My eulogy to Jackson
August 19, 2019
12 min read
Except maybe one, as so perfectly put by my young friend Eleanor while hugging me at the hospital…FUCK!
He’d like knowing I slipped a ‘fuck’ into his eulogy. When he was 6 or 7, he asked me once, ‘Mom, I know it is bad to say the F word, but is it okay to think it?’ He was still a rule follower back then – we all know he got over that.
No, there are no words for the thing that has happened. For Jackson to not be walking on this earth with us any longer, to not be smiling his big bright smile (which he copiously took care of – I never had to nudge him to brush and floss – a little vanity not always a bad thing.) There are no words for the loss of who he was to so many and the loss of potentiality – of possibility – of who he would become if given the time and opportunity.
But, there are many words about Jackson the person, about who he was to the people in his life and the impact he had. What I share with you today comes through the lens of ‘mother’, and I am well aware that there were many sides and nuances to Jackson that I was less or not privy to…rightly so. Gratefully so in some cases. However, I have learned many things in the last week or two about who he was to others as I cried with and held his friends and family at the hospital and read emails and comments sent from people in all parts of his life.
I’ve heard about his kindness. This big guy who could easily intimidate with his presence – his size – had a sweet, tender, kind heart. I remember picking him up from second grade one day. As he came down the stairs to me, he was crying. Just so upset. Honey, what’s wrong? He was upset because a little girl had been bumped while kids were hurrying out of school and her papers had scattered and no one had stopped to help her. The injustice! I heard from another mom about how grateful she always was to Jackson as he had always talked to her son and never bullied him like others had.
He’d fight for the underdog, he’d protect those he cared about, and if he had your back, he really had it. He offered to beat up someone who broke up with me, and I am pretty sure he’d have done it if I had said yes.
In a recent conversation with him, he was talking about the state of the world – and not feeling super optimistic about it for several reasons. But of all the things mentioned, it was the families at the border that tore him up the most. The separation of children from parents. The detainment. People just wanting to do better by their families. His tender heart couldn’t bear the thought of that.
He talked to me about the boys in juvie he volunteered with during his fall semester and how much he liked them and how unfair many of their lives were, how it didn’t seem like some of them even had a chance. He told me he knew he could have ended up there but was often protected by the privilege of being white and from a good neighborhood.
I also heard from friends about how accepting he was of people just being who they are. He wasn’t judgmental – others could be themselves with him, share what was really happening and know that Jackson wouldn’t think less of them or treat them differently. If I made a comment about someone that he thought was unfair, he’d call me out immediately. Don’t talk about other people’s business, he’d say to me.
His big, tender heart was the center of so much more. He was funny and playful and silly. He’d sing and dance and make weird noises as he made a snack in the kitchen. He’d hide behind corners to scare me – never losing the delight in making me scream out loud. Young kids loved him because this giant guy would get down and play with them in ways that other grown-ups didn’t. And he loved it. Last summer he talked to me about how he absolutely wanted kids one day. (I had a moment during that conversation when I wondered if he was actually trying to tell me something…)
He had a really great sense of humor. It was easy to laugh with him as he had such a great lens through which he viewed the ironies of life. And, his laugh was infectious. One of my greatest joys as a mother has been hearing him and Eiseley cracking up about something together. I would never know the what (likely an episode of Family Guy or Southpark or Always Sunny in Philadelphia) – but the sound of their laughter was always such a treat for me.
If Jackson were to say who the most important person in his life was, there is no doubt it would be his brother, Eiseley. They were in many ways so different when they were younger, but in the last several years had found more in common and a deeper appreciation for one another than I had even believed possible – or could have hoped for as a mom. The day of his accident, I’d talked to him about that being the true gift of motherhood for me. Their relationship with one another, and my relationship with each of them.
