The Memorial Service for David Ramirez, February 14th, 2009
Here we are, five months after Dave died.
It's been a difficult time for us - Dave's friends and me. I am deeply grateful for all the love and support you've given me and to each other. To remind us of the insightful and comforting words shared by the good people who spoke at his memorial service, I have gathered and transcribed the eulogies given on that day. Links to each appear at the bottom of this post. The following is something I wrote awhile ago as an email to Josh, describing the service and my experience there. I've reworded it a bit so that it works better here in my journal.
All of Dave's and my friends came together to plan and prepare for the service. It was incredibly touching that so many people wanted to help. And I know it helped us all deal with this horrible loss.
Here in the home Dave and I once shared, we all kept ourselves busy caring for one another. We shared stories of Dave, discussed our feelings, poured over photos, went through his and my music collection choosing songs for the service. There was a lot from Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Cirque du Soleil, and some video games, as well as some of the more somber pieces from Dave's favorite techno bands. We brainstormed over what items we could collect for display that would capture Dave's spirit. Innumerable books including some of his oldest computer manuals, bits of detritus were extracted from his piles of hardware, his pioneering fractal prints, beloved teddy bears, a ticking clock, his blown glass, the Tivo remote control, many examples of his excellent photography work, and on and on.
We went through some old photo albums of Dave's. There we saw a glimpse of his life in Boston and Somerville. There were pictures of Josh, and Daniel, and Joseph, and Urso. And pictures of Dave. Him holding giant furballs I can only assume were his and Josh's cats, Boston and Maine. Dave styling in a fedora, plaintively hugging a tree, wearing a train engineer's overalls while enjoying a party. I scanned some into the computer and had them enlarged so I could include them in the service. He was soooo adorable in those photos. He's always been adorable. But he looked incredibly different. A number of people had a hard time believing it was him in the pictures. I saw a joy in him I hadn't seen in a long time.
I am so very proud of the memorial we created. In order to express both *DAVE* and the sadness we felt, it was a sometimes edgy mix of somberness and irreverence. It was awesome!
Just as it should, the service helped greatly to ease the pain. I was deeply touched by the outpouring of love that day. Around 50 people showed up. Nine people other than me gave eulogies. There were common threads in all of them that tied into my own confused and painful feelings. The love, anger, resentment, desperation, pity, anguish, affection... I was able to see it all so much better and begin dealing with even the worst of it thanks to our friends and what they said. Everyone felt at least some aspect of what I did, and a few were amazingly eloquent and tender. It made me proud to call them friends.
As people collected into the funeral home and eventually moved into the chapel, we were playing the music we had selected the night before. The service proper began with the Annie Lennox song "Into the West" from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Even though Dave often said he hated female vocals ruining a good song, I think he liked this one. Josh said Dave considered Lennox less a vocalist and more a force of nature. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. As MC, Joseph put his skills to good use, coming in just as the music faded. The eulogies followed his opening statements, him stepping aside for each of us, returning after each person was done, introducing the next. In his own eulogy, Joseph was loud and forceful and touching. He was channeling Dave.
I came to the podium with my laptop in hand as I had just finished typing my eulogy minutes before. Daniel's partner Dave later told me "This was a first. I've been to an open casket funeral before, but never one with an open laptop." I had struggled with what I was going to say. Every time I tried to think about it, my thoughts became an incomprehensible buzz. There was still too much confusion and anger preventing me from writing anything appropriate. Only at three A.M. the night before was I able to overcome the block. I managed to read my words at the service, although I had feared my grief would overcome me and my voice would fail. I told how Dave and I met at work, began dating at IBR, and had a loving geek-fest of a relationship. I briefly touched upon the difficulties we had had so I could shine a light on the role played by all of people gathered together on that day, our friends, and thank them for being there for the both of us during those difficulties. I finished by telling them that I credit Dave for helping bring them into our lives and keep them close. They are his legacy.
A surprising number of people spoke. And the things they said helped enormously to clear up so many conflicting feelings I was having and to soothe some of the pain I was going through.
Daniel Sonnenfeld had been Dave's friend the longest of anyone present and vice versa. He talked about Dave's life in Boston, Somerville, San Francisco, and San Mateo. The difficulties Dave had with school over the past few years had been there as long ago as MIT. But that never impeded his thirst for knowledge or his enthusiasm for sharing that knowledge.
