For all my beloved DUers, in honor of NYC_SKP's thread about MiddleFingerMom [View all]

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I was originally gonna post on NYC_SKP's thread ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024317872 ) but I didn't want to hijack it, however inadvertently that might have happened.

My son and I spent yesterday afternoon at a memorial - for a 25-year-old friend of his. A wonderful, talented kid whose live was shortened WAAAAAAAAAAY too soon.

Alex was indeed just 25. He died suddenly and unexpected on December 18th. His family is, as you can imagine, bereft. Devastated. Still in shock. There's one Christmas they'll never forget, and always think of with sadness. There's Christmas, PERIOD, that will never be the same for them again. Always marred from here on, because it will always remind them of their lost first-born, and how he died so close to it, and how he never lived to see it.

Alex was born almost completely deaf. The inner workings of one ear were not there. The outer ear was deformed. His other ear which had a normal external appearance had about 45% hearing, as I was told. Yet, would you believe he actually had music in him? Rather profoundly, too. This kid was amazing. His attentive and perceptive parents got this very early on, and did everything they could to help and enable it. Thankfully, his dad was very successful in business and they could afford to get him the finest medical and therapeutic attention - the surgeries, the facial/jaw reconstructive surgery, the speech therapy, the ongoing efforts and tools and hearing aids and other things that they used and accessed. But when Alex was ten, they did more. The dad began building upon his son's demonstrable aptitude and raw talent, and eventually, his music career. VERY early - the same age at which my own son started gravitating rather dramatically toward the guitar and music and singing, Alex did, too. He showed increasing talent toward the guitar, and songwriting. Singing would also come along with the various speech therapies and audio therapies they undertook for him. The kid really had a serious gift.

There came a point when Alex was about ten when his dad started exploring having a band. Knowing them all, I can bet there came a time when, knowing Alex yearned to be in a band or have his own band, his dad turned to him and said "you want to be in a band, kid? Well, BY GOD you're gonna be in a BAND!" So he invested in instruments, guitar lessons, and even more. Soon the dad was taking drum lessons, himself, so that he could drum in his son's band and they could have that additional bond with each other. The band, the Feisty Piranhas ( https://www.facebook.com/feistypiranhas ), was Alex's band. He was the front man, played lead guitar, sang, wrote all the songs, and even supervised the production of their albums - yet ANOTHER talent he soon began manifesting, dropping everybody's jaws around him yet again. This wasn't just some vanity band where some rich kid gets to jerk off. They were serious. They started playing around SoCal, with The Misfits, NOFX, the Dickies, Filter, D.R.I., UFO, and more. They played some pretty damn good venues, too. They got a lot of local press and started winning awards. Well-deserved, too. Alex proved to be a power shredder and a really outstanding rock/punk front man! And he worked damn hard on this. So did his dad. So did we all, frankly.

My son entered their orbit when he was, I think, still 14. He and his then-fledgling band, ACIDIC, played at a Battle-of-the-Bands in which Alex's dad was a judge. He took a liking to, and an interest in, Michael, and after voting him a special individual achievement award, invited him to come up to their home and meet his son and jam with them. I came along, too, because Michael was too young to drive. By the time Michael was 15, they'd invited him to join their band, because they were looking to add a rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist, so Michael became a Piranha. They'd rehearse every weekend. And soon enough, Michael was playing at some of these great venues for the first time, and attending award shows. They really embraced him and helped him and he learned SOOOO much! It was my son's experience with the Feisty Piranhas that gave him the confidence and the experience to break through and focus seriously on really making something of his own band.

Even after he quit the Piranhas, Michael and Alex stayed in close touch and remained friends. Indeed, during ACIDIC's last tour, last fall, he and Alex were texting back and forth, making appointments for the new year to get together and write and work on songs. Michael was really looking forward to it.

In all that time since Michael went out on his own, Alex was going through a transformation. He had been morbidly obese, and a couple of years ago, decided to have gastric bypass surgery. It sure had an impact. He lost some 300 pounds in a year's time, and also gave up drinking and drugs, and really turned his life around. He graduated from college, had studied for and passed the LSAT, and was looking forward to law school - even while maintaining his musical career leading the Piranhas. The last time we all saw him, he and his dad came to Michael's band's show at the Viper Room last summer, and he looked fantastic! Michael spoke briefly at the service yesterday, and remarked about how happy Alex looked - how much that had struck him - how he'd never seen Alex look SO HAPPY.

And then a blood clot happened.

As we've been told, that 300-pound weight loss in a mere year's time was too fast, too abrupt, for Alex's body to process properly. Evidently, a large clot dislodged and traveled straight to his heart. And that was that. The End. Perhaps... another take away might be that more of a slow and steady weight loss program might be easier on the overall physicality for those needing to lose more weight?

That was one message delivered to us at the gathering yesterday by Alex's grieving father.

Here was another message his dad offered - applicable to EVERYBODY ACROSS THE BOARD, normally-weighted and/or otherwise, and I sure want to share it with all of you my brothers and sisters here on DU:

Tell EVERYONE you love that you love them. Just do it. Do it NOW. Make sure they know. NOW. Hug them if they're near enough to be hugged. Do it NOW. And then do it again. And keep doing it whenever you can. Because you never know when it's gonna be over. You never know when your loved ones will be taken from you. And it can be over in a moment. A flash. Or in Alex's case, a heartbeat.

I'm gonna do it now, too. I love you guys. Your presence in my life has kept me sane and supported, and prevented me from feeling alone and isolated - at some really bad times, at least politically (like during Selection 2000 and certainly throughout the bush/cheney years). But also personally, too. Certainly after my mom died in late 2006. I've posted about that before. I really love you guys. I love DU and it's because DU is full of you guys. And I am grateful there's a DU to turn to, every day, after damn near every news segment I've ever watched on TV or blog that I've read.

Cherish your loved ones and tell them about it. Tell them you love them. That is the greatest legacy that anyone could leave behind - not only young Alex but also MiddleFingerMom and all those we've loved - and lost.