Only The Great Die Young

As many of you know, my dear friend passed away recently from leukemia. Even though he had fighting the disease for a long time, his passing – the finality of it – still shocked me. If you ever had the pleasure to meet him, you would agree that Matt seemed like the last person on the planet who would ever die young. If I had to describe the physicality of him, a former college football player, the most apt words would be “strong like ox.” As affectionately acted out by one of his rec league sport teammates at his wake, hugging him was akin to trying to throw your arms around a bear.

I am not a writer. I am someone who likes to write things down and share that with people. There is a distinction. Matt, was, among his many talents, a writer’s writer -- he knew the difference between the Oxford comma and the regular kind, he used words like “aplomb” and “yeoman” in regular person emails and somehow managed to not sound pretentious in doing so, every word he ever wrote was something worth reading, and then reading again. In looking for a photo to share with his family, I came across a box of letters and cards, some dating back to 1998, and I was so happy to have saved them (My personal favorite was his note inscribed in my engagement card in 2000, "I asked the sales clerk for the "I-can't-believe-you-found-someone-who-would-actually-marry-you section" and she just stared at me.")

Matt, as you know, wrote my foreword, and was to be the first reader of my book draft. He was the one who read all of my important things first. He took all of my words, then made them much, much better. He read my law school application essays, my Law Review competition note, my first year Moot Court brief, he wrote one of my recommendations, my first judicial opinion drafted as a law clerk, and he wrote one of my character reference letters for bar admission. He was never too busy. I told him he needed to stick around, that I had literally never written anything important that he had not read first.

About his own self-drafted eulogy: It is surprisingly modest. Matt was the son you wish you had so you could brag about him to lesser parents at cocktail parties and in Christmas card letters. Ivy League undergrad and Master’s degrees, graduation from Georgetown Law, the best part-time law program in the country, employment with a prestigious judge, admission to the nation’s toughest Bar, a celebrated career with a blue-chip New York law firm. Matt was objectively brilliant -- his self-described “second places” are what most people only dream of accomplishing. He, in a professional and academic sense, was super-human.

And, yet, at his Irish wake, the focus was not on his vast accomplishments or his gilt-edged resume. There were stories of life, the time in Maine he had a plumbing disaster, the bar of soap that his mom carefully wrapped in a special “O’Connell” way for use during the three weeks of Boy Scout camp that ended up returning home, still pristine in its wrapping, the five dollars he gave to a then-stranger with no expectation of repayment, the trademark L-shaped hand gesture he would make when being particularly emphatic about his position, the time he spoke German to a cabdriver in Russia, the bouncy pitches during grown-up Hoboken kick-ball games, the time he baked a blue pen in a dish meant to be served to friends at a dinner party. In short, the stories that made him human. The stories that made him loved.

I still remember what Matt told me after what seemed like 400 drafts of my law school application essay. He approved! It was good enough (finally!) to be mailed. He something to this effect, “I say this so rarely, because I consider a pretty good writer, but this is something that I wish I had written myself.” I feel the same about his eulogy. And so I share it, because it is beautifully powerful, and because in his own words, Matt loved an audience.

Goodbye, my friend.

TO BE READ AT MY FUNERAL:

Good morning. Or, I hope, good afternoon. As of most of you here probably know, there is nothing I dislike more than having to get up early in the morning, so I am hoping that the last event I’ll ever invite any of you to hasn’t made you all get up at some ungodly early hour. Although, I suppose I enjoy the irony.

In every movie or book that I have ever seen or read where the hero dies and leaves a note, it always starts with “If you’re reading this, then. . . .” and some form of “I have passed on.” Until recently, I thought this was silly -- the writer knew his note wouldn’t be read until after his or her death, and the reader, presumably, didn’t receive it or knew not to read it until after the writer was gone, so why waste the words?

Recently, it occurred to me that, aside from signaling dumb people that the hero did, in fact, die, there was another purpose to those words: to emphasize the “IF.” The writer wants the reader to know that he or she still intends to live, still intends to fight, and plans on being around. IF the note is read, then those plans have failed, but at the time the note is written, the writer still believes, and hopes that the note will linger in a dusty drawer for years to come. And I want you all to know that that’s how I feel today -- I don’t know when this message will get read, if ever, but I intend that it will be read by one of my nieces or my nephew in 2062, and not a day sooner.

Today it is nearly June in 2012. It is a beautiful day in NY -- I have a trip to Maine with my cousins, and a day in Philadelphia with my beautiful nieces and handsome nephew scheduled for the weeks ahead. And I plan on much more than that.

I didn’t do any research -- OK, I didn’t do MUCH research -- but I suspect it isn’t too common to write one’s own eulogy. Ben Franklin, as I recall, wrote his own epitaph, so perhaps I am simply following in fine Penn tradition. Also, this type of maneuver appeals to three obviously “Matt O’Connell” characteristics: l) I love to tell a story and capture an audience; 2) I love to have the last word; and 3) I never, ever do anything until the last possible minute. With this one little note from beyond, I have, I hope, managed to make this moment distinctly “me.” But I didn’t write this just to crack a few jokes. That’s just a side benefit.

