Category Archives: Zach Stories

Zach speaks

Today is the 6th and this entry was written on the 7th, of December. Why is this important? It’s not, really. The date thing is just an excuse to choose something.

It’s long-ish, from 2013. Zach was still working at the Rec Center, but had decided that he was going to quit and get his Phd so he talks (among other things) about some of his efforts to choose a school. In the end, he stayed at LSU. Fateful decision . . .

Saturday, December 7, A day that will live in infamy…

Not really. But, I’m sitting here at my office, quite a bit of coffee down, and it’s 721a, having been here since about 615a.

I am, more than I’d like to admit, making really stupid decisions that feel insignificant at the time. A great example is this morning–the rest of my clan of friends is volunteering at Habitat for  Humanity this morning and I chose not to go because this morning is really the only shot I’ll have this weekend to accomplish anything (since tomorrow is a planned hangover day). I feel kind of bad but I know that I would hate myself tomorrow night if the weekend were to pass without some more accomplishment. But anyways, the Habitat group was meeting here at work at 7a to go to their site and, as par for the course, I felt this deep compulsion to be there before all of them, I guess with the intention of wowing them with my slave-ish intensity and dedication. But what happens is a)when they do “marvel” at me, I just get annoyed for having to explain myself, and I don’t even think there is a small part of me that likes the attention, or b) they think I’m a kook for keeping the hours I do. And frankly, I can’t really blame them for that– last night we hung out, drank wine, and stayed up until about 1a, and my alarm went off a little before 6a. Which is nowhere near enough sleep, especially at the end of a week, and could potentially lead to me not feeling well later in the day/weekend, which would suck. So why did I get up early?

Well, from a pragmatic standpoint, there is much to be done, and once I get finished banging out some thoughts in here, I hope to have some accomplishments, in some form or fashion.

So, some thoughts…I guess in keeping with that faux-health theme, it’s been a weird/semitough week from a health perspective. It’s largely my fault. Last Sunday night I, of course, couldn’t sleep when I went to bed early and then ended up with wreckage of diet with late night snacking. It carried over into Monday and really throughout the week, as I had a litany of poor eating choices and really regressed as far as eating enough calories. I don’t know why but I’ve been doing a terrible job with eating enough food, at the right times, and as a result, I haven’t been feeling that amazing. Compounding that is the bursts of caffeine that I’ve been ingesting, including too much coffee–today has to be my last day of coffee until at least later next week, if not longer.

In relation to this, I’ve completely fallen on my face as far as making December my bitch and have had a troubling, overall, malaise with using my time. My weekly review will go into this further tomorrow but it hasn’t been pretty and that is extraordinarily frustrating. What’s interesting is that I don’t feel like I’ve really been wasting that much time, all things considered, but it has been a bit of unique week with my birthday and all that, so in some sense there are some confounding variables. I don’t know–I need to really rebound next week and today.

Speaking of the birthday, which was Thursday–I actually really enjoyed the experience, way more than can ever really recall before. There wasn’t anything at all special about the day other than the normal humdrum-ness but it was just a really positive and happy day for me. I think that is indicative of a larger phenomenon that I’ve touched on before about my experience here in Baton Rouge about how I really cherish a lot of my social life and times here. I don’t know if this is a function of a greater sense of individual maturity and I’m thus appreciating “life” more or if I’ve just lucked into a situation here where I’m surrounded (socially) by good people and I like the role I have within the relationships. I guess it’s probably a bit of both.

For example, the small clan (Micah, Julie, Melissa, Chris, and Jake) hung out last night and watched Love Actually and it was such a small event in the grand scheme but was so incredibly fun and comfortable for me. Chris and Jake came over and cooked a quick dinner and then Micah and the rest of them got home and we drank a bit, watched Love Actually, and then sat around bullshitting in the living room for probably another two hours after it finished. The movie, as always, was incredible–I sat there with a silly smile, I laughed at the hilariousness of it, and as dumb as this seems, it was really special for me to “share” that experience with those
people. Granted, I pined to actually have a girl there to cuddle with (really, mainly just Rachel, since that was the gateway) but even that was a secondary feeling to the giddy happiness I felt for most of the evening.

