Eulogy

Jack's memorial service is tonight. The Austin American Statesman wrote a really great article about him here. After the jump is the eulogy I wrote, and a picture Zack's dad was nice enough to send me. (Zack is the goofy dark haired kid in the picture - Jack's debate partner and best friend.)


How do you write a eulogy for a 17-year-old? I've spent the past several hours wondering how to capture my shock, grief, anger, and love for Jack into words.

Debate coaches are entrusted with the hearts, the intellectual curiosity, and the competitive spirits of their debaters. It's an enormous privilege, an enormous responsibility. I formed intense bonds with the kids I coached. I spent a lot of time worrying, and not just about wins, losses, out rounds, and speaker points. I worried about breakups and heartaches, and about getting calls from hotel staff at 3 am, complaining of "strange noises" coming from my kids' rooms. I worried about Spanish teachers and grades, parents and whether tournaments conflicted with band practice and football games. Whenever we were at a tournament within 50 miles of Mexico, I worried about my kids sneaking over the border.

I wondered about the types of adults they would grow to be, whether they would choose the right college, whether I was giving them the right advice, whether they were making smart decisions. I worried about them on weekends without debate tournaments, whether they were happy and whether I was doing the best I could by them.

I never, once, worried about this: having to say goodbye for forever to one of my kids. They thought they were invincible, and, deep down, I believed them.

Jack came to my classroom one day after school, asking me to sign a waiver to allow him to enroll in the advanced debate class. The small, skinny blond boy stood at my door, and his eyes shone with excitement and nervousness as he told me that his friends had convinced him to join the team. This is my first memory of Jack. I liked him immediately, I signed the form, and I wondered who he would become. I left Westlake at the end of that year, but the older debaters kept me posted about the new kids on the team. Jack's name was mentioned in absolutely every conversation. It was obvious this kid was special. Whenever they mentioned his name, their voices would shine. They were excited about him as a debater – about his potential – but it was more than that. He made them happy. He made them laugh. He was gentle and optimistic and idealistic and brilliant. He made all of the kids I loved better people, and they knew it. The shy blond boy was transforming my team. Every time I heard Jack's name I would smile, and know that the Austin debate community was better off because he was in it.

I only coached at one tournament after I left Westlake, when Jack and Zack came to stay with me in DC and compete at the Georgetown Day School tournament last year. The weekend was fantastic, and I am honored to have gotten to coach Jack at my last tournament. Coaching Jack and Zack will likely be my last memory of a debate tournament, but I know that it will not be my last memory of the debate community. Because the community binds people together. The Austin debate community is a family, one I'm honored to be a part of, and one that was made infinitely better by Jack's presence.

On Friday, the Westlake debate team grew up before my eyes as they struggled to comprehend the horror of Jack's death. As I talked to them, their grief broke my heart. I was also awed and humbled by the quiet sense of strength I heard underneath the grief and the anguish. As they asked "what can I do?" and struggled to make sense of the tragedy. As they composed themselves to make the terrible phone call, over and over again, letting people know what happened. As they re-knit their communities, and connected groups of Jack's loved ones so they could mourn together. As their tears were interrupted by laughter when they remembered a moment that they had spent with Jack – something funny he said or did- they laughed through their grief as they remembered how much they loved him. They became adults on Friday, in a time and a way no one should ever have to, and they approached it with honor and dignity.

I would have given anything to keep this from happening to Jack, and to prolong the youth of everyone who loved him. But I cannot help but think that it was Jack himself who filled his friends with the spirit and the strength that they bring to this occasion as they join together to mourn him, to remember him, and to celebrate his life. I know that all of you coming together to remember Jack will continue to celebrate his life by protecting each other, keeping each other a little bit closer, and letting Jack shine through you.