Thanks for your email.  Justin has been on my mind almost every day in the past few months.  I am so grateful to have known him and the rest of you, Chesnuts.  I have two things to share.  The first is an article I wrote for the Papyrus that was printed a week after Chester passed.

Justin Chesnut was a 2007 graduate magna cum laude of Greenville College.  He was a double major: Social Work and Management. He was a brother, a son, a boyfriend, a best friend and one of the most beautiful people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Justin suffered from muscular dystrophy, and died of heart failure at his home in Effingham on Wednesday, October 15th in the morning.
There are so many things that can be said of Justin, that it’s very difficult to whittle it down to a few short paragraphs for this article so I won’t try. I will say for myself that Justin had the faith of biblical proportions. Through constant struggles with his health, he achieved more than most: valedictorian of his high school, continued walking until he was 20 (when doctors said no later than 12), nearly straight A’s through 5 years of college, competed nationally at Future Business Leaders of America, Chi Beta Sigma scholar, and many other accomplishments. Never once did he complain about his disease, or use it as an excuse not to do his best. Justin’s life is a beacon and an example to all of us.
I wanted a few others to share their thoughts about Justin. Professor Jack Chism had this to say: “Justin couldn’t reach behind him to pass papers; he couldn’t raise his arms high enough to write on a chalkboard.  But in his years here, I never heard him complain about that or anything else.  He knew he’d never see a thirtieth birthday, but still studied hard, prepared for the future, and faced his troubles with good cheer, always.”
Chair of the Management Department Dr. Ivan Filby “I have so many good memories of Justin. My overwhelming memories of him were that he was always well prepared for class and was very bright indeed. I recall being with him in Nashville when he placed 4th in the nation in the Phi Beta Lambda Management Analysis and Decision Making competitive examination. I was so proud of him and bragged about him in all of his classes. I still do! He had a deep faith and was always positive. I am really glad to have known him and that we will have eternity to hang out together.”
While praying together the night after he passed, Ian Kitterman, a 2006 graduate who was Justin’s personal assistant for nearly 3 years, said “I think it’s ironic that God would use someone who was so weak, to teach me about strength.” Muscular dystrophy is a degenerative muscle disease, and Justin was confined to a wheelchair.
Before Justin passed he spent a lot of time talking to his brother Jared Chesnut about heaven, and he was confident that the first things he would do would be to play the piano, the saxophone, and baseball again. Justin said he’d be the best shortstop Jared had ever seen. And if I know Justin, he’s practicing ever so diligently, and he will be the best that any of us have ever seen.

The second thing I’d like to share is not so much a memory but how Chester still has a huge affect on my life.  And at the risk of sounding kind of silly, I’ll tell you.  Whenever I’d use a public restroom I’d almost always use the handicap accessible one.  This was simply because it’s larger, less of a chance for me to touch anything in the bathroom other than the floor with the soles of my shoes. Often I’d wonder what would happen if an actual handicapped person came in while I was using it, “would I be embarrassed?”  Luckily it never happened.  In light of what happened recently I decided to stop using the “extra large” stall and use a regular (read that as “extra small”) stall instead.  I call it a “pouring one out for my homie” just like I’ll take every opportunity to make a pun joke in tribute to Ian Kitterman.  This adjustment of my behavior is a tribute to Chester, though the tribute is only known to me, which is fine.  Every time that I go against my regular actions I think of Chester, I think of our friendship and his great love for me, I think God for him, I pray for him and his, and I pray for myself.  In this way I also do not forget about him (how could I possibly?)  For this is one of my biggest fears, forgetting.  I’m so happy that Chester is in a better place, and he’s whole, and completely fulfilled, but I am also still very sad to be without him.  Thank you for the opportunity to put my memories of him into words yet again, because he still lives on inside us, and remembering him makes him feel alive to me.

Merry Christmas, Chesnuts.

Charles Francis Macri in his Haledon (NJ) Fire Chief uniform. I don’t think he played piano, Grandma did though. She tried to teach my Dad how to play when he was a kid. But he was much more interested in baseball. Piano fell by the wayside. Too bad too. Maybe if he learned how to play he could’ve learned how to sing. He’s tone deaf, seems to like to sing though. At least worship songs at church. He’ll sing with everyone else. Sounds pretty bad though, but so does Mom’s Dad.
Also to the left of Grandad is my Grandma and her sister, my great-aunt Em. Aunt Em is whispering in Grandma’s ear. Aunt Em passed away last year. Grandma’s second sister who has died out of three. Odd how the two surviving are the youngest, Grandma Macri, and the eldest, Aunt Lottie. Lot is 94 I believe. Still up, and about. Losing her eye sight, hearing, and seems to have a mild case of Alzheimer’s. She worries Grandma a lot. Mostly ’cause if she fell it’d be really bad. She seems to annoy Grandma a lot too ’cause she’ll try to tell us stories about when she was younger, but they get so convoluted nobody know what she’s talking about (besides the fact that we don’t know who she’s talking about anyway…)

