Here are the words I wrote, but did not necessarily speak when I eulogized my son:

Prepare for a mess.

There are so many things I feel like I want to say, because I don’t want to lose any of the memories I have of Dylan.  I want to share them all but here are just a few.

“Nice day to mow a lawn.”  A flippant response I made to a social network post made by my son about the beautiful Valentines Day weather.  Those are the last words I conveyed to my son.  He no doubt would appreciate the sarcasm about the state of our own unattended lawn.  He had been known to throw around such remarks himself.

I remember the last time Dylan used this microphone and amp to play music in front of a large group of people.  I always told him that I believed art and music was best when it was created or interpreted as an extension of yourself.  Well, that night he let his feelings be known. He did not want to be there.  Ziggy Stardust sounded as emotionless as a blank piece of paper.  That was the end of his public guitar playing days.  Once in a while he would play something on his acoustic guitar.  I remember one time he posted a cover version of a song by a band he really liked.  I don’t remember the song or the band, but I listened to it.  One of the members of the band commented on liking it.  It wasn’t bad and I wish I had it now, because I would really like to hear his voice.

We struggled through Dylan’s adolescence and young adulthood like most any other family, but I always believed with his sharp wit and creativity and intelligence that he would find his way in the world.  Donna and I spent many nights lying awake talking about where and when he might land on his feet.  However, I won’t lie, most of those nights were wondering if he would land on his feet.  As parents, our concern was out of our great love for our son like that of any loving parent.  I can’t remember the number of times I told him that we only wanted the best for him.  We wanted him to succeed where we felt we fell short.  We wanted him to have things better than we did, even though we spent many days discussing how very fortunate and lucky we had been.  It would appear that our luck has changed recently.

There has been so much darkness hanging over my family within the last two years. The loss of my brother in law Bill Wittman, serious health issues of our aging parents including a very close call with my mother, loss of jobs, the loss of two cars in my own family after years and years of not so much as a scratch, the trying period of changing dance studios, and now the loss of my son Dylan and the very next day the loss of my Aunt Sharon.  However, I feel that with the strength of our families, that have only gotten stronger through this dark period, and strength of this incredible community that we will tear a seam through this darkness.

We have always been a close family the four of us.  Donna and I  wanted to shelter our kids from all the evils of the world.  Sometimes maybe to a fault but our intentions were always for the well being of our children.  We moved back to the Santa Clarita Valley for just that reason.  A decision that we have never regretted.

Dylan had a rough start in the beginning of his life.  We spent a numbers of days with him at Valley Presbyterian Hospital  after he was born.  We were concerned about whether he would make it.  When we finally were able to take him home, I was so excited to show him the world.  My favorite was always to expose him to new things to touch.  I would touch a leaf to his hand or cheek and he would shiver.  I used to get such a kick out of that.  We took him to the beach and the snow.  Stupid things excited new parents do, but usually not with an infant.

On one such outing, when he was older and in elementary school, we took him to see one of the great wonders of the world.  The Grand Canyon.  This was a great parent life lesson for Donna and I, because the memory that stayed with us from that trip was Dylan’s constant crying about the Tomagotchi he dropped off the edge of the Grand Canyon.  It was just sitting there in plain sight about 10 feet from the lip of the canyon.  He just would not let it go.

Dylan loved a good story.  Even in video games he talked about how much liked a game to have a good story.  That was apparent early on.  His absolute favorite movie was Lion King.  He would stand in front of the TV and just sing at the top of his lungs and mimic the motions of the characters on the screen.  How many times did he watch that?  Too many to count.  We will never watch the video of him doing that the same way again.

Dylan loved to read too.  I used to make reading lists for him during the summer, and he would just thrash through the books.  “Tom Sawyer”, “Time Machine”, “Martian Chronicles”, “1984”.  Many many books.  All of them stuck with him.  We would discuss the ones that touched him most.  Everything I threw at him, he devoured.  Tremendous reader.  His favorites were Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.  We had developed a tradition for a few years where we would go to see the new Harry Potter movie when it came out.  Just Dylan and I.  Then, we did the same for the Star Wars movies and the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out too.  I loved that little tradition we had going for while.  Eventually, Harry Potter movies became longer and longer between and eventually he wanted to share those experiences with his girlfriend, Thalia.  He was so excited about the Hobbit movies of which he only got to see the first and second ones.

