Here's a memorial for Greg Jackson. Please pass this along to those who knew him. Either tell people to come to this website or print it off and give it to those people who don't have access to the internet. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but, instead, trying to preserve a positive memory of a good friend. Email me at sisenmann@hotmail.com if you have any questions or comments you'd like to share. Enjoy.
I’ve been assigned the Herculean task of encapsulating the life of Greg Jackson in only a few words. At first, I was intimidated by this task, unsure of what to say. I mean, how can you boil down anybody’s life or the impact of said life into mere words? Attending his funeral service helped give me a focus for this piece.
I sat through a service filled with religious overtones and the woes of an unrecovered addict. This was not the Greg Jackson I knew. I’m not saying that he was falsely portrayed at his service, only that he was not fully portrayed. Greg had many positive aspects which drew people to him and compelled them to love him deeply. My focus for this piece, therefore, is to reveal Greg Jackson for the glorious bastard that he was. So without further ado, here’s the Greg I remember:
We choose how we want to remember those we’ve lost. For me, I’m choosing to block out what I saw and heard at the visitation and funeral. I prefer the devil-may-care Greg over the repentant addict. I prefer to hear Greg, with turned-backward “Chicks Dig Me” hat, belting out “Black Betty” in the back of Evo’s truck, instead of a couple of ladies singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Instead of an ashy-faced corpse with pink lipstick, I choose to picture an overall-adorned wild man, stripping down amidst chants of “Jacko time! Jacko time! Jacko time!” Once everything except his boxers are off, he’s sprinting down the hillside, slipping on snow. A thin layer of ice greets him as he leaps into the frigid creek. Immediately vacating the water, Greg rushes towards laughing friends who’re waiting with towels and warm clothes. He marches back into the cabin like a Roman emperor with his throng showering praise upon him. In short, I remember Greg at his most joyful.
Greg Jackson was a man of stories. This point was made clear after both the visitation and the funeral. Many of us who knew him well, gathered together to celebrate his life by laughing and sharing stories about him. Hour after hour flew by as we reminded each other of the outrageous exploits of our friend. I had forgotten more great stories about Greg than most people accumulate throughout lifetimes not cut short and lived through to ripe old ages. Some of you may want me to transcribe some of these stories for you. I won’t. Not here anyway. My motivation is not driven by spite, instead by fear of inadequacy. There’s no way I can adequately tell a Greg Jackson story with mere words, nor can I only pick a couple of stories from the plethora available. They all fit together to depict who he was and what he was about. Only sharing a few of these stories will fail to capture the essence of Jacko, and I don’t have enough room here to share them all.
My ex-girlfriend met Greg only once. Once was enough to leave an indelible mark. When I contacted her about his passing, I wasn’t sure if she remembered him, so I prompted her memory. I love her response to my prompts: “Of course, I remember Greg. How could I not? Almost every Jasper story you’ve ever told me involved Greg in some way.” Like many others, Greg is at the forefront of my experience of Jasper. His prominence in storihood is owed to the fact that he lived life to the fullest.
Carpe Diem. This Latin phrase, made famous by the movie Dead Poet’s Society, means “seize the day.” Living a life unhindered by fear of who to be and how to act entails “seizing the day” to me. Greg lived this motto better than anyone I have ever known.
Several of you may have balked at what I just mentioned, knowing what Greg chose to do with his life. Let me be clear: Greg was a troubled individual with many demons left unresolved in his life. I’ll never condone many of the decisions he chose for himself. Neither do most of his friends. Each one of us, at some point in time, tried to get him to slow down, to get help. He wouldn’t listen. Greg Jackson did what Greg Jackson wanted to do when he wanted to do it. He said it better than I ever could: “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”
Greg believed in having fun. Everyday he squeezed the last drops out of the fruit of life. Henry David Thoreau is misquoted as saying, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Not Greg. He was of the “few.” Greg Jackson lead a life of loud anticipation: anticipating the next moment, the next chance to do something fun, to drink the next drink, to share the next laugh, always laughing in the face of Convention; never a moment wasted in the pursuit of happiness. He was always looking for the next rush; the next chance to outdo and go beyond what “normal” people do. Unafraid of what people may think, he dressed how he wanted to dress and behaved how he wanted to behave.
Greg lived the life we all secretly wish we could: a life of freedom. Free from societal limitations and expectations. When it was proper to shake a friend’s hand in public when you greeted them, Greg chose to envelope you in a bear hug and dry hump your leg, all the while telling you how “sexy” you were. Free from holding oneself back in the here-and-now, in order to prepare for what’s down the road. “I’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” was another motto Greg adopted for himself in the last few years. He didn’t care about what was to come, instead, focussing on what was going on right then and there.
I may be envious of the freedom Greg held, but, at the same time, I don’t respect what he did with that freedom. What I respect, and the main point I’m trying to make with this memorial, was Greg having a clear vision of what he believed in and never veering from that vision. Most of us sacrifice our beliefs everyday. We’re terrified of not “fitting in,” of “sticking out” from the crowd. To stick to your beliefs even under the utmost scrutiny is noble in my eyes. I think it was this nobility of his, which drew people to him and compelled us to love him.
If the measure of a man is the love he left behind, then Greg measures among the best. This love was evident with the unceasing line of young and old alike at his visitation, with the never-ending stories told between mournful friends, with the winding funeral procession lead by tear-filled horsemen, and with the multitude of friends and family sinking in the cemetery mud, heavy with remorse and sorrow. As clichéd as it sounds, Greg would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, as well as his pants (he didn’t mind wearing only underwear in public). Greg could make you want to slap him one minute, then the next minute have you rolling on the floor with laughter. He was truly one in a million.
For me, Greg shines as a light of unpredictability in a world too often made predictable. This is the Greg Jackson I choose to remember. You’re free to remember Greg however you wish. I choose to hold onto the memories which bring a smile to my face.
Sage Isenmann
12/26/2009