Grandad in his Marine uniform. Damn good looking man. His father, Pasqual Macri, full blood Italian, and his mother, Bertha Decker, was full blooded German. So he’s 50-50 Italino-Germano. Grandma Macri is full blooded Irish. So Dad’s 25-25-50 Italian-German-Irish respectively. I’m not sure what background Mom is so I don’t know what I am. I will know soon though as I’m trying to compile my family tree and all relevant information on Ancestry.com

This is Doris Mae (Crothers) Macri. Born in Ireland. Moved to the US, I think, when she was in her late teens. Grandad Macri was born in America although his father was from Italy, again I think. Next time I’m home, hopefully, I’ll have my recording gear and I’m going to try to get Grandma’s (and Grandad’s although he isn’t alive) oral life story. Then I’ll know. Anyway. It’s wild to me to think that two people from different continents cames together and because of that I’m here. And to think my parents both had other people they were thinking of marrying before they met each other. The sheer odds.

By that logic it’s a miracle anyone in particular is born.

I had asked a few friends who had gotten theirs taken out, and one in particular, one who used to do drugs and smoke weed and stuff said that afterwards he felt the highest in his life.  Needless to say, as one who’s never done drugs, and has never been drunk, I was excited to feel this way.  But, after “waking up” I only felt overly happy and a little woozy.  My roommate Matt Scheer said I was pretty talkative.  More than usual.  I felt like I was doing it on purpose in the hopes to say something ridiculous and hilarious for them all to crack up about.  No feeling of being high, and nothing ridiculous came out of my mouth.  Oh well, maybe next time I’ll be one some harder stuff…

Over the weekend I didn’t do anything particularly chill.  I walked around the St. Louis Zoo for hours on Saturday with Ian and Mandy.  Ate Imo’s for dinner, which I was surprised I could handle.  I expected to be on soft foods all weekend.  Came home and hung out with Rob till late in the evening.

Sunday I woke up pretty tired, and more woozy than even.  I sat around, sewed some jeans, watched the Pianist, which I was unfortunately uninterested in while it was going on, and messed with Matt’s guitar.  I had planned on going to church most of the day, an early service, a 10am service, and an evening service at 7pm.  I forgot to set an alarm, slept till 10:25, then felt too woozy to drive to the evening service.  Lame, but what can you do.

I hadn’t thought of this till today, but all my equilibrium and balance systems are in my head, pretty close to where my top wisdom teeth are.  I was thinking that I was woozy ’cause of the Meds, but it’s cause of the teeth.  The only noticeable effect the meds have had are with tiredness.  I still feel pretty disoriented even now (Tuesday night.)  I wonder when I’ll get back to normal.  Work gets uncomfortable when I have trouble standing up straight.  I hadn’t been able to work overtime the past two days (or rather, didn’t) ’cause I felt this way.  This weekend is a 3 day weekend and I’m going home to see my family.  I hope to be a-okay for that.  We’ll see.

Monday night we went to slackers and I sold a bunch of cds (including the awful new Copeland) and bought Curl Up and Die’s entire catalog and Breather Resist’s Charmer.  6 cds, 6 bucks after a 28 buck trade-in.  What a deal.  Hot damn.

McNamara narration: “It wasn’t until January of 1992 in a meeting chaired by Castro in Havana, Cuba that I learned that 162 nuclear warheads and 90 tactical warheads were on the island [of Cuba] at this critical moment of the crisis.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and Castro got really angry with me because I said:”

McNamara: “Let’s stop this meeting, this is totally new to me, Mr. President [Castro], I’m not sure I got the translation right.  Mr. President I have three questions to you.  Number one, did you know the nuclear warheads were there?  Number two, if you did, would you have recommended to [Russian President Nikita] Khrushchev, in the face of a US attack, that he use them?  Number three, if he had used them what would have happened to Cuba?”
Castro: “Number one, I knew they were there.  Number two, I would not have recommended to Khrushchev, I did recommend to Khrushchev that they be used.  Number three, what would have happened to Cuba?  It would have been totally destroyed.”

McNamara narration: “That’s how close we were [to nuclear war.]”

Director: “And he was willing to accept that?”

McNamara nar.: “Yes, and he went on to say…”

Castro: “Mr. McNamara, if you and President Kennedy had been in a similar situation that’s what you would have done.”

McNamara: “Mr. President, I hope to God that is not what we would have done.  Pull the temple down over our heads, my God!”

He has a few other interesting things to say:

“In my seven years as Secretary [of Defense] we came within a hair’s breadth of war with the Soviet Union three times.  24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 7 years as the Secretary of Defense I lived the cold war.  During the Kennedy administration they designed a 100-megaton bomb.  They tested the bomb in the atmosphere, I remember this.  The cold war?  Hell, it was a hot war!”

