My son Will’s beautiful words for his brother Walt at our life celebration.

Not Quite Yet

I am not here to tell you how my big brother, my best friend died. I am here to tell you how he lived. Let me tell you the man Walt IS not was but IS because he lives on in every person his endless love and kindness touched. Walt is not a noun. He is a verb. He is an unending action. A lot of people always say Walt and I look the same. First off, they are wrong, Walt is seven years older and way more handsome than me plus he has better arms. Walt and I are not the same person. No one can be as kind as Walt. No one can be as strong as Walt. No one can be as loyal as Walt. No one can be as caring and selfless as Walt. No one can be as smart as Walt.

Walt is my hero. Every time I had a rough patch in my life due to anxiety and depression, I knew I could count on him and I knew he had been through so much more than I could even fathom. I knew if he could get through the pain he felt every day then I could get through mine.

I didn’t lose my hero, my best friend, my big brother. He lives in me now. I carry him with me with every step I take. His courage, kindness, and strength is in all of us now.

This was the last message Walt sent me. I was a bit nervous about starting my own business. It is by Charles Bukowski well because of course it was ...

so you want to be a writer? ~ Charles Bukowski

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.