Losing you is the closest thing to hell

Hi Sky-o,

This weekend a good friend of mine lost his precious 18-year old daughter to a long battle with several illnesses. I am crushed, so sad.

I sat down to type a little missive to him to let him know I am here and hopefully offer some words that might be helpful. I struggled to imagine sharing his pain, to be able to have some common reference point to offer my condolences.

The closest thing within me was losing you. That hole in my heart will never heal. Writing to him made me face those feelings again. Although I think of you every day, my remembering that day when I found out you were gone, feeling those feelings again, was unbearable.

You are always missed, my brother, and always loved.

Big Punko

Perfection

Hey bro,

I think tonight I witnessed perfection, in the form of a Superbowl commercial. There, before my amazed eyes, I watched an animated lizard pimping drinks, hip-hop artists rapping, monsters and aliens from a Disney movie, all presented in 3D within one thirty-second spot. My god, it was truly the ultimate expression of materialism and commercialism.

I wish you had been here, but I imagine getting you to watch the Superbowl would be like reprogramming Alex from "A Clockwork Orange", replete with straps, eye drops, and gagging.

You would have hated it. You would have loved it because you hated it. We would have laughed if you had been here to watch it with me.

Thinking of you today

You would have loved today. You would have dared to let yourself feel hopeful, even for a moment. You would have found much to be concerned about. You would have marveled with everyone around you that this day happened at all.

You would have loved today, my brother.

CalTech - Alex Sessions' page

"Sky was a geobiology graduate student from 2003-2007, working first in Dianne Newman's group and later splitting his time between our two groups. His research involved the production and function of methylated hopanoids by the anoxygenic phototropic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris. To our great dismay, Sky passed away on August 25 [sic], 2007. We still miss him."

Missing you

I am missing you today more than usual for some reason -- just thought I should say that. What a vacuum you left where once you were. I wish you knew how much you would be missed, how much your absence affects so many people, more than you could probably ever have imagined.

Not All Good Things Have To Come To An End

What once started at Berkeley......

Has continued 2500 miles away in Vermont......

Next stop.....South America.....I promise to do stupid things and get in trouble over there too.

-Han

Congruent Angles

Never thought congruency would have more meaning to me than it's definition.

Yesterday, as I was about to put my bindings on your board, I noticed something that made stop. I noticed that you had your bindings set such that each leg was at the same angle, at 9 degrees. I thought this was weird, I thought I was the only one to do something odd like that. Then I remembered how I mentioned to you that I was practicing to learn how to board switch and that I had both my bindings at the same angles (9 degrees) even though it made it harder to curve. I guess you might have followed suit and done the exact same thing. Why'd you follow my move? You know that I am not the best person to follow and that my actions only lead to trouble.

After seeing the angles, I just put my screwdriver down and went to work. When I also realized that the screws had been put in by your own hands, I couldn't get myself to undo them, especially knowing how you liked doing handy work.

I'll make your board proud man. But why'd you have to get such ugly colored bindings.

