My name is Ben and I am Matt’s oldest friend.  

Last time I was at the podium, they asked me to never come up again…
– So thank you for this honor and the opportunity to redeem myself. 

Sorry Father. 

We were in 8th grade-
I was responsible for doing the first reading at mass that day. 
Before school, I was entertaining the boys by doing my best impression of a high energy televangelist. 

Matt always thought that was funny. 

It was some special mass so we got on a bus to come here, where we stand now, █████████.  MC forgot to bring the Lectionary and he told me to get up there and-

“Just wing it.” 

So,
I filed in line in the procession behind Father Chuck
and Father Mike
holding my hands up-
pretending there was a book there – nobody noticed. 

Got up to the podium-
I pantomimed setting the book down and turning the pages
– glanced over at the priests…
and they were absolutely horrified. 

I started out really well
reciting it from memory –
for the first half of a sentence…
and then things took a turn for the worse, and-
I just started adlibbing
trying to recount the details –
just making an absolute mess of it. 

Father Chuck interjected and handed me a printout of the reading-
I was able to finish it. 

Red faced and embarrassed I hurried back to my seat.
MC was trying so hard to be serious and contain his amusement. 
I took my spot next to Matt and he just leaned over and said,

“Dude, that was awesome!”

“Just Wing it” became a pretty good rallying cry for us.  

I’ve since learned that research, preparation and planning is a much more optimal strategy but sometimes you just gotta wing it.

Matt was really good at-
going with his guts,
-playing by his own rules.

I don’t have the luxury of hiding from my feelings…
with drugs
or alcohol,
anymore-
So I cope with humor,
I hope I don’t offend,
or I do, maybe just a little…

I’m a stranger but I’m still a Catholic;
-whether I like it or not. – branded soul

Funny thing:
A man can live his life however he sees fit-
but they are still gonna box him up,
say a mass and bury him where he started –
sending him off to Kingdom Come. 
Say he was a good Catholic. Whatever. 

But, with that said, I’ve resigned myself to only telling PG stories so that his mom doesn’t look at me funny for the rest of my life.  

I’m no great orator like my father
or my brother
but I’m going to do my best…

My heart and my mind are so full of things to say about this wonderful young man. 

I promise I won’t let anyone speak poorly of you again.

Matt was an artist through and through –
toe to tip; all the way down to a tortured soul-

creative,

independent,

inquisitive,

a musician.

We grew up together.  We went to grade school and high school together-

Saint ████’s and ████ High. 

Friends since kindergarten, when he first came to ████ from ████.  He lived on ████ Road, a subdivision down the street from my house.

Beavis and Butt-Head

I remember when we were little kids and he came to school with busted out front teeth from a go-carting accident. I just remember being so jealous- I wanted to ride in a go-cart!

He broke his arm in middle school.  We used to stick things up inside his cast and then dare each other to smell them.  

I remember a Pokémon themed birthday party his mom threw for him at their house.  We played hot potato but it was a Diglett-

a ground type Pokémon that looks like a potato.

I seem to remember pin the tail on the Pikachu, too.  That was really a great party, thank you for that.  Whenever I think about birthday parties that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

We used to stop by the post office, on our way home from school, to grab armfuls of AOL disks to use as frisbees-

throwing them as far as we could into Leeroy’s field

– or just throwing them up on the train tracks to see what happens.

Spoiler Alert! : The train violently destroys them. 

In middle school,
We spent a lot of time chatting on AIM
and customizing our MySpace pages,
downloading music on Limewire,
burning cds, and-
surfing the web

learning whatever piqued our interest. 

We were 100% compatible. 

And that in itself was a real miracle because as a little kid you have no control over who you associate with, you’re just plopped onto this earth and happen to be grouped up with other kids the same age and geographical location. 

We were really fortunate to be together all these years and that’s a blessing in itself.

In high school, fairly often–
he would pretend to get on the bus, then –
just have me pick him up-

so we could hang out before school.  

We used to watch really dumb flash animation videos like Mario Twins and Schifty-Five over and over again.

He really loved his sister, ████.

I always thought he was so cool,
He was really good at skate boarding. 
He could kick flip and bs boardslide and 5050 grind.
He would do this cool move he learned from Lords of Dogtown where he planted his hand on the ground and did a Power Slide. 

Meanwhile,
I was a little fat kid just proud I could do an Ollie, and-
a short Manual, and-
make it down a hill without bailing. 

He never looked down on me for not being as good as him and always invited me to come skate and try new things.

I remember the Rohdes built this awful plywood half pipe and we would mess around on it with D. Bruder.  Pretty sure I hit a nail and bailed out my first time snd never tried that thing again.

