I drove up this morning to attend Matt's funeral. Nokomis, Illinois is a typical small farm town in middle America. The kind of place where people leave their doors unlocked and business can still be done with nothing more than a hand shake. I understood where Matt's integrity and all around goodness came from. It seemed like most of the town showed up for his funeral. It was standing room only, and there were a number of people standing.

His family had created picture boards depicting various stages in Matt's life, from early child hood all the way to the present. Of the hundreds of photographs of Matt's entire life I looked at, I can't remember one single picture where Matt wasn't smiling that big, larger than life goofy smile of his. There were two large photographs of Matt on top of the closed casket. Someone had placed a rather large Gurkha cigar along one of the photographs.

The pastor had never met Matt but clearly had spent a lot of time with his family. Of course he told of Matt's weight lifting prowess and the gentle giant that Matt was. He told how instead of taking his dirty clothes to the washing machine, Matt would take the washing machine to his clothes. How his Christmas presents were usually something to do with weight training and they were usually so heavy, his family couldn't bring them in to put under the tree. Matt was the only one who could lift them. But he also told some stories of what a conniving scamp Matt could be. He told of one time, many years ago, when he wrote a letter to Santa Claus and played the sympathy card trying to get Santa to help him get with a girl he had his eye on. He was chasing skirts even back then. I did get a big kick out of the music selection that started playing. Someone had set up a play list with several typical slow, mellow songs. Then suddenly, "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath started blasting through the speakers. This was followed by several additional head banging metal songs Matt listened too when he was lifting. Several of the more elderly people in attendance started squirming a bit. I know Matt was watching and laughing his ass off.

I remember the asshole side of Matt as well. Matt loved to stir the pot and get two people going just so he could set back and watch the fire works and then get the innocent look on his face like, "I didn't do it". I also remember setting in Whitey's with Matt talking about how heart broken he was when his girl friend broke up with him. He asked me the same question my own son asked me when the same thing happened to him. "What do I do now?" I told Matt the same thing I told my own son. I told him he would get up in the morning and get on with his life. Keep moving forward. He got through it but I don't think it ever completely left him. Matt was the type that once he gave his heart, he didn't take it back very easily. I now understand that it's very easy to tell someone to "move on" and "get on with life" but it's a lot harder to actually do it.

Matt was clearly cherished in his home town. I know we cherished his friendship in his new home. Everyone who knew and loved Matt at Whitey's is still pretty torn up about his death. He was only 23 and was taken much too young. He was 3 years younger than my own son and had grown into a young man any father would be proud to call son.