After a while I think  my mother began to believe that Jeremy was just another one of her teenagers to feed. For those that  assumed it was my name, for a brief moment I got to be like Jeremy. Similar to the 90s saying, ‘Be Like Mike’, Mike of course being Michael Jordan of Chicago Bulls fame, and although Jeremy couldn’t dunk hoops, nor did he have his own line of shoes, I could get a little closer to Jeremy’s greatness by wearing a jacket with his name on it. Plus it gave me an excuse to talk about him. 

Starting when Jeremy and I met in the 7th grade 40 years ago, I am very, very fortunate to say that he taught me a lot.  There’s not time today for me to share all of the things that he taught me, so I’d like to share with you  three of  Jeremy’s pearls of wisdom, as he used to say, that I learned early on, so you too can “Be Like Jeremy” or as I like to say “Care Like Jer”.

Lesson One: ‘Always eat the Rotten Bananas’ or Trust in the Process

Back in the day, Jeremy and I used to sleep over at each other’s houses quite a bit so we got to know each other’s habits at an early age. For any parents of teens out here you probably know this already but teenagers, especially  boys can be pretty gross. Jeremy was far less gross certainly compared to me but one day as we were having a snack I watched as he pulled a very brown mushy banana off the counter and proceeded to eat it. 

I was dumbfounded and totally grossed out. Even though in my mind it was another opportunity for me to tease the living daylights out of him, which I did for years to come, he explained to me that his dad Sydney, god rest his soul,  told him the brown bananas have the most vitamins. I am sure he told Jeremy that so he could get rid of rotten food without throwing it away. Side note: many, many, years later, I clicked on an internet news article, and it verified that Sydney was right! There are more nutrients in brown Bananas! But that’s not why I share this lesson with you. 

I share it because I knew in that moment at a young age that if I could watch my friend eat rotten fruit and still stick by his side, he wasn’t just any friend. He was a best friend. Someone who taught me to look past the foibles and strange choices a person might make and learn to love them for who they are - without judgement. To love them unconditionally. That there may always be a good reason for someone’s strange behavior. And, in the end, it was really the love of Jeremy’s Dad Syd who wanted his growing boy to get the most vitamins, to be healthy. To learn to not waste food. To hack the system of ripened fruit if you will. To this day it still makes me giggle and warms my heart every time I see a brown banana.

Lesson Two: ‘The Way of the Ninja Death Grip’ - or How to Escape an Attack from your Enemy

I’m not sure if everyone here knows, but along with all of Jeremy’s amazing athletic feats, he also had achieved a black belt in Tae Kwon Do back in high school. Back then as a good brother, best friend, and annoying sidekick, I used to try and rile him by horsing around and trying to tickle him. It used to drive him up the wall. 

Secretly though I was hoping I would see some of his black belt skills like one of his kicking or punching  moves to stop me, but Jeremy never demonstrated outside the DoJang. Instead, to immobilize me, Jeremy performed a maneuver that stopped me in my tracks: The Ninja Death Grip! 

Now it wasn’t a regulated Tai Kwan Do move. In fact it wasn’t even martial arts. He simply just grabbed both my wrists as a last resort to stop my nutty behavior which elicited me to shout “Ninja Death Grip!” Which caused both of us to erupt in peels of laughter. Ninja Death Grip became a mantra for us years later. Anytime one of us was getting too anxious about something in our lives. Too angry at the person that had wronged us. Holding on too tightly to something that was holding us back we would remind each other of our Ninja Death Gripiness. That sometimes letting go into laughter was the way out. Which takes us to Lesson Three. 

Lesson Three: Know Your Truth - Know Your Heart

One of the many things that Jeremy and I had together was lots and lots of Joy. We had a lot of the same tastes in music, watched special tv shows together, went to numerous movies and museums together, and then theater. Back in college, Jeremy wrote a wonderful essay about his love for the theater. For me it was on the stage, having acted professionally at a young age. And for him it was directing and production. He said in that essay every time he stepped into a darkened theater space, with its dusty seats and proscenium stage and large over-sized curtain, he felt like he was home. 

For his birthday one year, I turned that essay into a spoken word performance with a soundtrack. It was pretty special. I  threatened to bring that essay here for his memorial but, somehow, recently my copy has  mysteriously been misplaced. I blame Jeremy for that. Lately, any time I can’t find something, I’m pretty sure it’s Jeremy getting me back for all of those years of my pranks and silliness with him. Bottom line, it was the first time I had heard him verbalize how much this work meant to him. 

Around that same time Jeremy participated in a men’s workshop called the Peaceful Warrior Weekend. My father had attended and I had followed suit and I can say it changed our lives. The intensive weekend taught men of all ages how to touch deep inside themselves, to learn tools to face their fears and find courage and integrity in their lives, to be nurturing and compassionate as a man, and most importantly to be able to express one’s feelings cleanly - feelings, that as men we are generally taught to bury away like sadness, shame, and even loving kindness. For many men, this can be very difficult, courageous work. And for Jeremy it was no different. I believe it one of the major influences in his life that led him to pursue his career at the incredible Oregon Shakespeare Festival. To eventually find his birth parents. And I would speculate his pursuit of challenging his body to become a top pro-amateur athlete. 

But this wasn’t just because of some weekend. This was because once Jeremy was introduced to the tools to help him be a loving man with integrity he seized on those lessons and lived his life to the fullest that he was capable of. He always reminded me to trust my heart and to trust my gut. I can feel his hand with his long fingers right now on my chest telling me to be true to myself. 

He continues to be one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known. I loved him greatly. His loss has put a giant hole in my heart. And I know for that hole to heal I have to eventually let him go - to alleviate my pain and sadness I must Care Like Jer by following in the way of his Three Lessons: To Eat the Rotten Bananas and trust in the process, To Know My Heart and Know my Truth and most importantly, To Practice in The Way of the Ninja Death Grip - to let go… and laugh.