One thing that I think really makes my relationships right now so fulfilling is the huge sense of open-ness that I feel like I have with everyone, and the fact that pretty much everything is on the table as far as what we talk about. It’s not like I have a great need to process a lot of stuff that happens in my life with a group (Chris and I are pretty mutually fulfilling in that sense) but it’s nice to have my life feel mostly like an open-book with the group, and that is a really relaxing feeling.

Chris and I also watched Animal House on Thursday night, for my birthday, after we got Whole Foods and it had been awhile since I watched it, and it’s as funny as ever. So, in recap, two great movies in two days!

I held what were hopefully the last two thesis interviews this week, and now just need to transcribe them before I can (hopefully) say that the data gathering process is complete. The coding/analysis process is about to fully commence, which is truly exciting, since I think this the peak of any project like this–the write-up will be more like the icing on the cake, as far as results go. I had a meeting with Garn yesterday where he talked me through what he wants to see as far as the coding and have some steps to work on in the next few weeks before meeting with
him again. I like Garn a lot–he seems to have a ton of trust in me and definitely strokes my ego but he’s also pretty realistic but our relationship is evolving to the point to where I’m looking forward to seeing him and we have a normal conversation about the real world.

In relation, the ph.d application process is in progress. In fact, today I should finish enough stuff to consider being on the downslope of the whole process and although there is some trepidation still, I’m starting to feel cautiously optimistic about the whole goddamn endeavor. I was bitching about some aspects of it yesterday and Chris reminded me that the ph.d is just academic hazing and they want you to be pushed in the process and it was a good reminder for me–I need to not get caught up in the silliness or injustice or the process and just go out and make it my bitch, as blunt as that may seem. That may include dropping a lot of money to take visits in the early spring, which is lurking nastily in the back of my mind.

The process is also interesting because of the natural reduction of schools, which is a bit unnerving but I guess a natural aspect. I had originally had a list of 5-6 schools but some professors at some institutions have literally not responded to my requests, which I interpret as a sign that 1)I don’t want to work with someone like that anyways  and 2)they probably don’t want ph.d students if they aren’t responding to those emails. So, the list, as of earlier this week, had dwindled to just FSU and UTK–in a random manner, however, KU reinserted themselves into the conversation mid-week, and quickly have risen to a dead heat with FSU, in terms of overall potential fit. I ended up having close to an hour long conversation with a prof at KU this week and most of it was just the two of us going back and forth about the pervasiveness of sports and how it’s a fascinating research topic. It was really fun. On the flip side, I had a conversation with a second professor at UTK and it was awful–the guy was nice enough but didn’t seem to really give a fuck, and the conversation lasted barely ten minutes. So, that helps crystallize the direction I want to go, as far as UTK is concerned.

It’s still frustrating and annoying because I have to present this air of compartmentalization with my process and I have to keep reminding myself that my goal is just to get into a program and if that means I have to get a little creative in my personal statement with regards to my research interests, I’m fine with that. I’m all over the map with that shit anyways. I think, in a traditional academic sense, I’m not really suited for a ph.d program–but, in a 2013-sense, I think I am.

There is a huge need for me to stay focused this month and start really thinking creatively about my back-up plans and my overall next steps. With the comfort of my life right now, it’s really easy to get complacent and not do things like save money. Ha!

Rae got engaged this week. I knew it was going to happen, or I feel like I’ve known it was going to happen for about a year, since she drunkenly called me last December and was clearly alluding to her fear that a proposal was coming. There’s a small sense of loss there, although I think I’m mature enough at this point to not be derailed by it. She still, to this day, I think is the only girl who knows most of my story and is also willing to stand up to me and call me on my shit. Good for her.

Zach speaks

Apropos my recent post on ten years, I looked up a Zach journal entry today. It’s short. From 2014.

