I’ve been dealing with a bunch of bullshit that prohibited me from making David’s headstone. But it seems like it may be coming to an end, and I can finally get something done—something that should have been done over a year ago.
I opened up Photoshop and Word and stared blankly at two white canvases. Writer’s block. Like my tattoo which has been a labor of love and confusion.
How do you sum up one’s life in permanent ink and stone? What possible combinations of letters and symbols will merit and represent something great that was lost? What would David have wanted? What would Mom have wanted? These questions rest heavy upon my brow.
I try to zoom out, to think about who else lost someone that day, cousins, loves, friends, nephews, everybody who adored him and who, to this day, have a little hole in their heart missing him in their own way. How do I sum that up in a way that represents the appreciation for his spending his little time with us in the aggregate?
Or do I just do it simply? The name, the dates. To me, that feels such a crime because David didn’t live a simple life. He devoured it: He was a universe unto himself a sun, which provided warmth to all that orbited around him. He listened to your thoughts, intently. He was the absolute best friend you could ever have, the best brother an older sibling could ever have.
Even in his actions on October 15th, he granted life of this Foundation and lit a fire under my ass and those who help us to open up and share, to talk, and to feel.
He is so much more than the simple facts of the person who resides below. It is a beacon, representative of something so much more. A place where I will go, and I will cry every time I am there because it tears my fucking heart out that there wasn’t one more thing I could have said or done to avoid having to even think for a moment that I am designing the headstone for the biggest loss I have ever incurred.
Where are the words? I kind of want to hear from you all—I need to hear from you—to help me find the words that sum up what his life meant to us all. So that someday, when we are all no longer here and another person passes his grave site, they will be able to say: “There lies a very important man.”
