Improbable monument

My dad sent this letter to our local West Marin Citizen newspaper yesterday, but I wanted to post it here for all those who knew him, and perhaps explain why I will not be celebrating Cinco De Mayo, and why I've been in a foul mood all week:

"Jake Velloza died serving our country in Iraq over the weekend. For any of us that knew him, this is hard to believe, because his life force was so strong. For my own purposes of coping, I offer you my two favorite Jake moments.

I met Jake when he was in middle school and it was obvious he was a person who enjoyed a good laugh. So along with a couple other kids in town, whenever I'd see him hanging out in Point Reyes, doing nothing, I would sarcastically tell him to get a job. Part of this was jest, and part of it was my hope that he not end up as another casualty of the West Marin stoner culture. When he told me he'd joined the Army, I told him, "Not that job, another job." He laughed because he knew how I felt about the war in Iraq, but I also made sure he knew how much I respected him for doing a job I could never do.

My favorite Jake moment, however, was the day he stopped by unannounced, looking for either of our sons. There weren't home, and I was writing, but he asked if he could come in a few minutes and talk with me about something. This is difficult to write about, but what he wanted to talk about was love. He said I was the most openly in love man he'd ever met and he wanted know more about that. He wanted to know when I knew, and how it was that I still felt that way after so many years. It was quite a chat, and we moved from the living room to the deck, because we both loved the sounds of Inverness. We talked about an hour and he shared with me his hope and desire to one day fall in love. I realized this hope was at the very core of what made Jake so sweet and fun. It was a wonderful conversation.

We stayed in periodic touch during his deployment and it was on Facebook that I learned about his engagement to Danielle. I never met her, but it was obvious that Jake had found what he was looking for in our conversation. It was also obvious how much he wanted to get home and be with her. I told him how much I looked forward to meeting her and giving him a big hug.

It is very difficult to comprehend how he died, so I'm going to remember the Jake I knew while he lived in Inverness...raiding our fridge for leftovers, challenging me to Tiger Woods Golf, and looking for what was most important to him...love.

We all loved you, Jake. We always will.

Jeffrey Hickey
Inverness"


Jake was a year older than me, but that didn't matter when you were going to a 240 kid school. Everyone was just tight. We all knew each others last names, and what we were all about. When I was a freshman in high school, Jake found one of my drawings on the bus and asked me to do a drawing for him. I asked him what he wanted, and he replied with exitment after a few seconds of deliberation, "A homeless dude spooning out a dead hooker's eye!"

This was not much of a challenge. I scribbled it out and when we were on the last 5 minute stretch to school, I showed it to him. "DUUUUUDE" he exclaimed. He took the book and started handing it around in exaltation. "Check out what Brenden just drew!" I had never felt so championed. An upperclassmen was bragging my artwork to a bunch of kids who were probably thinking about hazing me. Jake may have thought that I was doing something for him, but I never told him how much he did for me. Every couple of days he would yell another improbable image at me on the bus, and I would get right to inking it in. And every time, he would hold up what I did, laughing hysterically like he just found some Gary Larson comic he hadn't seen before.

I was never hazed in High School. In fact, some of the coolest kids I knew asked me for tattoo designs that year. Jake Velloza honored me by holding me in such esteem. And for that I looked up to him as I went from boy to young adult.

When I found out he was going to Iraq, I was shocked, but respected his decision. At his going away party I gave him a big hug and told him to keep his head down, but he knew how I felt about the war. I had to let it go then. There was no way I was gonna tell him what was on my mind, because he needed to be strong, and know that he had our support.

I never got to tell him that I always supported him. All these years he was deployed I never touched the subject. We'd chat on facebook sometimes, myspace years before, but it was usually about me, or his fiancee. we both knew that to talk about the fighting, I would just get upset and not be able to relate, and he wouldn't be as strong as he could be. It was the same way for everyone else, I'm sure. We all knew he was in a tank unit. We all feared for him, and we all knew we needed to keep him a hard shell.

Jake, I may have been against this war, but I never held that above the troops. This was a politician's fault. I always supported you, and was more proud of you than I ever said. I keep hitting myself as I write this, because I never once said this to your face. You are one of the biggest reasons I fell on my art as a place of escape and support, and now I'm and ART Education major at San Francisco State, Eight years later.

I can't believe you're gone. It's not fair.

We all loved you, Jake. We always will.

MY improbable monument will be a monument to spontaneous inspiration for non-sequitur art. I plan on detailing a marble carving of the homeless man spooning out a dead hooker's eye. I home that it will help people "laugh cause they're not sure what else to do," like Jake was so good at.