For Adrian
21 January, 1989- 24 December, 2016
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
– Matthew 5:4
There is no right age for dying:
14, 27, 52, 89… we are always
too young to die. Only memory
and laughter can defeat death.
So I remember you: splashing
in the waters of Annisquam, placing
a worm on your hook, wildly in love
with the ocean and crawling creatures,
with snow and the dangers of snow,
trying to escape the world, Icarus-like,
on skis. And who could blame you?
I see you holding a microphone,
like young Spielberg, beside your father,
eating sushi after mid-afternoon baseball
on a Brookline field. You turned out
a pitcher, trying to daze and confuse
with curves and speed, as you sometimes
dazed and confused us, members of
your own team. We ate clam chowder
at the Bigoorus Restaurant, you the biggest
of all the Bigoorus creatures just as, now,
you are bigger than grief. Our photographic
memory remembers you laughing, because
laughter is an antidote to grief, even now,
as we remember you here, the only thing
for us to do being to pull yet another fish
from the water, swing at the ball, go on
laughing and singing in your beautiful name.
8 January 2017
They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. If we are dealt a lucky hand in life however, we end up with family that we would, in fact, want to choose as friends – and I feel very fortunate to say that my hand was as lucky as could be, especially with Adrian McElwee. Although we are not related by blood, I’ve known Adrian essentially since the day I was born – his mother Marilyn, who is like a second mother to me, was actually present at my birth. Being an only child, he has always naturally felt like an older brother. As is the case with one’s relatives, Adrian’s presence in my life predates the starting point of my memory, so you could say we became family more by fate than by choice.
What I quickly realized growing up however, was that I was lucky to have not only a de-facto older brother in Adrian, but someone you want to choose as your closest of friends – someone who inspires you, someone you look up to, someone you learn from, someone deeply loyal who you can trust with anything, and someone with whom you create your best of memories. Indeed, Adrian is a part of almost all of my earliest childhood memories, which is probably why, when my parents informed me of his passing, all I could think to do was to instinctively head to the beach. I think I just wanted to go back in time to those summers spent in Annisquam – Adrian always loved the ocean – but what I realized sitting there in the sand and staring out at it is that the things about him that make those memories so great are things that still continue to inspire me today, as well as, I am sure, countless others. His desire for exploration, always wanting to go farther in our rubber raft; his thirst for knowledge and savoir-faire, always imparting on me his best methods for capturing clams or crabs; his will to always do things bigger and better, trying to install running water in our pretend Bigoorus restaurant in the wooden playhouse in his backyard in Brookline with plastic tubes purchased from the hardware store – these are all qualities that I admired tremendously in Adrian growing up and tried to emulate, and that had a strong impact on shaping who I am today. I try to borrow from his intensity and way of dreaming in many things I do, and he is always a source of inspiration. He was also a great source of comfort in difficult times, no matter what challenges of his own he was facing. During a recent difficult breakup, even though we hadn’t spoken in a little while, I remember his conversation helped more than anyone or anything else possibly could have.
Although he was taken from us far too early, the beautiful thing about Adrian is that nothing can ever truly take him away. His personality is far too big, far too contagious, and has rubbed off on far too many of us. I have no doubt that everyone who has had the privilege of crossing paths with him in life has been influenced by these qualities of his, and as I looked out at that ocean I took comfort in knowing that he lives on in all of us who have.