Tribute from Memorial Service:

My name is Bekah, and I am Zach’s favorite sister. I didn’t always have this title. I earned it over time because as teenagers, Zach and I did not get along at all. And I’m not sure he was particularly excited that Leah and I both followed him to the University of Memphis. He was the oldest of a bunch of kids which meant nothing was ever just his.

To sum up my big brother is a difficult task because he had a lot of great qualities, but I’ll focus on the obvious ones we all know him for like his loyalty, kindness, generosity, intelligence and his adoration for Addison.

I’ll start with his loyalty. He was a loyal friend, coworker, and sports fan. His friendship did not waiver nor was it one sided or did he require an equitable contribution from his friends.

As a University of Memphis graduate and Memphian for 3 decades, he was a steadfast Tigers fan. He was a season ticket holder and regularly donated to U of M scholarship funds. He also rooted for the Grizzlies, and since childhood, Zach has been a Dallas Cowboys fan which is a very frustrating and difficult fan to be.

When we were kids, we shared a wall between our bedrooms, and it was a nightly occurrence to hear music coming through his side of it. Unbeknownst to him, his interest in various types of music influenced my robust musical palate. Zach didn’t just listen to music, he studied it. He would discover a band or musician, and he needed to know all the members names, their origin story, the song lyrics, and the meaning behind the songs. He wanted to know the evolution of the band and their influences that created their sound. I remember when he started ‘studying’ The Doors. He would play “The End”. I told him once that it was depressing, and he went into an explanation about how the song started out as one thing but Jim Morrison added lyrics ultimately making the song about death and life and the cosmos. Not that I cared because I was a teenager but it interested him and he liked to share what he learned. When he started driving, we listened to whatever he was listening to at the time. When I hear “Gin & Juice” or any song from Snoop Dogg’s first album (which I won’t name because we are in church), I flash back to being 14 years old riding to school in his blue Honda Accord. And then I think that was probably inappropriate for us to be listening to. In college, he became a fan of the Allman Brothers Band and Black Crowes which became his long time favorite bands. He also liked music from the 70s like Faces, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughn. He named his beloved dog “Ophelia” after the song by the Band. She was a rat terrier and she lived for 126 dog years. (I hope they are reunited because he’s the only person who liked that dog.)

He preferred to listen to music live or on vinyl records. For him, there is something authentic and pure about the sound when the needle moves through the grooves of a record.

Like a record, his brain was always spinning. Of all of us, Zach is definitely the smartest. He was always thinking, problem solving, and innovating. Even from his hospital bed he was coming up with ridiculous but useful inventions. Not all were great because there were heavy drugs involved, but my favorite was a squirrel launcher. After explaining to me how it works, hesaid ‘Dad would like that one. He can’t stand squirrels.’

When his coworkers came to visit him in the hospital, he would tell them of an idea he had while he had been lying in the bed…ideas for projects they were working on; code that could be written to improve something or a process to make a user experience better. I had no idea what they were talking about because they were speaking another language, and I don’t speak Nerd. But his colleagues thought they were great ideas. They referred to them as “ZachGPT”. In fact, his colleague Steven told me that he once casually complained to Zach that he had a dry patch in his lawn, so Zach built an API integration with a soil moisture sensor that triggered Alexa to notify Steven when it got too dry. Both nerdy and thoughtful.

He was also kind and generous. If you had a meal with him, you didn’t pay. It was kind of his thing. He was known for it among his friends and family. I haven’t paid for a meal in his presence since we were in college. It was common to sit at the bar with him to have a meal which often developed into conversations with strangers sitting nearby. If they were celebrating something or they worked in a difficult field like first responders, he would pay for their meal or at minimum put their drinks on his tab. He would find some way to perform an act of kindness and to put a little good in the world as often as he could. No grand gestures that brought attention, but little golden nuggets of good deeds spread about where ever he was.

