to you now, forever and ever, as long as I have life to live.

With love,

Josh