Elegy and Ode to Jeff, the Boy We Love

Part 6 of The Boy We Loved, Once Upon a Time – posts about my nephew, Jeff, who died of cancer 25 years ago this week.

In the opening sequence of Forrest Gump, a feather floats and swoops, and lands at Forrest’s feet. He bends down, plucks it up and puts it in his suitcase. The same feather falls out of his copy of Curious George at the end of the movie, lands at his feet, and then takes flight and disappears. The feather is representative of the key dilemma Forrest considers throughout the movie: Do we each have a destiny or are we all floating around accidental-like on a breeze? There at the beginning and at the end, the feather takes the movie full circle.

Jeff was really touched by Forrest Gump. Tom & Kris took Jeff to the movie one day during the year he had cancer, while Lisa was at school and he was immuno-compromised so he wasn’t attending school. There were two other people in the theater. At the end of the movie, they sat for a few moments because Jeff was collecting himself after having been moved to tears by the final scene. When I asked Kris what she thought spoke so powerfully to him, she said she thought he was drawn into the story and appreciated the humor and pathos Tom Hanks’ brought to his embodiment of the special person that was Forrest Gump, and that he seemed deeply moved by the portrayal of life, love, and loss.

She noted that it was probably the first “grown up” movie he had seen. After a steady diet of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, The Mask, and Jurassic Park, it was a departure that perhaps appealed to his maturing state of mind.

And maybe he was grappling with his own powerful feelings about the meaning of what he had just seen — the deaths of Forrest’s mother and the love of his life, Jenny — as he considered the struggle he was engaged in. All we know is, the movie had a powerful impact on Jeff. Lisa used Feather Theme as the processional music in her wedding, in homage to the impact the movie had on Jeff at that pivotal time in his life.

These blog posts about Jeff are an ode to his life, a song celebrating his presence in our lives and in our world. They are also an elegy, a lament for one who is departed. Is Jeff’s story joy or sorrow? Blessing or tragedy? I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both are happening at the same time.

Both. And.

It’s not as though I think this anniversary is especially important to Kris & Tom and Lisa. As Kris noted herself today on Facebook, it’s just another day of the grief and loss they have absorbed into their life on a daily basis. But it is a mile marker of sorts, and an opportunity to be intentional about keeping Jeff’s memory alive.

Since his death 25 years ago, Tom & Kris and Lisa have forged a different version of their family, and it is a remarkably sturdy and lovely thing to behold after all they weathered. Lisa and David have two children: Valerie, who is a delight. And Jeff, who is a charmer. Sometimes life brings us full circle.

On the weekend of Lisa’s graduation from Bethel University, they had extra time before needing to be in Arden Hills. They decided to have lunch in their old neighborhood in Edina, and then drove past the house they lived in when Lisa and Jeff were little.

The owners of the house were on the front step and saw them drive slowly past, so Kris rolled down her window and told them who they were so they wouldn’t think they were creepy.

The homeowners laughed and asked if they wanted to come in to see what they had done to the place. They had added on to the back, which took up an area where Tom and Kris had built a deck, with a sidewalk that went around it. When Tom had poured the sidewalk, they had the kids put their handprints in it. Looking at the addition, they mentioned this to the couple.

Immediately, they both lit up and said, “Oh, we saved that for you. Some of the neighbors told us about your family and when we took that sidewalk apart we just felt that sometime you might come back looking for it.”

Eighteen years had passed since they moved out of the house in Edina, and it had been 12 years since Jeff’s death.

There, hidden behind some bushes in the side yard landscaping was a chunk of sidewalk with Jeff & Lisa’s handprints. The impact of its improbable return to them after all these years, plus the piercing realization of the sheer goodness of this couple in preserving that piece of their family drove them all to tears. Right there on the driveway.