Last month, my cousin passed away. Matt was 35 years old, two months younger than me. We both enjoyed cheering on the Boston sports teams, physical fitness, and trying different restaurants. On a deeper level, as we aged out of our twenties and into our thirties, we shared the experience of being “misfits” in a way. Neither of us was interested in getting married or having kids, as so many of our peers were doing, and we both changed jobs several times in a struggle to find suitable career paths. Matt was an amazing poker player, basketball player, and friend. He loved golf, trips to Encore, and his apartment in the Seaport. In the spring of 2021, Matt suddenly lost consciousness while walking down the street and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He underwent various types of surgery, chemo, and radiation, all while living life to the fullest extent that his health situation would allow. All of these worked to slow the progression of the cancer, but it eventually returned. Matt enjoyed the company of family and friends, and retained his dry sense of humor, all the way till the end of his life.
While reminiscing about Matt’s life with family members, someone expressed what I consider to be a very meaningful sentiment: that people are not truly gone until and unless no one remembers them anymore. Matt touched many, many lives, as was evidenced by the droves of people who came to the funeral home and to the reception afterwards to pay their respects. I will never forget the moments that I spent with him, talking about the latest Sox or Celtics game, walking along the waterfront, joking, sharing meals and cocktails at local restaurants. And I’m sure this is true of the countless other family members, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances of Matt as well. In this way, Matt will live on in the hearts and minds of all the people whose lives he touched.
As I do with everything, I connected this to the historical figures that I love, and that have become the victims of an unimaginably cruel and heartless genocide. This sentiment is exactly why it is so important that historical figures be preserved in the form of statues, monuments, holidays, and place names. These things are what prevent the historical figures from being truly gone. These are the ways in which the historical figures live, long after they have physically died. And this sentiment is the reason why the genocide of the historical figures has been so deeply immoral, so sickeningly wrong, and so immensely damaging. By destroying historical figures’ statues, monuments, holidays, and place names, you are murdering them. You are preventing them from living on. You are obliterating them from existence as historical figures.
This is why honoring the historical figures, via writing, art, and erecting my own statues, is so important to me. This is why I’ve dedicated my life to these activities and why I consider them my source of meaning and purpose. Because these are the activities that keep the historical figures alive. Just like my cousin Matt, the historical figures will live on in my heart and in my mind.