“A Hand That Signed a Paper” by Dylan Thomas
“The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose’s quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow”

He had a little trouble getting to my house that night.  He was coming from St. Peters, which is about 20 highway minutes away given decent traffic which hardly ever happens when you’re coming into the city from the county at any hour.  Lucky for him though, going out to the county is worse.  After a little more than 30 minutes pass he calls me to make sure he just turned the right way onto the Rock Road, which he did.  I think.  Maybe he didn’t, I’m not good at all with directions East/West/North/South on roads.  I have no concept of that.  I remember directions by sight, or by which direction I turn onto which road.  Anyway, I thought he should’ve went the opposite direction than he did, so I told him to turn around and look for Walton.  He did, and didn’t see it.  About 7 minutes goes by, he calls me again not knowing where he is.  He turns around yet again.  We do this a couple more times.

When he finally makes it to my house I notice he’s driving a green, Dodge Neon.  Mandy’s car.  I see the Greenville College parking sticker on the back windshield.  The sticker read “Jr./Sr.” and it was stuck over top the previous year’s sticker and the one before that, and before that.  I don’t blame her, I couldn’t scrape the old stickers off my car either.  When I tried they just chalked up kind of like how a lottery ticket does when you scrape it with a quarter or a penny or your finger, except a lot more difficult.  That doesn’t really make sense.  I wish I knew more words.

Ian got out of the car, “Hey man” he said with a smile that always made me happy, and we hugged.  I forgot how tall he is.  Or maybe I’ve grown shorter with what sometimes feels like the weight of the worry of the world on my shoulders.  Greenville was a bubble were the gravitational pull of the earth was weakened, or like we were walking on lighter more forgiving ground.  Everything feels heavier in the real world.  Ian looked good.  His hair is naturally curly so he doesn’t have to do anything to it for it to look good.  Mine falls forward and lays atop my head.  It may still be too short to mess with it because of that weird spot above my forehead that has thinned out.  Maybe I’ll try some gel or something tomorrow.

I gave Ian a tour of the house, he thought it really good for just three people living in it, even if Matt and I will only be here for a couple months.  He’s right.  It’s great.  I would like to stay here longer, but I’m happy for the time we have.  Later on in the evening he talks about not wanting to be a mooch anymore.  I think I feel the same way.  After the tour, we hop into my green, Dodge Spirit and drive down Midland to Delmar for dinner.  I figured since neither of us really knew what we wanted to eat, that the Loop we give us plenty of options.  Ian’s never been much of a decision maker, so I thought Big V’s would be good.  I was in the mood for a burger anyway.

I walked in the entrance and Big V himself was walking out of the kitchen through the access door beside the counter.  His brother was sitting at a table and he sat down to talk to him.  Ian and I, while waiting in line we only four feet from the two so we couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.  Amidst the F’s and S’s and GD’s we could here an accent that reminds us both of our fathers.  Both Ian’s Dad and my own are fifty years old this year, and are from Jersey.  I was cracking up.  People who swear as if there are no other words they can say, as if replacing or removing the words for other adjectives and adverbs would make them sound unlike themselves, those to whom it just comes naturally have always made me laugh.  Matt makes me laugh.  He grew up in the ghetto, so swearing was what everyone did.  Mom, Dad, the neighbors, the kids down the street who play backwards tag, trip over tree stumps and bust their heads; they all swore.  And so, in like manner, does Matt.  I can’t help but laugh.

After we order, we sit down and I ask him how he’s doing.  And he lays it on me.  Everything.  He talked about the move to Saint Peters, the band, work at True Manufacturing, the company we both work for actually; everything.  He talks, I talk, we’re catching up.  And it’s great.  I miss everything there is about last year.  And the year before that.  Bubble and all, but mostly just my friends, and right now, Ian.  Towards the end of our conversation, Ian is upset.  “Is it nine o’clock already?”  But he says one of the most meaningful things I’ve heard in a while.  Earlier that day Ian called me and he thought he couldn’t make it out.  We were both upset because we were both very much looking forward to spending time together, but it ended up working out and he was able to make it.  He told me that he needed to talk to me.  That out of all his friends in the world, he could only think of three people he wanted to talk to about everything.  And one was me.

Wow.  I was taken aback.  This means a lot to me Ian, thank you.  I’ve been wanting to talk to you too, I’ve missed you so much.  Oh, how we need to take advantage of this time, and hang out while we can.  I had been feeling so left out, like I didn’t matter much to our group of friends who have all moved on to other things.  But that’s not true.  Not of any one of us.  We’re all still very much in each other’s hearts, no matter how far we’ve moved, or how long it’s been since we’ve tried to talk to each other.  I think Matt Good said it really well “Unfortunately, this stage of life is where we know we have to cut the veins from our heart and transplant it somewhere else. And then we do it. Good God.”  And yet, I think our hearts are still intertwined in a way, that we missed a vein in our haste or in our looking away because it was too painful to watch our hands do the severing.

I’m thinking about you Ian, and praying for you.  I’m praying for so many of you actually.  You may be surprised.

It’s easy to say that now but I’m sure even in a year all you’ll have to do is bat those eyes and I’ll believe all the lies