Eulogy for my brother
Bruno got to meet Philly, Zac’s cat, while we were in Arizona. They tolerated each other.
Today would’ve been Zac’s 41st birthday. I have been struggling all week with deep sadness and regrets, mixed with gratitude for the time we had together. Zac was not precious about his birthday. He usually went to Disneyland and we would text each other or post something stupid on Facebook for each other’s birthdays but rarely did we see each other as adults during our birthdays. I regret that I didn’t make a bigger fuss about his 40th. I encouraged him to do something extra and wish I had been able to fly out to Los Angeles to celebrate with him. I better understand now the phrase “it’s later than you think”.
We held a small memorial service for Zac in Tucson on October 17th. It was mostly family with a few close friends and a couple of Zac’s close friends/colleagues. I wish we could’ve done something much larger for everyone who loved Zac. I know there are so many out there grieving him and if it weren’t for the pandemic, I would’ve created a much larger event for more to attend. My cousin Ross and I planned it together and it was a good project for us to focus our grief and laugh with all the good memories we have together. Zac and I grew up with Ross and he is really more of a brother than a cousin. Over the years, I relied on Zac’s relationship with Ross to keep me in touch with how he was doing. Ross and I have seen each other only occasionally over the past decade or so. I should’ve been in touch more and I’m hoping to make up for those sparse years where we rarely talked. Ross is brimming with creativity and is crazy talented. Zac always saw that and encouraged it. Ross is endlessly positive and I couldn’t ask for a better person to share this grief with.
Planning the memorial was very hard, which is the best I can do with words. It was more like an energy or force that was pushing me to do it. For months I felt something grating against my subconscious. I had vivid dreams of my grandparents and great grandparents who have passed. One night I dreamt I was in the desert by the house we grew up in and my grandmother came and held my hand and said clearly, “You need to come home, dear”. As soon as we made the plans to travel to Arizona and set the date for the memorial, I slept more soundly and was able to concentrate better at work. I was struggling with the decision to have a memorial because of the pandemic. So many people have only had virtual funerals and Anime News Network did a wonderful virtual service for Zac. I thought for a while it would be reckless and wrong to drive to Tucson to have an in-person memorial service. But ultimately that force won out and Doug, Bruno and I drove three days, through Hurricane Delta evacuation traffic to be in Tucson.
I have been to only a handful of funerals in my life and I never thought about planning one for my brother. Not even in sort of a terrified anxiety daydream when he was in and out of the hospital and he told me he was sick from his alcoholism. I always thought he would recover. We never talked about what he would want. Not many thirty year old siblings talk to each other about their dying wishes, right? I was worried about Zac’s memorial being what everyone wanted but at some point I let go of those concerns and focused on what I wanted. And that was simple- to share memories with family and friends and to say out loud how much I loved him. On that level, I think the memorial was what I hoped for. But it’s true that every step of the way, I imagined Zac’s voice quietly judging my choices…saying things like “NOPE” or “Don’t show that picture” or “Oh god, why would you talk about that!” I imagine Zac’s ghost as this floating judgy disembodied head, sort of like the Will Smith genie head with blue smoke around it. I’m genuinely curious what others think Zac’s ghost looks like. You know he’d think that conversation was pretty fucking funny.
The memorial was held at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, outside in part of the garden where they have private events. It’s a beautiful space with enormous agave plants, Palo Verde trees with lights strung through them, mesquite trees, other various cacti. The gardens were decorated with a Day of the Dead exhibit, which symbolized for me that the memorial came together when it should have. Ross did an incredible job setting up a screen and microphones and all the other tech and we worked together on a picture slideshow and playlist. We showed some truly awful home movies of us as kids, lip-syncing Bohemian Rhapsody and hosting “Ross’ World”, a parody of Wayne’s World. It was a lot of fun to see our ridiculous younger selves, full of confidence and manic energy, “singing” our hearts out, head-banging together. Ross at one point said to me, “I wish I could get back that 11 year old confidence!” I know exactly what he means. To be that unencumbered by self-doubt again would be a gift to all of us.
We had open mic time for anyone who wanted to share something and many wonderful memories and heartbreaking emotions were shared. I chose to read a letter that Zac wrote me before I left for college. He was 16 at the time and he talked about how I was his best friend and he wished our childhood would never end. It was incredibly tender for a teenager. Watching our silly home movies reminded me of why Zac wanted to freeze that part of our lives. They were true childhood joy. Don’t we all wish we could live in that time and space.
I came home from Tucson feeling like a different person. It was a enormous gift to spend two weeks at home and see my family and laugh and cry together. We wore masks, visited outside a lot, had a boat-load of hand sanitizer and as far as I know, no one got sick from the time together. The pandemic is on the rise again and I have nothing but empathy for those who have also lost someone this year and can’t grieve in the way that we in our shared humanity are meant to grieve. Perhaps one of the cruelest aspects of this pandemic is that we can’t hold each other and be together in all that we have lost. If you’ve read this far, I hope you are wearing a mask and encouraging everyone you know to wear a mask and listen to local health officials about what we need to do to stay safe. I wish Zac’s memorial could have been more. I hope everyone who loved him is taking some time today to be kind to themselves.