Tech Decks 

I realize now-
he was good at skateboarding because
he was a little bit reckless

or just fearless- 

He once described to me what it’s like to hop a railroad car – just like in the folk music we loved.  Scary stuff, he always had a lot of courage.  

A lifetime of shared experiences and passions. 

We-
rode bikes together,
skateboarded,
played video games-

We LOVED the Super Nintendo
there’s something really special about that generation of games-

He really loved,
Mega Man, and-
Zelda, and-
Kirby, and-
Super Mario RPG –

He was still collecting for it all this time and super proud of his Complete-In-Boxes

He loved,
Tony hawks Pro Skater,
Street Fighter, and-
Mortal Kombat –
Super Smash Bros-
Kingdom Hearts-
Guitar Hero – he was really good at that –

I could only ever play on Medium but he could play on Hard

But most of all we loved Pokémon –
battling and trading cards,
trading Pokémon on the Gameboy,
playing Pokémon Stadium on the N64. 
watching the show,
drawing them,
sharing strategies

– absolutely obsessed. 

A few years ago, he started teaching me about EV and IV Evolutions, and natures.  I just wanted to play the game, you know, enjoy the story but he was really into the intricate details 

I cannot even begin to explain the joy of Pokémon…

If you know you know. 

It was such an amazing feeling to get a pack of Pokémon cards,
open it see what you got, and
compare with your friends, and
trade cards,
building collections,
and decks, battling….

We were so fortunate to be born at the perfect time for it.  

Unfortunately, the last time we battled was in 2014 – I would give anything to have just one more Pokémon battle with him. 

Maybe he would let me win for once.  

I remember,
he had this Nintendo promo VHS tape
about the Yoshi’s Island game.

We would watch it over and over in his basement, and
his basement was really cool-

We used to dig around in his dad’s boxes, and
look at these Desert Storm trading cards,
not knowing who any of these people were, or
what their significance was.

We just thought it was cool.

We listened to music and went through all sorts of phases together-

rock and roll, emo, punk, dubstep….

Music was his whole world.  I always looked up to him to find us new and interesting things to listen to.

To fall in love with.

I remember,
in 5th grade when School of Rock came out
we were all inspired to start listening to rock and roll
and Matt picked up the Guitar – he was great, loved that thing. 

It was a very consistent passion throughout his life that he worked hard to learn.

We used to…
climb up onto the school roof, and
drop down into the courtyard, because
school-yard legend has it, that
the teachers never locked the door -to the teacher’s lounge
and we could steal sodas out of their fridge.

But I wouldn’t know anything about that last part.

In middle school,
our greatest mentor and beloved teacher MC (RIP)
changed our world
and imbued in us his love for:
The Grateful Dead,
CCR, and
The Rolling Stones. 

MC was really great, he really understood us, understood us to our core. 

I wish we could have known him as adults.
– Man to man, you know?

We both got into vinyl-
there’s something so magical about it
an outdated format –
an unquantifiable essence in that spinning wax –

It is the best way to listen. 

His collection was always way better than mine,
he had:
The Beatles,
The Stones,
The Dead,
The Brothers,
Zeppelin,
Misfits,
Youth Lagoon, and
so many more treasures. 

And his equipment was always way better than mine,
he had a cool mixer
and multiple turntables,
awesome speakers,
guitar amps etc.  

And,
we both really loved Bob Dylan
that’s something we can attribute to my Pops. 

Matt so much so, he really was the Man of Constant Sorrow. 

We really loved the Allman Brothers Band too.  –

Mountain Jam was one he really liked.  

He had the blues in him,
all the way down
deep into his bones. 

And he could really play it too.  It was really great.

We went to concerts together- he loved the Flaming Lips 

He liked Flogging Molly 

We were super into art-
drawing anime characters,
painting,
just creating. 

We took AP Studio together in high-school.  

He was really good at making friends. 

There were so many people who just loved and trusted him throughout his life. 

I mean in High School he found this friend group of really great people and he’s just like- these are our friends now and I fell in love with them too. 

And we are all really really close friends still today.  Some of them are even here.  We hung out by the stairs every morning- that was our spot.  Every year. Actually he’s pretty much responsible for all the friends I have – thanks for that dude.  He picked us some good ones.  

I remember,
a time in High School
where we were in History Class together, and
we had a project due
at the end of the semester

that was make or break for us –

against all reason, and
better judgement –
we begged the teacher to let us work together –

we got paired up and both needed to pass –
I think the teacher took pity on us. 

I remember feeling like we were in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. 