November 16, Weekly Reviewage

My long elusive week of kick-assery finally arrived, in the form of a 53.75 hour week, which is a full five hours longer than any I’ve recorded this fall. It as a pretty simple formula- getting shit done on a Saturday and doing enough on Mon-Wed to counter some lower totals on Thurs-Fri.
The major jump is in research, as I’ve really been going hard at this project with both a lot of time on the lit review and with interviews and transcribing and whatnot. One noticeable trend is the significantly lower amounts of time I’m spending on classes and schoolwork- that’s mainly me not spending as much time on stats. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve hit a wall with it or because there isn’t as much useful “work” to do on it but it’s a bit worrisome when considering what next semester will look like, when I assume I’ll have more real work, as well as more schoolwork. I guess the bright side is I have a better understanding of what I have to do for teaching, so that will (hopefully) be a bit less time consuming.

Apropos of nothing, here is a photo of Zach’s desk as I found it, a little more than 24 hours after his death.

some Zach thoughts

It’s not every day, or even every week. Sometimes a month may go by without thinking of Zach. But when it comes, it comes hard.

The three friends, laughing, then the yells of warning, then the sudden screen of skidding tires, the thump, followed by more yelling. ‘You’re not going to pin this on me, man!’ The sirens and the lights. And the realization that their friend was gone.

This reimagining comes without warning, at odd times. Most often in the wee hours but sometimes, like today, in the bright afternoon.

All I can do is grieve some more. And sometimes write about it.

There are other times, when I think of Zach and the insights he might have. Some profound and some just funny. That’s when ‘I miss you’ really has meaning.

Zach’s thesis notes

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that, at the time of his death, Zach was close to finishing his doctoral thesis. I remember it had something to do with sex roles in co-ed recreational leagues.

I know he had made video recordings of games as part of his research. I’ve seen the files in listings but never looked at them for more than a few seconds. Today I was looking through a set of folders that were from his iPhone. One of them was called ‘Notes’. It was an even dozen text files with dates in their filenames. The dates were all from the week before his death.

I’m going to share some of these as I think the insights are wonderful. Without looking at the videos, I’m not sure what sport he is talking about. Judging from the context, it could be soccer or volleyball or even basketball. The cool thing is that it kind of doesn’t matter. I suspect – and I think he did too – that the insights would carry over into any mixed sex game.

Here’s a sample from the first one:

Males start in serve for both
Both team have alternating and positions that appear to be set
Sayre comes up from the back line in front of the girl and makes the play. She is weak – he is hiding her.
What is the rule with people running up from the back line and getting spikes? Check on this
Male overplay on one side exposes the other, which is then exploited by opponent – it imbalanced the court and the team couldn’t recover.
Sayre continually creeping up – he would say that he needs to, and he’s not exactly wrong. But what does it say about coed that it puts you in position where gender is so polarizing.

Game two a girl starts at serve for both
Both of these teams are hopeless. Does it even matter to try and assess gender when everyone is so out of their element?

‘Serve’ implies volleyball to me. Here’s the next one, later the same day:

Lesser teams celebrate each other a lot more.
These teams are also dreadful. The guys especially. The girls on gold are significantly better than the guys, and they control the ball more. It’s a refreshing reversal.

Now the next day:

I’ve seen at least one of these teams before. They are terrible.
Guy starts at serve for both
The other team has only two girls
Shitty guy player tries to make a hero play instead of bumping it and loses the point instead. This is a running theme.
. . .
Two guys on the white team are literally running around in front of their girls, including one where the girl was standing still and the guy kind of bodies her out of the way. Wow.
Now, that girl is playing more tentatively, and they just lost two straight points because of her lack of aggression.
. . .
Interesting to watch a girl talking up a guy on her team – a role reversal all the way down to the encouragement for having done a basic thing right.
Now the guy is overplaying in front of another girl. Ironic.

