General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFor all my beloved DUers, in honor of NYC_SKP's thread about MiddleFingerMom
I was originally gonna post on NYC_SKP's thread ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024317872 ) but I didn't want to hijack it, however inadvertently that might have happened.
My son and I spent yesterday afternoon at a memorial - for a 25-year-old friend of his. A wonderful, talented kid whose live was shortened WAAAAAAAAAAY too soon.
Alex was indeed just 25. He died suddenly and unexpected on December 18th. His family is, as you can imagine, bereft. Devastated. Still in shock. There's one Christmas they'll never forget, and always think of with sadness. There's Christmas, PERIOD, that will never be the same for them again. Always marred from here on, because it will always remind them of their lost first-born, and how he died so close to it, and how he never lived to see it.
Alex was born almost completely deaf. The inner workings of one ear were not there. The outer ear was deformed. His other ear which had a normal external appearance had about 45% hearing, as I was told. Yet, would you believe he actually had music in him? Rather profoundly, too. This kid was amazing. His attentive and perceptive parents got this very early on, and did everything they could to help and enable it. Thankfully, his dad was very successful in business and they could afford to get him the finest medical and therapeutic attention - the surgeries, the facial/jaw reconstructive surgery, the speech therapy, the ongoing efforts and tools and hearing aids and other things that they used and accessed. But when Alex was ten, they did more. The dad began building upon his son's demonstrable aptitude and raw talent, and eventually, his music career. VERY early - the same age at which my own son started gravitating rather dramatically toward the guitar and music and singing, Alex did, too. He showed increasing talent toward the guitar, and songwriting. Singing would also come along with the various speech therapies and audio therapies they undertook for him. The kid really had a serious gift.
There came a point when Alex was about ten when his dad started exploring having a band. Knowing them all, I can bet there came a time when, knowing Alex yearned to be in a band or have his own band, his dad turned to him and said "you want to be in a band, kid? Well, BY GOD you're gonna be in a BAND!" So he invested in instruments, guitar lessons, and even more. Soon the dad was taking drum lessons, himself, so that he could drum in his son's band and they could have that additional bond with each other. The band, the Feisty Piranhas ( https://www.facebook.com/feistypiranhas ), was Alex's band. He was the front man, played lead guitar, sang, wrote all the songs, and even supervised the production of their albums - yet ANOTHER talent he soon began manifesting, dropping everybody's jaws around him yet again. This wasn't just some vanity band where some rich kid gets to jerk off. They were serious. They started playing around SoCal, with The Misfits, NOFX, the Dickies, Filter, D.R.I., UFO, and more. They played some pretty damn good venues, too. They got a lot of local press and started winning awards. Well-deserved, too. Alex proved to be a power shredder and a really outstanding rock/punk front man! And he worked damn hard on this. So did his dad. So did we all, frankly.
My son entered their orbit when he was, I think, still 14. He and his then-fledgling band, ACIDIC, played at a Battle-of-the-Bands in which Alex's dad was a judge. He took a liking to, and an interest in, Michael, and after voting him a special individual achievement award, invited him to come up to their home and meet his son and jam with them. I came along, too, because Michael was too young to drive. By the time Michael was 15, they'd invited him to join their band, because they were looking to add a rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist, so Michael became a Piranha. They'd rehearse every weekend. And soon enough, Michael was playing at some of these great venues for the first time, and attending award shows. They really embraced him and helped him and he learned SOOOO much! It was my son's experience with the Feisty Piranhas that gave him the confidence and the experience to break through and focus seriously on really making something of his own band.
Even after he quit the Piranhas, Michael and Alex stayed in close touch and remained friends. Indeed, during ACIDIC's last tour, last fall, he and Alex were texting back and forth, making appointments for the new year to get together and write and work on songs. Michael was really looking forward to it.
In all that time since Michael went out on his own, Alex was going through a transformation. He had been morbidly obese, and a couple of years ago, decided to have gastric bypass surgery. It sure had an impact. He lost some 300 pounds in a year's time, and also gave up drinking and drugs, and really turned his life around. He graduated from college, had studied for and passed the LSAT, and was looking forward to law school - even while maintaining his musical career leading the Piranhas. The last time we all saw him, he and his dad came to Michael's band's show at the Viper Room last summer, and he looked fantastic! Michael spoke briefly at the service yesterday, and remarked about how happy Alex looked - how much that had struck him - how he'd never seen Alex look SO HAPPY.
And then a blood clot happened.
As we've been told, that 300-pound weight loss in a mere year's time was too fast, too abrupt, for Alex's body to process properly. Evidently, a large clot dislodged and traveled straight to his heart. And that was that. The End. Perhaps... another take away might be that more of a slow and steady weight loss program might be easier on the overall physicality for those needing to lose more weight?
That was one message delivered to us at the gathering yesterday by Alex's grieving father.
Here was another message his dad offered - applicable to EVERYBODY ACROSS THE BOARD, normally-weighted and/or otherwise, and I sure want to share it with all of you my brothers and sisters here on DU:
Tell EVERYONE you love that you love them. Just do it. Do it NOW. Make sure they know. NOW. Hug them if they're near enough to be hugged. Do it NOW. And then do it again. And keep doing it whenever you can. Because you never know when it's gonna be over. You never know when your loved ones will be taken from you. And it can be over in a moment. A flash. Or in Alex's case, a heartbeat.