Snowboard for Han

We're so happy that Han is going to take Sky's snowboard. How perfect is that? Sky would have loved it.

~~~

I wish he was here for the new political climate in our country. There WAS hope, after all.

Godspeed

A Farewell

Here is no part

Of that we loved--

The tender heart

So quickly moved,

The wit, the laughter and the grace

Of gesture, the beloved face.

Here is a vesture doffed:

White ashes, dim and soft.

In memory of him

Who could not be confined

Save in the loving mind

We scatter to the air

This precious residue.

O memory, be true.

Now blow, fair breezes, blow,

And go, dear ashes, go.

by Janet Lewis

SKY makes the world a better place

To laugh often and much
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hey SKY, I sit here drinking some wine and was reading through some emails, and a recent email from Wendy had her mention the trip we all took to Reno and Tahoe, you know the one where I got the $29 deal on the hotel suite at the Atlantis in Reno and we crammed in 7 people into that room because we were all poor students. The one where we all hit the buffet last minute and got way more food than we could eat such that in any other country we would have gotten arrested for wasting so much food. As I was reading Wendy's email, I looked at the pictures on my wall and sure enough, there was the picture of all of us from the trip.

You might be wondering about the quote I wrote above and thinking why the heck is Han doing writing down such a pansy quote. Well SKY, I am actually a deeper person than you might suspect. This is my favorite quote of all time and one that I try to live my life by. I have only told one other person in my life how important this quote was to me and I always promised myself I would use it for a special occasion.

Now you might be wondering what the heck does this quote and snowboarding have in common. Well, just bare with me. You see SKY, I used to be the biggest snowboarding snob in the world and still am to a lesser degree now. I used to only want to go boarding with really good boarders that were better than me and I used to not want to waste my time teaching others because I cherished my time on the slopes so much.

I believe I might have been one of the first, if not the first person to take you boarding. I definitely was the one that advocated it to you because I would talk about it all day in lab. I remember when I planned the trip the picture is from, I kind of dreaded it at the beginning because I thought I would spend most of my time watching you all fall on your butt instead of hitting the slopes. I remember how excited you were, with your new snowboarding pants and gear.

When we got to the slopes and everyone was learning, I was already dreading just sitting there telling everyone to get off their butts on the bunny slopes. Finally at one point I just told you all that I was leaving to go to a different lift. I remember you saying you will come along. I was like what the heck are you doing. But you played it off as if you could handle the runs I could go on. So you came along with me and we hit some runs that I knew were probably way too hard for you.

Well, you struggled of course but watching you persevere and get up no matter how many times you ate it was inspirational to me in a sense. No matter how hard the run was, you were still trying to keep up which I thought was amazing. Over time and many other trips to various ski resorts, you would improve vastly, even getting your own board at one point and asking me for help on what to buy. When we got to Whistler, you were able to hang with me through all the runs and I always cherished that because I loved boarding with people that loved boarding as much as I did.

Furthermore, I cherished boarding with you SKY because I watched you grow as a boarder and you made me realize how great it is to have a friend that you can teach and board with eventually. You taught me patience and that in the end, the rewards can be great. You have no idea how much I love friends that I can board with. Because of you, now I always try to get more friends into boarding and teach them in hopes of finding people that I can board with in the future just like I did with you.

In the end SKY, as convoluted as it may seem, through boarding, you made me a better person. Even though you may not be around, to me you have succeeded as a friend and as a person and I thank you for that.

- Han

Dianne Newman, who was one of Sky's advisors at CalTech (and a very, very dear friend) sent this cartoon which Sky did. Here's her explanation of it, and of his research (in layperson's terms that even I could understand!)

"As the project he started in my lab grows, I keep thinking how pleased he would have been. In fact, I'm traveling to Berlin this weekend to give a talk on his work, and I'm starting my talk with a picture that he drew for a gift my lab gave me a few years ago. I've decided I'm going to always start my talks on this project with this picture, as a tribute to him. I'm attaching it to this email. It's a picture of 2 cells talking to each other: the green one is a cyanobacterium, asking the purple one if it's making 2-MeBHPs (the molecule in the conversation bubble). Sky discovered that the purple guys could make this molecule too, which overturned the conventional wisdom that these molecules were biomarkers for cyanobacteria. Now, my lab's gone a lot further, and we're starting to get an idea of their biological function. But he started it all!"

There Was a Flower

in a bed
of stone, blooming
like a river
flowing, never
still & always

home. There was
a whippoorwill
calling 'cross the night 'neath
a starless sky--a lonesome
sound like a broken
swing, repeating its mystical

sigh. I place you
now in the hands of
love where
g-d's bright beauty lies;
the whippoorwill drops from its tree,
lifts its wings

& flies.
____________________________

Also see: What Doesn't Kill Us