And another day:

Per usual, the really shitty guy overplays in front of a girl. Maybe it’s not a gender thing but a general sucking at sports thing
. . .
Second game when it’s close and late, the best girl made a couple overplays into her guys zone to keep him from screwing up the play.
I realize that i type that approvingly, even though if a guy did the same thing I’d take issue

Another:

Guy comes up from the back line, cuts in front of his girl twice on consecutive plays. Is literally ignoring her being there – no acknowledgment whatsoever. And in this case he won the point and is celebrated by his teammates for hos efforts (although the marginalized girl didnt say anything)
That is the quintessential anecdote for guys wanting to play an extra game and coed is that outlet, so they recruit female bodies to stand on the field for their own pleasure. If guys could play in unlimited men’s leagues, would coed numbers go down?
. . .
See a girl literally get down in basically the fetal position and her guy jump over her to make a play on the ball. Sounds crazy but it happened.

This sounds more like soccer:

Girl plays defense on a guy, steals the ball from him in normal fashion, and there is a chorus of congratulations and affirmation for her. The same level of affirmation does not occur when a guy does this same thing minutes later, despite the plays being quite similar.
Guy makes a normal play and trips up a girl, then instead of running on, stops for a second and looks to help her up
Guy runs from across the field to take an OOB, going past three girls and loudly announcing that he’ll take the ball. The girls don’t even look to do that. And then his throw in is a two foot toss to a guy. And then he runs back across the field.
Even during the championship team picture after the last game, the girls all group together, even though about half of them are bigger or the same size than the guys who are all grouped behind them. And the girls strike a stereotypical sorority squat.

And this is the last one in its entirety. It’s the first one I read and the one that made me want to write this post:

11/12/15, 6:35 PM

Guys play reckless when they low skilled. The low skilled over aggressive male is a unique and dangerous addition to coed teams. He has hero tendencies that lead him disproportionately into his female teammates. Oddly, i feel
Like i don’t see him crowding out his male teammates.
I’ve smiled more watching this game than i have any other. The VSA team is very genuine and positive. I’m rooting for them.
Other team confers on strategy before the third game and it makes me wonder about the thought process with gender alternating (as both teams are doing).
Is it really possible to assess strategy though? Or the merits of it?
Even on the VSA team…guy runs around, overplays, and screws up an easy point his girl was about to get. She looks at him disgustedly.

Two days later he was dead.

Zach’s computer files

When Zach died, I took control of all his computer devices and transferred his files to my storage system. I’ve carefully preserved them pretty much without any editing. I sent copies to Emily, Jeremy and Sarah. I did go through his writing and organized it into a couple of folders. For whatever reason, he used misleading folder and file names so that was an interesting exercise.

‘Corleone’ was the name of the folder where he wrote about work things. His personal diaries were in a folder titled ‘Appendices’. The sub folders and file names were headed ‘Statistical Appendices’. What does it mean? Beats the heck out of me! He loved the movie Godfather II but what did it have to do with thoughts about work? We’ll never know. He was consistent with his naming format which included the dates. That helped.

There were a lot of files relating to his academic career that I didn’t touch. For a while, I thought his advisor might contact me to get copies. That never happened. Whatever Zach had nearly ready for publication sits untouched on my hard drive Promises by LSU administrators to get Zach a posthumous doctorate never materialized.

I’m mostly over it now.

Anyway, today I had time and was thinking about it so I went through his files and found and eliminated a lot of duplicates. Broadly speaking, I now have his school files under ‘Academics’, his writing under ‘Diaries’, and everything else in a few other miscellaneous folders (texts, financials, etc). Any pictures I found – and they were all over – are in my pictures folder under his name.

I found evidence that Zach went to some trouble to maintain his papers from his entire college career. Papers from Xavier and OSU were saved in various folders that had clearly been copied more than once. I didn’t try to read any of them today but I will get to them someday.

Zach speaks

I woke up this morning with an idea of publishing Zach’s journals. Not publishing like a book, just posting here on this blog. Piecemeal, like I’ve done before. I haven’t looked up how I treated it before but today I think I will not comment.