I'm gonna do it now, too. I love you guys. Your presence in my life has kept me sane and supported, and prevented me from feeling alone and isolated - at some really bad times, at least politically (like during Selection 2000 and certainly throughout the bush/cheney years). But also personally, too. Certainly after my mom died in late 2006. I've posted about that before. I really love you guys. I love DU and it's because DU is full of you guys. And I am grateful there's a DU to turn to, every day, after damn near every news segment I've ever watched on TV or blog that I've read.
Cherish your loved ones and tell them about it. Tell them you love them. That is the greatest legacy that anyone could leave behind - not only young Alex but also MiddleFingerMom and all those we've loved - and lost.
TuxedoKat
(3,818 posts)What a sad but beautiful post. Thanks for sharing it.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 12, 2014, 07:49 PM - Edit history (1)
I always was so impressed by this kid. When Michael first got involved with him, it struck me that my son was getting a chance to explore music with almost literally a young Beethoven type. It's such a loss.
Dammit.
Hug.
dembotoz
(16,803 posts)spanone
(135,831 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)And how lucky we are to people like Alex in our lives, if ever so briefly.
Thank you, and I love you calimary, and really all of you on the boards here.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 12, 2014, 07:50 PM - Edit history (1)
Hug.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)malaise
(268,993 posts):grouhug:
GoneOffShore
(17,339 posts)calimary
(81,261 posts)You're welcome.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,615 posts)That is so important!
And I do it all the time too...
calimary
(81,261 posts)My dear CaliforniaPeggy! And I'm glad you're feeling better also!
arthritisR_US
(7,288 posts)I didn't want this OP to end it was so beautifully written. A wonderful tribute to a fine young man. Take nothing for granted and cherish it all, you have reminded us of two things we often neglect. Well done.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Hug.
Truly - take nothing (and no one) for granted.
And thank you so much for those kind words!
LoisB
(7,206 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)We take too much for granted.
grilled onions
(1,957 posts)All of us have pain in one degree or another. Some of us have physical pain. Many times meds are not enough but just to have others keep in touch or acknowledge your existence goes a long way to help a rough day from getting worse.
Many of us have emotional pain be it rejection, loneliness, confusion of life in general. A person needs to know that another is there do lend a hand,to simply listen or help in any other way possible. It does not always take money to make a person feel wealthy.
We have so many forms of communication available that no one should feel apart from friends or society in general.
calimary
(81,261 posts)All we have is each other. I think it was Skittles here on DU who posted a REALLY wonderful reminder in a thread by another DUer who had just lost a loved one: "someone's always here." I've found it comforting ever since I saw that comment - to remind myself of that about this place in particular. Someone IS always here. Across whatever time zones there are, someone's always here.
Hug.
ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)for me is when the person just disappears and you never hear from the again. Horton Hears a who was a great poster on the HP and I had some good times with him and then one day poof. Not sure what for sure happened but the posters health was bad during his final few posts so I guess that was it.
When this screen is your biggest window on the world you get attached.
Peace.
I know how that is. I'm always glad when there are posts keeping us all updated on those of our own who've passed. Otherwise we might not ever know.
ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)sheshe2
(83,757 posts)You made me cry and yet I thank you for that. This was a beautiful heartfelt thread. You brought Alex back to life for us. A sweet and talented young man that never gave up due to the adversity life handed to him. He did not, yet his heart did unwillingly.
Blessing to Alex, may he enjoy sweet music where ever he is now.
"Cherish your loved ones and tell them about it. Tell them you love them."
This I know, I truly do.
Hug sheshe2. Sounds like a good thing to do! Thanks for the sweet words.
Beacool
(30,247 posts)The loss of someone so young is almost beyond comprehension for the family and other loved ones.
May Alex and MiddleFingerMom rest in peace.
And it's so damn final.
Beacool
(30,247 posts)calimary
(81,261 posts)My best friend was widowed - I think something like 17 years ago. Long time. Motorcycle accident took her husband out almost immediately. He didn't survive longer than maybe a few minutes. And she's struggled with that ever since. There came one day when we were on the phone together and she stated - "the thing is - he's GONE. He ISN'T coming back. He's GONE. He's just fucking GONE." It's an awfully hard thing to wrap your brain around, especially when the departed one is such a deeply-loved one.
tblue
(16,350 posts)You're a wonderful person. I have two loved ones I have to take to the airport (separately) in the next couple days. I sure will let them know how very much I love them. to you and yours.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Hug.
nolabear
(41,963 posts)First, I'm so sorry for the loss of that wonderful young man. It seems so cruel that in an attempt to take care of himself (and probably escape some of the pain and discrimination heaped upon the overweight) he inadvertently did something no one could have predicted.
And second, you're right. Life is precious and fragile and we live so much more fully when we buoy one another up than when we either drag one another down or turn our backs. It doesn't mean you can't disagree with passion, but to attack the person rather than the idea diminishes everyone.
Love does win, if we let it.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Nice. Really nice.
Hug.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Beautiful tribute, seems he gave a great deal in such a short amount of time.
calimary
(81,261 posts)He had so much ahead of him. Lots of things he would have been done, and many more worlds he'd have conquered. Damn.
Hug.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Hugs to you though.
calimary
(81,261 posts)Back atcha, ScreamingMeemie.