KT,
The nights dissolve into mornings with reminders of you more present early in the day that then recede during the day. I think it’s the way the brain’s wired to respond to stimulation. The nights so difficult because darkness is present with eyes wide open or closed shut. So the stimulation’s internal only and seems focused on you always. It’s just so damn hard to get away from it. Then the mornings begin with the ritual of rising, preparing, reacting, and moving. Nowhere in particular, but movement in any form is good. You were all about movement. The essence of sports.
In the tender transition today, it struck me that you are squarely placed between two words: elusive and illusive. It’s a dodgy play on words that’s difficult to navigate. Your death still escapes us. So elusive and illusive. I spend the day futuring with my research shop while knowing the suddenness of death is ever so present. Not just any death. Yours. Such an elusive thing: make predictions and decisions so elusive from the ordinary moment. Such an illusive moment in time revisited with your death now turned into moments of your life remembered. Only remembered. But such good ones that were real. Not illusive.
The craziness of these two words revealed in the click of a link to vocabulary.com. The two words defined and illustrated with an advertisement for your SPM program. As a banner and on the side. An advertisement played with these two words.
Today is Day 79. A big number that I hope turns to 100 before I go silent. Retreat into less public plays on words and meanings.
In the days between, we will be having a curious sequence of plays on your life. This week we have a celebration of your life with your childhood friends, the Kevins: both of them. Then we move to a celebration of your life with your buddy footballers at Whittier: a game in tribute to your days there. We finally move to a celebration of your life with your classmates from the Sports Management Program: an event with special T-shirts sporting your logo and some of your attributes on the back.
Meanwhile, I’ll work on these two words and get you out of the middle of play. Less elusive. Less illusive. Let life exist with you more squarely placed and less in the balance.
We love. Always have.
JT