Here is his entry from this date in 2015:

4/18, Saturday morning

The week back to the normalcy was not excellent. I always say no bad days but this week really put that mantra to a test. It started with Sunday, where I was only marginally productive and didn’t really do a whole lot, but planned to go bed early and get a good nights sleep, then get up on Monday morning and kick ass. As always, this didn’t work…I couldn’t fall asleep for shit that night and ended up staying up until I don’t know how late and reading a 500 page Michael Crichton book. Which was entertaining but ultimately a bit redundant. So I slept like shit, got up Monday and was immediately annoyed by the cats, the rain, and the dirtiness of the house. All petty little things that are somewhat within my control and I just let it mentally derail me. So Monday was a day spent trying to not get too wet from the rain, making adjustments to golf class, and get too annoyed by how dirty the house became from Jake being gone and the cats being in our house for ten days. Then stats was useless that evening (shockingly) and I had to go make copies and print stuff out that evening, which basically crushed any chances of exercise for the day.

Tuesday was where the car really ran off the road. It rained a shit ton more Monday night add as I was getting ready to get dressed for the high school and everything, I realized that I had a serious issue of mold in my room, including on a lot of my nice clothes. So I was pretty annoyed, but at that point I didn’t realize the extent of it. But I did when I got home…it was everywhere, and had started growing on my dressers and on about 50% of the clothes and other items in my closets. So needless to say, I was pretty wonked…I spent a couple hours in the afternoon working on it before Kwame’s class, went to class, then came back home and stayed up until about 1am cleaning stuff and figuring out how bad it all was. Jake had finally gotten home and he came and calmed me down, which helped. And I think everything is taken care of, although some of it has already come back in the days since…and I’m also getting rid of a shit ton of stuff…clothes I don’t wear anymore, that big suitcase that I never use, some of my old NU bags, and other shit. So that was kind of liberating.

But it also meant I didn’t really get anything done Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and Thursday was also a clunker of a day, so it was not a banner week. I think I’ve got it out of my system but it was rough on my working out (which I had attacked with so much zeal but closed the week with a whimper), as well as me getting good work done (which isn’t a huge huge deal, although I have one assignment I’ve officially procrastinated far too long).

I started trying to write longhand each morning for a few minutes and sort of like it, but sort of dislike it. It’s mostly just me bitching and then trying to get my head wrapped around what I want to accomplish for the day. So it’s not very pure. But I think there’s some value to it, although I’m not quite certain what it is yet.

The other thing hanging over this week was the mysterious absence of Garn, which isn’t a huge deal except I also had some research questions hanging over my head and some confusing WAP directions that he gave me. So each day I was dwelling on all that stuff and uncertain when he would be back for me to talk with him. I eventually got the research stuff under control, at least partially, and the WAP is also settled down. The upshot of this week is that it, 100% hammered home the realization that I really can’t put too much trust in Garn for anything outside of research (and even that I need to trust my own instincts). If he’s going to go MIA, which he did for four days this week, then I really can’t expect to get much from him. The teaching and the work responsibilities are what really bug me; I got an email from Dee this week stating that I wasn’t teaching this summer (per Dr. Solmon) and I brought it up to Garn and he assumed that I was applying for a research award. And I told him I wasn’t because I wanted to take classes, and although we hashed out the conversation, it all makes me very uneasy. I can see a scenario where I’ll get left out to dry for the summer as far as income, just because the only affirmation I have about it is an ambiguous email from Dee and Garn’s word, which is proven to not be trustworthy in matters like this.

In his defense, he’s continued to give me feedback (sort of) on my manuscript and he continues to be exceedingly complimentary. He also nominated me for a national writing award through the AKA, which I received, and I appreciate. I don’t quite know the context of it (like is it really a big deal or no?) and he was really pumped up about it. So he isn’t useless, but I just need to condition myself to be a little more self-reliant in preparing myself for the future.