He was also funny. The humor between us was childish. No matter how many years we aged, we still acted like we were in middle school. We would send memes, videos, or articles to each other almost every day. I’m not special by the way, he did this with a lot of people. But ours was usually toilet humor, childish jabs, or articles about science experiments like ‘Your farts aren’t sounding right: new AI that can diagnose cancer from people’s bathroom sounds’. And we would marvel that someone said YES to funding this research and that a scientist got paid to study other people’s flatulents. He would say “What a time to be alive!”. He minored in biology so it’s no surprise he subscribed to Science Magazine where he would come across articles like “Caterpillars fling feces remarkable distances to fake out predators”. I’m not sure either of us actually read any of the articles to educate ourselves but rather simply giggled at the titles.

He was also well traveled and had been to many countries around the world. But he was particularly fascinated with Japanese bathrooms and he would tell me about the technology built into Japanese toilets and would say, “The Japanese really have it figured out.”

His childish humor also made him a wonderful dad. He and Addison have a “Dad joke” book that they would take turns reading jokes to each other and giggle. As a toddler, she would take him by the hand and pull him around where ever she wanted him to go. He did whatever she wanted to do. When he was sick, she was the best medicine. Nobody cheered him up like she did. They watched Scooby Doo and played video games and snuggled a lot. Before he was diagnosed he had began teaching her computer coding. He was always thinking of ways to create something fun for her or immerse her in interesting technology. He was building a Minecraft Server so they could have a private server where they could safely mine with my kids from afar. He was also building a video game race-car chair for her similar to what you see at an arcade. He never stopped providing exciting ways for her to experience childhood. It brought him great joy and it fed his childlike curiosity about the world. He told her he loved her and was proud of her often. He didn’t know these would be his last words spoken to her, but he told her, “I’m so proud of you and I love you, Addison. You’re my favorite person.”

After the initial shock of his diagnosis and coming to terms with it, I focused on the blessings. We spent more time together in 8 months than we had in 8 years. We lived together for weeks at a time which was fun because we had not lived together since he left for college. We watched a lot of Star Wars and both agreed that Rogue One is our favorite of the Disney produced films. We learned a lot more about each other and relearned things we had forgotten. For example, I had forgotten how much he loves Murder She Wrote and that he thought Angela Lansbury was a national treasure.

We laughed, cried, and squabbled some but not much. We had vulnerable and difficult conversations that brought us closer together. We were able to say all the things we never said out loud but felt. We talked about our shared childhood, plans for the future, and regrets or risks we didn’t take but should have. I met his people from all aspects of his life. He said to me one day, “You know what, Bekah? I think you’re the only person who knows every part of my life. You now know my coworkers, my closest buddies, my oldest buddies, my fraternity brothers, my childhood friends, and of course our entire family. You even know my doctors.” I pondered that for a moment and thought, “Man, what a gift.” While his diagnosis was fast and tragic, it was a privilege to be one of the many people in his village who showed up for him.

I’m convinced that we are supposed to show up for each other. That we are supposed to leave this world better than we found it. It’s the whole point. Maybe we do that with acts of kindness, sharing our wealth of wisdom, or serving others in any capacity we have to offer. Zach did that. He left this world young, but he left it better than he entered it by making impacts on each of us in his own way.

You have all shown up for us and many of you the past 10 months. It means so much to our family. The calls, texts, prayers, checking in, providing food, asking “how can I help?’ Even when we didn’t know how to answer. It’s been very touching and comforting. And that's what people need when they’re grieving; comfort. I hope that as you grieve with us, that you find comfort and healing as well.

I encourage you to drop little nuggets of kindness like Zach. Maybe pay for someone’s coffee… or their meal… or put a stranger’s drink on your own tab and think of Zach when you do. When you hear a Black Crowes or Allman Brother’s song, I hope he comes to mind and you crank it up as loud as your ears can handle it.

I’d like to play an Allman Brothers song called Soulshine for you. In Zach fashion, I have to tell you a bit about it. It was written by Warren Haynes, one of the guitarists in the band. Haynes was writing about keeping true to yourself, but he wanted for it to have a universal message of hope and resilience. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Zach still lived with hope and resilience but he also had his moments of difficulty coming to terms with it. I think this song resonates with the times he felt defeated and the times he talked himself back into living as best he could.