Bernard Lim quoted Dave saying, "'The reason why we are best friends instead of lovers is that we would end up killing each other if we had lived together,'" adding, "So for that, I thank Scott." The whole room room erupted into heartfelt laughter.
Gabe Lieuw explained how he had met Dave for the first time. He and his friend Calvin, both Asian fellows, had caught the full force of Dave's attention. The room knew how overwhelming an experience that was. Gabe had figuratively gnawed his own arm off to escape, leaving Calvin behind to sate the rampaging bear. But Dave hadn't given up. He insisted on being Gabe's friend, for which he was grateful. Dave's tenacity was one of his many wonderful and annoying traits.
Gabe also read a few email eulogies that had arrived from some of the over 300 people he, Cliffy, and Joseph had contacted on my behalf. As an aside, I must thank Gabe for transcribing Dave's contact list from his iPhone and then coordinating Cliffy and Joseph as the three of them emailed or called them all.
When Gabe left the podium, he bowed three times before Dave's casket.
Stephen Migol had shared an office with Dave at Sun and benefited from having an in-office techno DJ. And later, as our straight room mate, he benefited-not-so-much from Dave's staunch nudism. The two of them shared an interest in astronomy. "I know we shared the same vision of the stars before. I wish I could see the stars through your eyes now."
Mitchel Anthony, an accomplished graphic design professional, credited Dave for introducing him to the web which transformed his career. The two were movie buddies, frequently going to the theater to see the latest release. They had seen "Coraline" the day before Dave died. For whatever reason, he didn't want to say goodbye to Dave that day. So Dave promised to call the next day, but he didn't.
Ryan was Dave's rice queen rival. He had lost his own partner a few years earlier. "There are people in our lives who are a nexus, who bring people together. And I look out at all of you and I know that this man was that kind of nexus. I'm very proud to say that he was a good friend."
Jo Jackson, fiance of Mitchel, was eloquent and poignant. "When I first met Dave about 9 years ago... I was sure he wouldn't like me. A man as fiercely intelligent, talented, and uber geeky as Dave could not possibly suffer a squishy artsy holistic studies female like me. In fact many of the squishy things I said to him earned me that "Dave look;" that pause paired with a not quite expressionless gaze as he parsed and mercifully dismissed a million possible responses. Even so I could not have been more wrong about his willingness to be my friend... He was a kind, loving, and generous person; an extroverted yang to my introverted yin. To me, behind Dave's self-proclaimed barricade of rapier tongued sarcasm and cynical wit there shined a heart that was over-flowing with affectionate concern."
The final eulogy, as read by Joseph, was an email from Josh Cohen, Dave's significant other from Somerville, Massachusetts between 1983 and 1991. During that week, Josh and I had been corresponding. He shared his grief and insights, giving me a virtual shoulder to cry on, each of us bridging two separate oceans of Dave's life with one another. He provided truth and perspective and comfort to me. I forwarded his emails to all my friends here so his words could give them the same.
Dave spoke of Josh often. I'd frequently get to hear some story of Josh or the life the two of them shared as it related to whatever Dave and I were doing at the time. Josh always had a place in Dave's heart right next to me. In fact, Dave would accidentally interchange our names "Scott" and "Josh" as he spoke about him. Josh had always been a welcome presence in my life with Dave.
The eulogy Josh wrote presented, better than any, the Dave that was such a powerful force in my life and what made him the man I fell in love with -- the kind, caring, loving, annoying, "high maintenance, pain in the ass."
Everything everybody said rang true and resonated with me. They plucked thoughts from my own head, adding new ones to the mix, and set them in a row before me so that I could see a Dave I had always known but never fully understood. Of course I still don't fully understand him, but I can understand my conflicted feelings for him far better than before. I will always miss him and love him.
We ended the memorial with a song that Joseph had suggested for our play list. It's a song Dave and I loved, "Still Alive," from one of our favorite video games, Portal. The game has a sardonic wit very reminiscent of Douglas Adams. The song's lyrics brilliantly capture the game's main character, a computer, and the events of her demise. There were so many similarities with Dave, his sense of humor, his life, and his death that we couldn't resist including it.
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Joseph Mandell
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Scott Ingram
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Daniel Sonnenfeld
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Bernard Lim
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Gabe Lieuw
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Steve Migol
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Mitch Anthony
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Ryan Renard
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Jo Jackson
Eulogy for David Ramirez - by Josh Cohen
Lyrics to "Still Alive"