I nutted up and sent Kwame an email inquiring about TAing for him this summer for Sport in Society and he quickly and positively affirmed that. I think with him I just need to keep pushing slowly, since I don’t think he’s the type to volunteer assistance per se; but if I go to home with specific questions or asking his opinion, he seems willing to help. I need to cultivate that relationship, even if he might be leaving LSU soon. But that’s one area where I just need to go and do it on my own, to help my future.

I also spent a few minutes perusing the job boards looking at what’s out there and it was a sobering reminder that my job search will not be easy…especially because my area is kind of gray, in terms of specialty. I don’t really fit into sport management but I also don’t fit into “Kinesiology”, for the most part. So I need to do more now of trying find or create more specific niches and roles for myself. The problem is, again, that I’m doing this on my own, and I can’t really depend on Garn to help. I’m wondering more and more if I’m going to have to do a post-doc or some sort of shorter job out of school just because I won’t have quite the depth of experience…

At the end of the day, I just want to get out of LSU. Garn, for all his positives, is really being weighed down by his negatives, and I’ve kind of come full circle. I stayed at LSU because I thought it would be a consistent, more comfortable, family type environment with people who supported me and would nurture me and that I could trust. And from what I can tell…that’s not exactly the case. I misread the situation, and hopefully the next two years don’t make me regret it. I don’t regret it now, but I don’t want to hate being here either, and I’m having more and more days where I do…

But here’s the good: since I last wrote, Emily and I have made plans for three visits. I’m going up for two weeks in May, and we’ll spend part of that in AA plus Jimmy and Andrew are coming up from Cincy. That all coming together is a huge relief, because I wanted to spend a lot of time there but didn’t want to just be sitting around her parents house the whole time. She’s also made plans to come down here again in June/July and we’ll spend most of that trip going to Atlanta, which will be awesome. And then I made flights and plans to go to AA for the wedding in August too. So that’s a lot of great things to look forward to, and that makes everything easier. And she and I are as chipper as ever. It’s a good status quo and I hope we keep progressing.

The bad: the Giants are terrible. Not a fun start to the season. But I’ve started re-reading Ball Four, and it’s utterly incredible. I’m a better reader now than I have in the past, and it’s such a wonderful joy to experience it.

Rec league basketball

We watched a movie last night.

This is not about the movie.

I watched the credits, as I always do, and saw a name from Zach’s past. The character was a minor one – really just a cameo – so I really didn’t remember what he looked like. The movie was from 2014 and I hadn’t seen James since about 20 years ago when he and Zach were in rec league basketball together. They were pals at 12 years old but it didn’t last into high school.

Still, it was a good memory. The basketball team had their moments but they weren’t overpowering. They went into the championship tournament hoping to win one game but things started working for them and they got to the championship game against the hot shots.

It seemed like there was always one team in rec league that was put together by an ambitious dad who thought his kid was NBA material. Typically they steamrolled everyone else. It always pissed me off when they ran the score up against gawky kids who didn’t spend every free moment practicing basketball.

These were the guys Zach and James’ team were playing for the championship. I don’t remember it well enough to narrate the details but I remember that they played smart and tough against the hot shots. James’ dad was not the official coach but he was a savvy basketball guy who participated in the huddles and helped the kids believe in themselves. Jeremy was there too, providing support.

Well, they won, and were joyous.

In the big picture it would seem meaningless but our personalities are built from many small things. It was a fun moment. Rec league basketball was usually so frustrating. Zach was tall but not the tallest on the team. Soon after this, he really started growing and went on to play on high school and college basketball teams.

The actor turned out to have been born in 1965. Not even close!

Here are James and Zach in their championship shirts:

Zach recipe

One more thing from the box. Zach had given me a recipe for a ‘breakfast casserole’ once. I had written it on a scrap of paper.

Here’s what I wrote:

  • baking dish 3″ x 14 x 8
  • frozen hashbrowns
  • turkey sausage/chorizo
  • yellow onions
  • 12-8 eggs – scramble
  • garlic & spices
  • cheese (cheddar) bag + 1/2
  • layer
  • 325° 1 hr 10′
  • remove foil cover
  • return to oven 10-15 mins to brown

I ate it once at his house but, sad to say, I never made it myself.