When it came to gaming, Dylan was frustratingly good.  I stopped competing against him very early on, because I could never even present him a challenge.  He was also drawn to the computer pretty early on.  It started out with little educational games.  He would just go through them and want more.  I was worried that he would get too good on the computer and I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on what he was doing.

I used to try to pass on life lessons hoping that Dylan would pay attention and hopefully learn something from my own experiences.  One such lesson I had learned but I did not myself heed had to do with girls.  I told him that girls like a guy who dresses nice.  “You should dress nice.  Girls like that.”  I also told him that girls like to dance with their boyfriend.  “Girls like a guy that dresses nice and will dance with them.”  He actually did listen to part of it.  He had started to dress nice in recent years, but he didn’t really do any dancing.

When Marisa was born we never had any jealousy issues.  Dylan loved his sister very early on, and especially in his early adulthood it seemed clear to me that they would always be there for each other.  They always seemed to have such fun when they were together.  Laughing and giggling in the back seat our car when we were on the way to some place.  Or just sitting around the house playing around on a phone or computer.  They were close.  Very close.  I am so sorry that you have to go through this Marisa, especially knowing how close you were to Dylan.

I have always had a pretty pessimistic view of things, and my taste in music a lot of times reflected that.  I remember noting how very strange it was to hear our young son in the back seat of the very car he was driving on Valentine’s Day, smiling and  singing  “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”.  “Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.”  Such a pessimistic line from the mouth of a boy with so much of his life ahead.  Fortunately, that pessimism did not resonate with him.

This is end of a little story he wrote for Thalia a while ago.  It is about a young couple.  One of which is seemingly going to momentarily die:

…
The hand he had never let go of twitched, and squeezed back. The cheeks turned rosy with life as her eyes slowly opened and she turned to him. In shock, he couldn’t help but stare, as his mouth fell open and tears welled in his eyes. She smiled and wiped them away, pulled him closer and said “I told you, I’ll never abandon you.” And she never did.

Last night, I had a dream with Dylan in it.  My first one since Valentines Day.  He was a young boy and we had walked to a convenience  store for something. When we came out, it was dark and almost like a war zone. There was the orange glow of fires in the distance. Gray cinder blocks were piled high on the sidewalks. Some were covered with felt banners made of green and gold (canyon high school colors) that said Canyon High School on them. Donna and I graduated from Canyon High.  We had forgotten, that it was a high school rivalry football game and everybody was walking toward my house even though I didn’t know them. Dylan and I started the challenging path home but I eventually gave in and started on an easier one. Dylan refused and didn’t want to go that way. We laid on the felt banners together and stared up at the stars while the tears in his eyes dried and everybody continued on toward our house.  This one dream that needs no interpretation.  I know Dylan.  We are going to have take the difficult path home.  I just want to stay with you here for a while longer.

Now is the time for us to find light in the darkness.  So, what do I have to be thankful for now?  I have a few things.  I am thankful that my mother got to be part of seeing her other granddaughter, Meghan Simmons, get married in December.  I am thankful for the opportunity of a renewed relationship with my parents and sisters.  I am thankful for my brother in law, Richard Sears,  for even thinking of Dylan recently for job opportunity.  My other brother in law – my friend – Lonny Mitchell, for giving Dylan a short job that enabled us to spend those last precious few moments with Dylan within his last week with us.    My dear friend, Rafael Ramirez, who has known Dylan since the day he was born.  He made room for me at his company when I was laid off.  Also, I am thankful for all of you.  We are so quiet and private that I would have never ever expected the outpouring of support from all of you.  Dylan would wonder the same thing I have: Who the hell are all these people and why are they here?  But now, I cannot imagine what this experience would be like without all of you.  Thank you

“Nice day to mow a lawn.”  Indeed, but it was Valentines day, and an even better day to buy flowers or a teddy bear for the girl you love.