Each year Jackson was at Redlands, Eiseley went down to visit at some point. I knew little of the shenanigans that ensued, but I relished the happiness it brought to each of them. My favorite Jackson tattoo was the one he got in honor of Eiseley. It read, my brother’s keeper. There were no truer words…
Jackson’s sensitivity and creativity were windows into his artistic soul. At the core, Jackson liked to create, and he saw beauty. In people, in graffiti by the freeway, in the art of Van Gogh, in the sad, real stories of some of his favorite music. He would tell me the stories of some of the rap artists he listened to and the truth in the poetry of their lyrics. He understood the beauty that grew out of darkness; he understood that the dormancy of winter was required for the spring blossoms to appear. One of Jackson’s professor wrote in an email: Jackson was a bright and charismatic artist with talent to burn. I know he had some demons, and I was hoping he would be able to work through them after college.
There was truth in that. He had talent to burn, and he had his demons.
I heard a quote recently about honoring the space between ‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’…how hard it is to honor that place between childhood and adulthood. The late teens and early twenties when you are no longer a child and not yet really an adult. I think Jackson’s demons were rooted smack dab in the middle of this place of limbo, of wanting to know the what and how and who of his future and not yet being sure. And, not being sure he’d figure it out.
He’d been home only a week from college – and in that time had spoken to several friends about being so happy to be back, to have a job to make some money and not be broke any longer, to be with his posse. A couple of his friends told me how much better he seemed – like he was already a different person. Eiseley said, he’d just turned a corner.
In one assignment for a typography class fall semester, he had to create a font and put together a book. He chose some of his own photos to go with lines from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. One line he chose was this: “I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood.”...
I think Jackson had not yet grasped how august – how impressive and respected – he was. I think he was trying to be understood and to understand himself. He was just starting to know the brilliance of who he was and being able to embrace the light that was within him. He was just at the precipice of the beginning of the prime of his life.
The last four years at Redlands had been challenging for Jackson. Not all the time and not in all ways, but often. Some of that had to do with the glass houses that young people live in today in the age of social media – where all is visible or where all that someone wants to show is visible. Truthful or not. He’d shared something with me recently that had happened one night and had deeply embarrassed him. I said something about having done some hugely embarrassing things when I was his age, too, and how I understood. He just looked at me and said, ‘Mom, it is different when the stupid thing you did gets posted and hundreds of people or more know about it already when you get up.’ Touché.
Some of the challenge with Redlands had to do with the small size of the school and the town; he was a city boy at heart. And, some had to do with the closeness he had with family and the friends who are still here in Seattle. He had his people here. That is not to say he didn’t make some really great friends there, he did. He just had a hard time building the same kind of robust community he had here. Again, I think he just didn’t know who he was to others and didn’t always reach out when he needed.
Jackson always loved anything with wheels. From the time he was very little, he could tell the difference between a backhoe, an excavator, and a bulldozer. He loved riding in the truck and going to the job site with his dad and seeing the big machinery. He would line up his hot wheels for hours – on the side of the tub, on the stairs, on one of those little rugs with roads on it. He had a Gravedigger poster (next to the one of Brittney Spears) and tee-shirts. (For those who don’t know, Gravedigger is one of the monster trucks.) He was off training wheels at the age of four. He loved scooters and go-carts and anything that would move him quickly from here to there. He knew all about all types of cars. One day in first grade (by the way, he might be horrified I am telling this story – I always thought I’d share it at a birthday or rehearsal dinner someday), we were driving home in the minivan after school and from the back seat he says, ‘that’s funny’. I looked in the rearview and saw a smile on his face and asked what. He said, ‘my penis just got hard, and I was thinking about cars.’ Hmmm, well, you really like cars!
Jackson challenged me over the years. For one thing, waking him up was nearly impossible. High school mornings were not my favorite. (Over the years at different points, he’d asked his brother or friends to slap him if needed to wake him up, but just once I poured water on him and it was a huge deal.) He stayed out at night sometimes, he wrecked his car and my car, he was messy and didn’t understand that towels could actually be used more than once, and he shared almost nothing with me for years. He told me once that all the money he earned during high school went to fixing stupid stuff he did. That was a true fact.
But in the last years, we’d found a way to communicate with one another that was so lovely. We still had very good radar for one another’s buttons as Eiseley knows so well. A discussion could become an argument seemingly out of nowhere. But there was always forgiveness, closure…a recognition that we were not at our best with one another at times. The world of texting such a gift for this really. Just days before his accident, he’d sent me one telling me he was sorry for yelling at me, that he knew I was the one always by his side, and that he appreciated me more than anything. There was grace in our ability to navigate the challenges of our relationship – to love, to forgive, and often later to laugh.