Tschotskes

‘A small bauble or miscellaneous item‘ says Wikipedia. Websters has ‘knickknack, trinket’. The word always had a connotation to me of ‘worthless except to one person’.

I did some cleaning in the garage the other day and unearthed a box filled with stuff that I had had on display on my apartment. There really isn’t a place for it here but I brought the box up to look through carefully. It’s mostly pictures in frames, which I am loath to get rid of. Sepi has lots of paintings, many of which are still in the garage, but paintings and guitars, not family pictures, are our principal wall adornments.

The other things in the box I would definitely call tschotsckes. A little clay wind chime that wouldn’t survive being put out of doors here. Little souvenirs from Germany, Zanesville, Paraguay and other places: plates, ashtrays, trivets.

And some things that remind me of Zach: a button with the picture from his first year in Little League. A ceramic hand print labelled December 1991 when he would have just turned 3. A ‘Panik 12′ button, referring to the Giants’ second baseman Joe Panik, that was on his backpack. A ceramic ‘Z’ that Rosalie made a couple of years ago.

And something I picked up on the side of the street across from his house less than 36 hours after his death:

It’s the lens from his sunglasses that he was wearing that day.

It caught me by surprise. I hadn’t thought about it for a long time. I suppose I would see it occasionally on the table as I went in and out of my apartment. Realistically, I should just toss it. I’ve got all the pictures. I even went back and watched the video I made that day walking along the street with the cars zipping by only about ten feet from me at 40 or 50 miles an hour. In the video, I see the lens in the grass alongside the road and bend down to pick it up. I was not sure it was his, but it all hangs together and I choose to think that it was his.

The ‘Z’ is now up on my dresser where I will see it every day along with Hobbes. I will offer the hand print to other members of the family. The buttons . . .  I’ll guess I’ll ask if anyone else wants them. I don’t expect anyone will. Jeremy might want the Panik button.

the last time I saw Zach

I don’t know why, but I woke up this morning thinking about the last time I saw Zach. It wasn’t really Zach at that point. It was just his body.

We were at the funeral home on the Tuesday afternoon of that week in Baton Rouge. For some reason, I don’t remember Sarah but I remember Jeremy being there. Zach was lying up at the front of the little chapel and there was a railing with a kneeler in front of it. I didn’t kneel, but I touched Zach’s lower leg and I remember thinking that it felt like him: solid and muscular. I don’t know anything about rigor mortis and I certainly wasn’t thinking about it then. Maybe it was just rigor mortis.

Of course, I looked at his face and I thought it was odd that they had put a bunch of pancake makeup on him. It was much later that I saw the police photos of the accident scene and I realized how horrific the injury to his head had been.

I didn’t feel any need to pray over his body or ‘say goodbye’ or anything like that. I wanted to touch him to convince myself it was all real. Emily was towards the back of the chapel with her mother and sisters. We would have been meeting in California in about a month’s time but I went back there and introduced myself and we all talked quietly.

At one point, I remember looking up to the front and saw Jeremy kneeling there and I thought maybe I should go and do that too. But I didn’t want to interrupt him and later people starting moving to leave. I don’t remember where we were going. We certainly weren’t rushed by the funeral home but a consensus seemed to develop that we were done.

The next day we went back and got the ashes.

I had them at my apartment for a long time. I believe I wrote about that. It wasn’t Zach – neither was the body – but it was the closest I had. Now ‘he’ is here:

In the end it’s all memories, which is why I write here. Our oral tradition is pretty much gone unless you count videos. There’s a chance these memories will survive for Rosalie and Noah and maybe their children to read and know a little bit about their ancestors. I know I would have eagerly read stories from my grandparents and great-grandparents. Eventually, their world recedes but their personalities would have shone through, I believe.

 

Categories

Search

January 2026
S M T W T F S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Archives