Well…I did it. I wrote my first eulogy. Sarah and I took eulogy writing to a whole new level yesterday. She thinks she will able to read it at the service, but I just keep thinking about the first time she tried public speaking in eighth grade. We were on closed circuit TV, attempting to do the announcements for the day and she started giggling once I started talking. The giggling got louder and louder until I couldn’t even hear myself speak. And then…she fell off of the set. I was mortified. Oh well. I don’t think it will go exactly like that, but I think that it is safe to say, that she is no speaker. No offense, Sarah, but that is what you get. Asshole!

Anyway, the eulogy. It is really rather good actually. I am proud of it. I worded everything, she just pointed out what she wanted to say…we make a good team, I think. I wanted to say a whole bunch of things that would not have been appropriate. I wanted to talk about the times he made me laugh…but there were only a handful of people who would have understood why it was so funny. I wanted to talk about the night that Brad was the devil and his hair was green and he picked John up and tried to take him to hell…and I just cried and cried. Until John came and told me not to be scared. It seems silly. And it seems like I shouldn’t even mention the times we did drugs together, seeing as it was drugs that killed him…but it wasn’t the drugs that made this day memorable. It was the way he fixed everything. The way he calmed me down…the way he made it all better. He did that a lot. I know nobody really understood or even knew that I cared about him. But he was different to me. He made me feel safe…with him, I was 16, stoned, and starry eyed. Looking at the pictures just helped me remember. I had pushed it away.
So many things to say.
Here it is:

John Michael Durdin
March 27, 1980-October 22, 2004

John Durdin was many things to many people. He was a brother, a son, an uncle, and a friend. But above all else, John was a beautiful person, inside and out. Those of us who knew him best knew him as a joker. John was the guy with the goofy grin who was always trying to keep everyone laughing. And he did. He was the life of the party and he was the glue that held us all together. To people on the outside, it may have seemed that John often chose the wrong path, but in reality, he was just following the plan that God had for him. I think it’s safe to say that John touched so many of us with his kindness, his selflessness, and his love (because we all know he was just a big softie at heart). The sudden nature of this tragedy has taken us all by surprise and as we all here today try to justify his passing, each of us remembers our own special moments that we shared with him. I think that everyone in this room can share one common sentiment when we think about John and that we can all agree that he had a huge, wonderful heart…and he will remain eternally, in all of ours.