We interviewed our old middle school Science teacher,
someone who we both loved and trusted
and looked up to-

Mr. ████ 

He was an absolute legend
he actually flew a helicopter
down from his military base and
landed it on the playground and
let us come up and check it out. 

Seriously one of the most amazing things that’s ever happened to us. 

He shared with us,
his military experience
working in Vietnam as a Medivac pilot-
he flew over 1000 hours in combat missions
saving countless lives-
so we gave a presentation to our history class
on the Bell UH-1 Iroquois- the Huey and
the legend of
Thunder Six, Captain ████.  

We totally passed.

We both had Sony PlayStation Portables-

the best handheld gaming system ever. 

One night,
he calls me over to his house –
he did a bunch of research online
about how to hack them
so we could put emulators on it
to play Nintendo and other games. 

To trick the console into service mode
so we could install custom firmware
we had to create a Pandora’s Battery. 

So we read the guide, and
took apart one of our extra PSP batteries –
we were supposed to desolder some chip
but he’s like “Let’s just short it out and that should be good”
So he pokes
some chip on an ion lithium battery’s control board
with a steak knife, and
OH MY GOD – I thought that thing exploded. 

The biggest
brightest flash and
we both jumped back. 

Little lingering smoke sizzle. 
Burned smell. 
Then it settled down. 

We plugged it into his PSP and
my god it worked- we were able to hack it
and add so much additional functionality to that device.  

We hacked and modified every device we owned, since then.

I remember going over to his house and playing Warcraft II on his family computer, when we were kids. He had the Prima Strategy Guide for it.  And this is a story for another day but:

Somehow that ended up with me, and
I will continue to cherish it forever.

Growing up,
most of his ideas for a good time ended up being…
pretty traumatic experiences for me. 

I won’t get into the details but
he’s always been pretty fearless
or reckless but
I was always down to clown.
Something about being with him
just made me feel like:

Everything is gonna be okay. 

One example that comes to mind is
skateboarding down this giant dangerous hill
on Hubertus Road
on our way to Sansonys
to buy candy and energy drinks
with the money
we took out of my dad’s change jar.  

He was always very generous and kind. 
Even when he had nothing at all. 
He would let me
share his last cigarette,
smoke his last bowl or
sip on his last Vanilla Coke…

and he did – many many times.  

And you know, I was kind of a bad kid… 
A real wild child,
unapologetic,
unpredictable –
a total mixed bag of emotions –
always lashing out –

a real shithead. 

I never felt like I fit in,

anywhere,

I still don’t to this day. 

But he was my friend
no matter what
and he was a real calming presence for me
– with him everything was good.  

I was always getting into trouble –
in the school office every day.

And I will own that but
I do have to say that
a good percentage of those times

were the result of his ideas.  

Something we shared was
that taking things for granted
for face value
wasn’t enough –

We can’t learn without doing
and that definitely put us in
bad situations
but we just had to know. 

We never really respected authority and
being super repressed kids
that were early independent thinkers
stuck in Catholic School
was a recipe for disaster.  

We used to burn CDs and color them with sharpies
while it was spinning
by jamming open the lid of the CD player. 

I think his sister might’ve taught him that. 

I still have a couple of them-
we were still burning CDs well into high school for our cars.  

He was always quite the rebel for whatever reason. 
Didn’t matter what
or why
he just had a compulsion to distinguish himself
as being against the flow. 

A perfect example of this is that when the whole world wanted an iPod he got a Zune – that thing was so cool, I never saw anyone else with one.

Later in life he was really into tattoos.  I still don’t have any but he has enough for the both of us I think.  Remember when he first got one it was like done with a needle and a ballpoint pen it was a peace sign on his hip or something awful like that lol.

He was always really crafty and well researched in subjects he was interested in. 

I remember,
he figured out
you could stick a dime
in a PlayStation
to swap disks
to be able to play burned games
that we pirated off the internet.  

Of course,
as in all relationships
we fought about stupid shit,
got on each others nerves…

I lost disc one of his Final Fantasy 7 game
He broke my PS3,

but we played Pokémon,
watched anime,
traded manga,
anything you can imagine kids do
over and over again. 

We had the best childhood anyone could have ever asked for.

Together we did:

Cub Scouts, Hunter’s Safety, Basketball, Forensics, The Haunted House, CCD and so much more. 

We got in a car accident once
in his little red Elantra – and it wasn’t his fault

He was really good at crashing cars.

I got the honor of bailing him out of jail once –
never got my money back but that’s ok.

To this day,
I can’t even remember my wife’s phone number
but I will always remember his number growing up. 

██ ████

I made a jingle to remember it.  I called that number so many times to see if he could come out and play.  

We would play Golden Eye on the N64 and he would always pick Oddjob and crouch so I could never hit him – very frustrating.

