...will be for you, in memory of you." No brother should ever have to say those words.

It was Thursday morning, second period: I walk into Smith's AP US History class for another "chill day" of "learning from video," which is just another of his favorite ways to not have to teach. He walks to the front of the room and, completely without emotion, reads a monotone notice saying that 2005 Bennett graduate Nick Phillips was killed in a motorcycle accident. Smith then proceeds passively to turn on the video and sit back at his desk, sleeping or checking his e-mail or playing computer games, completely unaffected by what he has said.

I now remember why I hate that man so.





Nick. Nicholas Albert Phillips. 07/10/87 - 05/18/06. He was eighteen.

And maybe it's because I knew him.
Maybe it's because I remember watching him squat 500 pounds in the gym, then almost pass out, then get up and do it again, just to be sure he could do it (and, yes, I watched him, because he was hording all the weights so everyone in the gym just had to watch as he used all of them).
Maybe it's because I remember him standing up for Ruben every time the rest of the class made jokes about Mexicans.
Maybe it's because I remember him getting mad at Coach Gregory every time they had a football or lacrosse game and Coach wouldn't let the team lift. (So, Nick, not wanting to be left out of the action, helped the rest of us, spotting us, instead of just standing around.)
Maybe it's because he was just a normal person, with attributes and faults and a goofy haircut and amazing abs and a smile that could make all your problems go away...

Maybe that's why this hurts so much.

Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that death, until now, has been some abstract idea that affected abstract old people in abstract towns and abstract ways I'd never really known. They were just names. Nick was a person. Nick was real. This made death real.



I had no choice but to go to the funeral. I needed to be there. It was weird, because I knew Nick, but I don't really know his family. I've met his brother Drew, but I'm not close enough with him to really help at all. So it was hard to actually give any condolences. Especially because this makes no sense. No condolences can be given to a sixteen-year-old who lost his best friend and brother so suddenly like this.

And the family, who tried, I understand, to bring peace to this situation with their Bible readings about life and death and God's plan... That was the worst. Everything is in God's plan? Everything has its time? So God planned this? I don't know about you, but I don't want to believe in any sort of a God who plans to kill eighteen-year-old boys in the middle of the night on the side of the road. That's not really my idea of a good plan.

The service also just rubbed me the wrong way. It felt almost disrespectful (to Nick and to Jesus) to speak so much and say so little. It just wasn't right to talk about being saved and their ideas of God's plan and telling me how you must believe what they believe to end up in some unknown better place where eighteen-year-olds would rather be than right here right now. And I know Nick didn't care. He was really laid back. If you were a decent person, did good work, had fun, took chances, he liked you. It didn't matter whether you'd accepted Christ Jesus as your "personal" Lord and Savior. It just didn't matter to him. The whole service felt out of character.

And after all of the Southern "So praise the Lord"s and the "Can I get an Amen"s were finally over, person after person stood. It has been the hardest thing I've ever done in life to see Drew, the spitting image of his brother (they even call him 'the clone'), talk in front of all those people. His long hair fell into his eyes, just like Nick's, and he couldn't get through more than three or four words at a time without having to stop, draw a long breath and hold back tears. His little body shook. No matter what, you could just tell, he was not going to cry. Not in front of all those people who'd told him to stay strong. "Nick, everything I do now will be for you, in memory of you." It broke my heart, and my heart doesn't break easily.

Both entire football and lacrosse teams crowded onto the altar. They laid Nick's jerseys on the coffin. It was the best gesture I saw all day. It was really the only peace I could see in it. They huddled up, red and white jerseys, jumping up and down, cheering, shouting, celebrating a life, not mourning a death.



I went to Drew later. I didn't know what to say. There weren't any words I could tell him that would make what had happened okay. Nothing I could do could bring his brother back, even for a second. I couldn't bring myself to tell him I was sorry about what had happened, because "sorry" implies that I've accepted what happened, that I believe it, that it's okay. And it's not. What has happened is not okay. But it's not not okay because of what has happened, but because of what hasn't happened. It's because of the rest of the life that Nick Phillips won't have now. Not because of the one tragic event that has happened, but because of the multitude of incredible events that haven't. All of this I tried to share with Drew. But I'm not sure if what I actually said was even English, much less condolences in a full sentence.

He seemed to understand though. He hugged me, and gave me the most comforting words I'd heard since Thursday morning. Through his sunglasses (which he'd been wearing since they put his brother in the ground), his eyes were red, but dry. "You're here. That's enough."

That's all it was. There was no comfort in any Bible or plan of God or reading or hymn. It was in the people. Only in the community, in the other people there, together, grieving, celebrating, just being, together.

So maybe there is no God, not in the traditional sense of the word. That's why bad things still happen. There is no all-powerful, ever-present plan. There's no God. But maybe there's more of a Spirit. A Force, if you will, some intangible power, some will in people, bringing them together, strength among us, not among two-thousand-year-old words translated indefinitely, or in some Heaven, light-years away, but here in this place, in these people.

That's something Nick's uncle touched on. We cannot just be here in mourning. We were all affected by Nick, we are him now. He's not dead, he lives on in us, if we let him. We have to keep moving to keep the spirit, the Force of Nick moving. We have to remain alive, to keep him alive. We cannot grieve. We have to live.


"Nick, everything I do now is for you, in memory of you."


I will not say rest in peace, because rest is not, has never been, peace for you. Keep playing lacrosse, riding that bike, lifting ungodly amounts of weight. Be in peace, but do not rest. Just be in peace. Be our peace.





And this, even all of this, cannot bring what is deserved by the memory of Nick Phillips. And that is but one of the reasons I hate Mr. Smith. Nick was incredible, and his death is not to be waved over as though just an announcement of the dress code. So for Nick, in memory of Nick, May the Force be with you all. Amen.