Jack,
As usual, I’ve been struggling for the past few weeks with how to put my thoughts down in words that make sense to anyone outside of my strange and seemingly chaotic mind. In the past, whenever I struggled for this long, I would totally cheat and ask you to cast your eye over my words and help me refine them. You always make me believe that one day I could resemble the brave, eloquent and insightful man you show the world you were each and every day.
But now, it is my turn to be as fearless.
The last three weeks have been rough, maybe the roughest I’ve ever had to live through so far. I’ve spent them forcibly choosing to expose myself to some of the deepest depravities that humanity has to offer in the pursuit of a sliver of justice, but at the same time, I’ve also witnessed individuals and communities responding to heartbreaking tragedy with the breathtaking compassion and a consummate grace that I know you effortlessly see in everyone you meet.
Without fail, you always treat people like they are the best versions of themselves and never hesitate to do anything to help them achieve the potential you unquestioningly know is there. Whether it’s the many hours you spend volunteering in the various communities you love or almost getting us kicked off the radio show for inappropriate language by the president of the radio that happened to be listening at the time! There isn’t much that you won’t do to make the people around you smile or brighten up their day just the tiniest bit. Plus, I don’t think anything will ever top your famous Lady Gaga impersonations during Bearaoke nights at the Laird or on the IML stage!
Scrolling back through the last ten years’ worth of messages we’ve shared, I take solace in the fact that it reflects our relationship in being precariously balanced between your dauntless enthusiasm for helping everyone to live their best life possible and the brutal honesty I require to assuage the ever-present fear of failure that defines so much of who I am. Smothering me in undeserved kindness, you make even a devout cynic like myself believe that the people of this world can do better and that every person has within them the capacity to be an awe inspiring positive influence on those around them.
I was deeply honored seeing every single time we openly told each other that we loved each other and sobbed reading our discussion about changing our relationship status online to brothers to publicly acknowledge how we felt about each other. I raged at the number of times we argued over your inherent right to be loved and respected and felt a part of me die when I realised you could no longer be able to fulfill your promise of being the best man at my wedding. I laughed at every lame in-joke we had including the number of arm punches you got for forcing me to see your junk online and agonized over every missed opportunity we had to change an outcome that no one deserved.
I’ve been told that its normal to feel a portion of responsibility in situations like this and that it fades with time, but, I don’t think it should ever fade. I should have been a better brother and a better man and I will forever be haunted by the knowledge that I wasn’t good enough. That I failed you. That we all failed you. The most painful part for me is the number of times I’ve automatically picked up the phone to call you or send you a message, only to realise that I’ve unknowingly already done that for the last time. It’s probably not something I’ll stop doing anytime soon either.
But your life is a testament to the concept of actively choosing to embrace the full spectrum of emotions instead of hiding from them or denying them. To focus on the opportunities presented by each of them and use them as motivation to both acknowledge your wins and learn from your mistakes.
I spent an awe-inspiring three weeks with your mum, brother, grandmother and close family friends. They’re such amazing people, I can see parts of you in all of them and was honored in the faith they put in me in allowing me to help them during this time and will continue to help them. I’ve had such amazing conversations with your mum! While she admitted that your journey is vastly different from what she knows, she truly loves, accepts and respects you as only a mother could. Not in parts or with any restrictions that would force you to change who you are, but as a sum of every shared experience you had and the years spent growing together into the people you are.
She’s such a hit with the bears, who would have known? We’ve adopted her as an honorary Mama-Bear! Her family hasn’t gotten smaller at all, in fact, I told her it’s grown by a lot now that you’re one of us! I don’t think VicBears will ever be the same after she brings the family to celebrate with us at the Laird this Saturday. So many people are looking forward to meeting her and your family and telling them how deeply you are loved. I’ve had people writing in from all over the world, providing stories and photos of happy times they want to share. To tell her how you inspire each of them. You asked for a celebration, and by every deity as my witness, that is what you’re going to get.
I told her how you were thinking of changing your name back last year, just after you cut your collar. Do you remember? We talked about how you were going to use the holiday to Australia as an excuse to change it back to Jack in the same way you started to let go of the other chains around you. I started designing the tattoo cover ups you asked for too. I actually kind of liked them so much, I was thinking of using them in some tattoos for myself.
While I’ve less than silently cheered on as everyone shares their stories and screenshots with you, their individual journeys walking along side yours, I unfortunately don’t have that luxury yet. I’ve chosen the path that I think is what you would have wanted, of backing your mum and family and what they need to help them start to move on from this. I’ve provided all my evidence and screenshots to the Seattle PD, the King County Medical Examiner, the reporters and the lawyers because I know that my participation in the search of justice is nothing, unless your family also starts to heal and everyone starts to separate you from what was done to you.
As I approach the end of this letter, I can’t help but be struck by the thought that there are so many more stories that we are still meant to both be a part of. Remember how we made jokes about being the most outrageously misbehaved old men in the old age home? Sharing linked rooms and separate personal libraries (because your deplorable taste in books is second only to your horrendous taste in 80/90’s pop diva music) and flirting shamefully with all the hot nurses?
So many stories that will never be told.
Instead, now is the time I have to start to let you go, just a little bit. Just enough to let me breathe. I’m holding on to you so tightly that I feel you burning into me. I’m clutching helplessly at what could and should have been and watching it slip through my grasp leaving only the tattered remains of what is.
I would give anything for a chance to go back and change everything. To change even just one thing. But that’s not how life works and I know that it’s not what you would have wanted. You wouldn’t want anyone to look backwards with regret when there is so much still to look forward to.
I can’t promise you much Jack, but, I can promise you that I will live a life that I can be proud of. A life full of ups and down and one where I choose to embrace the full spectrum of emotions. A life where I try my hardest to learn from your example and always be brave and leave my fear of failure behind me. A life where we all deserve to be loved and respected for who we are instead of trying to be someone we aren’t.
A life that you would have been proud of.
As you said for your father and for another young man taken far too early:
Your matter was forged in the heart of a star. For a brief cosmic second every one of your atoms converged from across the universe for the sole purpose of being you. Now they will spread out across all of creation, to become new things. We are all made of stars.