At recess, we used to dig these big intricate tunnel systems into the snow banks.  One time, I was in it when it collapsed – I was screaming for help.  He organized the effort to dig me out putting those little first graders to work dragging me out by my feet. 

Believe it or not those tunnels collapsed all the time.

We used to fox dig holes in the side of the hill.  Every grade had their own fort.  Fortified by rocks and brush.  We would just pound the dirt with whatever rocks we could find and scoop it out with our hands – no doubt getting absolutely dirty but it was so fun. Oh, to build something to call our own.  We would invade each others forts and would have wars. 

I remember trying to collect these terrifying spiders, in the long grass, to release in the school.  

I’ll always remember him as the curly haired little Catholic School boy trading Pokémon cards on the playground.  

I remember the first time we performed in Forensics – we did some two man skit about karate.  We’re at some other school on the weekend and it’s our turn- We get up in front of the other kids and the timer starts.  I just stood there and stared – mind totally blank.  Then after what seems like an eternity, he jabs me in the ribs with his elbow and blurts out my first line.  Instantly I remembered the script and we were off – never won a prize but it was still a really fun experience.

The way we like to dress – like Curt Cobain : Religious to plaid button ups and jeans – low top Vans or Converse – trucker hats. Beanies with button pins. Bandanas…

One time a couple of years ago he and Jenny came to my work so I could look at his computer for him- Jenny looked at me and looked at Matt and just exclaimed:

“The flannels.”

He loved anime:  Pokémon, Rurouni Kenshin, Outlaw Star

Growing up,
I was always jealous of him
because he was way cooler than me.

No matter what I did,
he was always,
better,
smarter,
skinnier,
whatever. 

I was always jealous of others when he gave them his attention.

I just wanted for us to be each others’ whole world.

Actually, there are very few attributes of our personalities, ideas and passions that weren’t reflected in each other.

I realized in writing this
that I’ve been writing my own eulogy
so whomever gets that job
when I’m gone
I’ve already done half the work for you.

You’re welcome. 

Matt and Ben…
That’s a pair that strikes fear into the hearts of Catholic school teachers everywhere

But the truth is
we really hadn’t been good friends for a long time. 

Seems like a decade or more. 

He made his choices and I made mine. 

I wouldn’t follow him down whatever that godforsaken path he chose was. 

Still,
I tried to be there for him
but so much time had passed
and we changed so much. 

It fucking sucks, man. 

Nothing in my life compares to what that boy’s been through,
as Dylan said to Guthrie:

The very last thing that I’d want to do
Is to say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too.

I’d go through it again though,
even though he broke my heart
over and over again,
no questions asked,
just for the joy of having been his friend.  

We still talked- on and off until the end.

But I never told him
how much I love him,
even though he broke my heart. 
That I still think about him every day. 
That every new song I hear,
every meme,
every game I play,
all of my life experiences…
I wanted to share with him. 

I never really told him about my current goals or ambitions.

I distanced myself because
I did not want to be hurt again. 

I abandoned my brother. 

Whether it was out of

fear,

selfishness

or self preservation…

It doesn’t matter.  What’s done is done.  I did not want to be distracted.  I have been trying to build my life but I forgot to be a good friend.

I always thought one day he would come around
and it would be alright,
we would be ourselves again. 

But I realize now
that it was I who was supposed to
come around for him.  

He never came to me for help or
asked me to clean up his messes. 
He always tried to play it cool
to keep me from worrying.
But I could have done better for him. 

And for that I am truly sorry.

He never got to meet my wife.  Even though he kept asking.
Next time, next time…

The last thing he said to me was
that he wanted me over for his birthday
and I fucking ignored it, ghosted him…

I took him for granted
and I will carry that shame
for the rest of eternity.  

I can’t help but feel a large part of me is gone now, but that’s ok.

He will live on in my heart-
but he certainly will not be my moral compass.  

I just ask Mr. Jesus to take pity on him and love him like I do because he was a really cool dude.  One of the best.  

I know that he’s up there now with Jenny –  Jamming with Mr. C.

I’m glad I got to be his friend. His brother.

In closing,
I will recite a passage from Jake Seliger
– a young man diagnosed with terminal cancer who was recently on the Daily Stoic podcast:

“The Stoics said we must always be aware of Fortune’s habit of behaving as she pleases. We must always keep in mind that we ‘could leave life right now,’ as Marcus Aurelius writes. That we don’t have the time to indulge in idle chit chat, to complain about small stuff, to leave things unsaid. We can’t take tomorrow for granted. We must do what we can, while we can, for whom we can.”

See you space cowboy.