When he asked me about thinking the ‘f word’ that day, I told him no one should or could ever tell him what to think…what I’d loved in the last years was hearing the evolution of his thinking. Hearing his thoughts about the world and how it worked or didn’t work, hearing his thoughts about artists he liked, hearing his encouraging remarks about his friends and things they were doing – ‘glowing up’. Hearing his understanding of how his family worked – the relationships, the interactions, the situations, and hearing the pride in his voice when he talked about his brother and who he is.
When he talked about Redlands and the challenges he had being away at school, I think he didn’t see how expanded his mind had become in the years he was there. I think he couldn’t yet appreciate how much broader his perspective and openness to the world had become. He didn’t have time to retrospect yet.
The day of his accident, less than an hour before he left the house, he’d told me he was going to sell the motorcycle as a start to saving for a car. The world feels cruel sometimes. It would be easy to sit in the ‘what ifs and if onlys’ – to question why the hell this happened. But we have no DeLorean or Marty McFly here…we cannot go back to change this future. For us, Jackson will remain forever 22. Let us grieve that and celebrate him with equal measure. Let us be grateful he sowed some wild oats. (Not sure how many; don’t want to know. I did go down one morning and chat with him without realizing someone else was in his bed. I apologized later for embarrassing him, and he said, no worries, mom, I think that is part of your job!) He broke some hearts and he had his heart broken, he lived abroad and traveled a bit, and he spent a good amount of time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He broke bones playing football, got into fights, and put a couple of holes in the wall when venting. He went to a car race in the salt flats of the desert with his dad and uncle. He visited many museums and saw live music. He danced and sang and did crossword puzzles. He spent time in Chelan every summer with aunts, uncles, cousins and friends getting up to ‘chelanigans’. He gave great hugs. Let us be grateful he knew how to be such a good friend and to honor his family. Let us be grateful he filled those 22 years with living, with loving.
I choose to believe that his love is what kept him with us for the days after his accident. He’d coded several times – had no pulse – and each time they brought him back. There was no reason for that to happen really – his injuries were catastrophic. I believe he came back for two reasons – to give his family and many friends the chance to say goodbye…to hold his hand and wish him well on his journey to whatever is next. And, so he could give something from himself to others in need. His light – that we had so little time with here – will shine through others who now carry a part of him. I am so grateful he did this for us and for them.
My heart is broken. Your hearts are broken. We, none of us, will be the same going forward from this moment. If there is anything to take as a lesson or an opportunity from his loss, particularly you young adults, I hope it is this…remember Jackson in your moments of doubt and uncertainty and do not question the light you are in this world, do not worry about the thoughts or opinions of others, be YOU. Let the genius of YOU shine forth and be a force of good in this world. Whatever that genius is… Be august, and do not trouble your spirit to vindicate itself or be understood.
On June 23, 2019, we held a memorial for Jackson. In the week between that day and his last day at the hospital, writing his eulogy gave me a way to move forward. It gave me a purpose. It captures just some of what and who Jackson was to me and to others who loved him.
There are no words.
This is the comment I’ve heard or read most often since Jackson’s accident. And it is true. There are no words that can make THIS make sense. There are no words when hearing some piece of news feels like a punch to the gut, that freezes your lungs and stops the air somewhere between inhale and exhale – and speaking actually is impossible.
There are no words to adequately describe the void left by the loss of a young, vibrant man or the loss of the future life he was meant to live.
There are no words.
And, he loved well…his friends, his family, as he was well loved in return because of who he was…all of it. All of his humanness, the good and the challenging. The moments of light and the demons that held him in darkness sometimes. For 22 years and 13 days…
The name Grief Momma came to me when I was first thinking about doing this work. It signifies to me both the primary loss I carry, and it is a nod to the Motrin Mommas, or just Mommas, a soccer team of wonderful women who first met on the pitch. Decades later, we are still a group of sorts, sharing lots of other activities, and weathering the ups and downs of life together. In the depths of my loss, I was shown the power of kindness and community through these women.