I actually have a few things that I want to say, and now is my last shot. Many of you who are close to me, particularly my family and closest friends, will recall that there have been a number of times in my life when I have complained that I often felt like I finished second at everything -- like I never quite managed to achieve exactly what I wanted. I distinctly remember telling some of you that the worst of it was that I never really failed -- that I
always managed to find the spot where I had done well enough that complaining seemed petty, but poorly enough that I could feel like I had failed. 

 

As I have gone through the last year, though, fighting this disease, and seeing how rich my life has been with friends, colleagues and family -- I have realized that every one of those second place finishes brought me a unique experience, or gave me something I love and cherish.

Yes, it’s true that as a high school senior I thought that I wanted to attend Dartmouth, but Penn gave me teammates and classmates that became lifelong friends, and experiences that I never would have had in New Hampshire. There are, probably, several young ladies here who I met and hoped would be “the one,” and, instead, became close, dear and important friends that my life would have been so much diminished without (and I am still hoping that one or two of you will come around). I haven’t made partner or become a law professor, but my professional journey has introduced me to brilliant colleagues and remarkable friends.

Recently, I was ask if I really, honestly, “liked” what I do. And while I haven’t had the career I envisioned, I meant it when I said that I did -- mostly because of the people I have been blessed to know and the pleasure I have taken in what I felt was a job well done. I wrote all of this, though, not to tell you that I have no regrets or praise you -- although I have very few and you deserve it -- but to remind you all to leave here and remember that WE LIVE FOR THE FEELING OF LIFE, NOT ITS TRAPPINGS. 

 
When I think of my days at Penn, I remember the rush of adrenaline and pride that I had running out of the tunnel at Franklin Field on a sunny Saturday morning and slapping Dan Steffeiri’s hand as the Penn Band played, but, honestly, I can barely remember the scores of the games. The satisfying clank of a softball off your bat in Central Park, the soft hiss of a cold beer poured into a pint on the patio of an outdoor bar at Sunday brunch, the moment of anticipation when you step off an airplane in a new city, the lightness in your step walking home alter you’ve kissed your date good-night, and the rush of pride at every family graduation, birthday, sporting event, and wedding -- those feelings are the things t hat matter, even if you sometimes lose the game or the girl along the way.

Focus on loving life’s experiences and not its outcomes, and you’ll learn -- like I did -- that even your defeats are mostly victories. Along those lines, I have left some of you private notes -- assuming I don’t put that off until it is too late. I didn’t write to everyone that mattered to me, or even to those that matter most. If I left you a note, I did it because it has occurred to me to ask you to do something. I am calling in all my favors. If this is being read in 2062, some of them will be impossible or won’t make sense -- unless I keep them up-to-date, which we all know I am not going to do. Sorry about that.

But I mention them here, because, with rare exception, I have not left notes asking people to do something for me. I’ve asked that you do something for someone else. When I think about my life, whether it was as a Boy Scout, a football player, a law student or a lawyer, I always took the most pleasure in moments where I could help my teammates, classmates, colleagues and friends. Your joys have always been my joys, your victories have felt like my victories, and they have often meant more to me than my own.

So, those of you sitting out there today to whom I have not made a specific request, I ask you now -- find someone in this crowd (I hope it is a crowd), or ask someone you already know to help you find someone in the crowd -- meet them, learn about them, and help them in any way you can, whether they ask you to or not. It doesn’t have to be complicated or life-changing: I just want you to carry in your heart a moment where your first thought was of someone else and what they need, because, well, that’s what I’d be doing, if I were there right now.

When I first got sick and first faced cancer, I told someone that more than dying, I feared being forgotten -- of disappearing and the world simply going on as I have never been there. I still fear that -- I suspect I will always have that fear, no matter how long I live. But, as I sit here today, I also fear that my memory will be a burden -- that my family and friends will remember me with sorrow and that life won’t go on, as it should.

So, my last and final statement is: be happy. Embrace joy. Feel the pleasure of life’s individual moments while they are there to be savored. Don’t forget me -- but don’t let my absence devalue life’s pleasure. As I typed this, I thought of my grandfather and namesake who passed away when I was in high school. In 2004, when the Red Sox finally managed to win the World Series, I had just finished playing soccer at Riverbank Park and was in a sports bar on the Upper West Side with a crowd of deliriously happy Sox fans. In the midst of the chaos, I thought of Grandpa O’Connell, and I called my Dad. I didn’t mourn in that moment, and I didn’t cry for my Grandfather’s absence. I simply said quietly, “Grandpa would be so happy right now.”

Remember me the way I remembered him. Pour me a drink at your party, leave me an empty chair at your celebrations -- and then fill that space with the knowledge that even now, I share your joy, I revel in your moments of triumph, and somewhere, I am always laughing with you.  That is all the remembrance I have ever wanted, whether in life or in death. 

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to outside and enjoy the remainder of this perfect afternoon.

Goodbye.  I love you all, Matt. 

 

Matthew O'Connell