My tribute to Jeremy

This is the tribute I gave at Jeremy's memorial service in Abbotsford. Please remember that it was written as a public speech and it reads that way. It is slightly fixed up though, as I wrote it about an hour before the service. Donna, I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to say goodbye to Jeremy that day. It was a real honor to be a part of his service.

Kendal


May 8, 2006

The first time I heard of Jeremy, I was jealous. I was probably only 11 years old, and my best friend was Josh Wolbers. We were both students at Full Gospel Christian School in Williams Lake. There wasn't many other people in our age range, and Josh and I became great friends. So I was not too happy when Josh told me his cousin "Jeremy" was coming to the school. Every time Josh would talk about Jeremy, his eyes would light up.

"Jeremy and I both play hockey, Jeremy and I do this, Jeremy and I do that..."

I was sure that this "Jeremy" guy was going to take up all of Josh's time and I'd be stuck in the corner by myself (come on, I was only 11).

Well the three of us didn't do much apart for the rest of our school years. There were so many pizza and movie overnighters, and I think we walked every inch of Williams Lake together. The three of us acted, dressed, and talked the same. We even chased the same girls occasionally.

Jeremy was the first one of us to get his driver's license. Josh and I thought that meant our lives could finally begin. We thought that the way to meet girls was to cruise around town in a vehicle. Looking back now, I'm not sure what we thought would happen; maybe we thought the girls would see us driving by and jump out in front of the truck and fall madly in love with us.

One fine Saturday night in summer, we talked Jer into borrowing Leroy's(his dad) gray Blazer. By the time he picked us up and we all thought we looked cool enough to go out in public it was almost 8:00 pm. What Jeremy didn't tell us, was that Leroy told Jer he could stay out until midnight but he wanted the truck off the streets by 9:00 pm. So after cruising for about 45 minutes(and not seeing any girls) Jeremy says to me, "Well it's getting late, why don't we go back to your house and watch a movie." Josh and I were so mad. We weren't going home until at least one of us had met the love of our life. Then Jeremy told us about the truck's curfew, and the debate began. We insisted that Leroy would never know if we drove around for a while, Jeremy insisted he wouldn't disobey his dad. So after 20 minutes of us refusing to go home, Jeremy pulled the truck into the Overwaitea parking lot facing Oliver Street. He wouldn't budge for about 2 and a half hours. Jeremy was our conscience. Years later when we talked about it we all remembered how much fun that night was, even though we just sat there and argued for a couple of hours.

Jeremy was so at home over at our place that he usually walked in without knocking. He actually developed a bit of a routine. We always had a few cupboard doors open, which drove Jer nuts. As soon as he came over he would head straight for the kitchen and start closing doors. Next, because of his love for cake(for more on Jeremy's love of cake see Mary's story) he would go straight to our pantry and steal my Mom's box of Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix. He would always try to be really sneaky about it, and slip it into his jacket like a shoplifter. Then he wouldn't take it out until someone "caught" him with it. He would walk around the house with this big square bulge under his jacket, making it really obvious that it was there. I took to just ignoring him, and my Mom would usually take pity on him and say, "Jeremy Nelson you put my cake mix back this minute!"

One day while I was waiting for him to come over, my Mom and I were talking about his routine, and I had a flash of inspiration. I ran to the kitchen and opened every cupboard door in the room. Then I took the box of cake mix and carefully cut away the bottom of the box and removed the pouch of mix. I replaced it with every fork, knife, and spoon we owned. I placed the box back in it's usual spot so it looked like it always did. We knew he'd never make a grab for the cake mix if we were watching, so my mom and I just waited in the next room for him to arrive. When he finally got there, he predictably headed for the kitchen. We could hear Jeremy muttering while he closed all the cupboard doors. Then after a moment of silence, he tried to sneakily slip the box into his jacket. As the box came away from the shelf all the cutlery came crashing to Jeremy's feet. After a startled yell, he just said "whatever!"

When we were just about finished school, Jer and I met our good friend, Scott. I was already dating my wife, Robyn at the time. Jeremy, Scott, Robyn, and I spent a lot of time together. Aside from hours of, "going for coffee," we would also go out hiking a lot as well. We used to get groups of people together and go out in the woods with water guns and have water fights. All four of us used to go out to Likely Bible Camp to be camp counselors. We also went to Likely many times just for fun. With Jeremy's love for bad cheesy puns he'd always end up saying, "Now that's a likely story."

Once, the four of us went hiking out in the Likely area. We had seen a mountain on an earlier trip and decided we would camp at the top. We looked at a topographical map of the area and decided it must be"Three Ladies Mountain" although in reality we had no idea which mountain it actually was. The next weekend we piled into my '85 Ford Tempo and headed out. The first couple of hours were alright, until Robyn got stuck on a glacier about half way up. Then it was all down-hill from there(pun intended). When we reached the top, we started to enjoy one of the best views I've ever seen.
Within seconds it started to rain, and it never quit for 24 hours. By the time we had camp set up everything was soaked and there was no chance of a fire. We went to bed cold and wet. We were sleeping alright, until 5:00am when Jeremy decided that if he couldn't sleep, no one was going to sleep. He started doing his Forrest Gump impersonation; the scene where Gump was talking about the rain in Vietnam. "Little tiny rain, big fat rain, stinging rain, rain that comes in from the side, etc..." I thought Robyn was going to kill him. Jer always loved doing impersonations from movies, but sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between his John Wayne and his Arnold Swartzenegger.
The trip down the mountain was an experience as well. It rained the whole way down. We tried coming down a different way than we came up. There was no footing and the only way to keep from sliding down the mountain and off a cliff was to hang onto these slippery vines that were coming out of the ground. Which of course got Robyn and Jer singing, "George of the Jungle." When we finally got to the car, not one but two of my tires were flat! By then Robyn was very ill so Jeremy and Scott hitchhiked back to Likely to get Gerry Stanley to come rescue us. A good time was had by all...

I also have very good memories from the weekend that Robyn and I went away for the weekend with Jeremy and Donna, back when they were just engaged. The four of us went to with Jer's sister Lisa and her husband Shawn. Aside from having a great time, it was our chance to really get to know Donna. Over the years it was a real blessing to see how happy Donna made Jeremy.

There are thousands of stories I could tell about Jeremy...

I could talk about the time he and I almost got kicked out of the Smitty's in 100 mile house for giggling like schoolgirls.

Or when our graduating class(Jeremy, my cousin Chris, and I) went out to Farwell Canyon for our grad pictures.

Or when we choreographed "Clearly Canadian" and "Tender Talking Time" with my brother Mark.

Or when Jer lived in the loft of the church, or when he lived in Nellie Stanley's shed, or when he lived in a warehouse with Donna.

Or how he couldn't put on a tuxedo without turning into James Bond.

Or I could tell a million stories about Jer's Blazer or his Camaro.

Or I could talk about trying to help Jer set up his website recently.

Or I could tell you about his juicing parties, or him videotaping himself eating breakfast(and then making everyone watch it), or the time Josh shot a hole in the wall of Jeremy's bedroom, or Jeremy showing me all of his childhood haunts in Chase.


Or I could talk about Jeremy and I trying to help each other through the loss of Josh.

Everyone who knew Jeremy could tell lots of great stories.

Today's service is a celebration of Jeremy's life. There is a lot to celebrate. I can celebrate him as the best man at my wedding, and as a great friend. My daughters celebrate him as an uncle. Leroy and Rose can celebrate him as a terrific son. Donna can celebrate him as an amazing husband and father.

We all respect Jeremy for his incredible depth of faith and courage.

Jeremy, thank you for everything, we will all miss you very much.