Paul Linden Myklebust, my best man in so many ways, is gone.
I’m convinced the best way to honor the dead is to honor the living, so I am asking you to embrace uniqueness and pursue legacy projects. That’s what Paul taught me, and the best way I can honor him is to share his lessons.
The past week has been spent trying (and failing) to distract myself. Before that, a week was spent preparing for the memorial service. A week before that, I was talking to Paul on the phone.
I’ve spent the past day finally reflecting on the weeks right before and after his death Alternating between anger and tears, I wrote a personal essay on life and death called “Meditations on Death.”
This reflection has taught me two lessons that will forever change my life: embrace uniqueness and pursue legacy projects.
Embrace Uniqueness
The things that annoyed me most about Paul were the things most celebrated after his death.
He never did what anyone expected of him or what people told him to do. It always frustrated me.
In college during our four years of living together, we talked about our futures, our relationships, our lives. I tried to help him plan and cheer him on, but he never listened. He did what he thought was right. As his brother-in-law said in his eulogy, many people wanted Paul to wear different shoes. In the end, he wore his own.
That’s what made him great. He was himself. Inspiring laughter, living in the present and enjoying a life saturated with love.
How many of us are worried about the shoes others want us to wear? When a healthy, loving 31 year-old can die in a flash, why would any of us waste our time in shoes that don’t fit?
Pursue Legacy Projects
During January of our freshmen year, Paul and I spent three weeks recording almost an hour of music that we wrote and played together. Using an old Gateway 2000 and a small sound mixer, we created our debut and farewell album, chillingly titled “Hello and Goodbye.”
The clairvoyance of this title cannot be overstated. We spent most of our first year saying hello and diving head first into music together. We continued to grow together. Beyond simply writing and recording music, we spent most of our waking and sleeping hours together.
We played frisbee together, ate together, sang in choir together, dated women who were friends and grew up together. We soon said goodbye to the recording career of our band P.S., but we remained best friends.
Somehow among all the amazing accomplishments Paul had in his life, this little CD remained one of the most memorable. People talked about it in his remembrances, and the CD played in many of their cars as they headed to the funeral. The CD was even on display among his childhood photos at the funeral.
Maybe the album was remembered because it brought a little of him back or because it was his first step in becoming an adult. I think it’s because it took all of our creativity, energy and talent to create it. People on the outside could see that it mattered to Paul and that he was proud of it.
We never thought the album was a big deal. It was just something fun and challenging we wanted to do. Therein lies the lesson from Paul. We often say no to opportunities or projects because they won’t get us somewhere. They won’t further our career, make us money or we think they are too difficult.
Pursue legacy projects anyway. We were too naive at the time to know that we weren’t supposed to record an album in a dorm room in three weeks. We just did it. Now, looking back, it’s the best decision I ever made. It solidified our lifelong friendship and created something we could both be proud of.
Emulating Paul
How can we tell the living what we love about them and what we want to emulate in them?
Fortunately Paul was an open lover. He told me how he felt about me, and I did the same with him. In most relationships, however, we never share what we love about someone. Rarely do we tell others what it is about them we are trying to copy. We need to tell others that we love them, what we love about them and why we want to emulate those unique traits.
Everyone wanted to emulate Paul’s zest for life, his love for others, his ability to see both sides of the story and above all, to do what he thought was right. I should have told him I admired those traits instead of being frustrated he wasn’t listening to me. Who else in my life am I trying to change? Maybe I am trying to change them because I am too afraid to say I wish I could be like them.
There is unending praise we can give Paul. He was my best man in every facet of the word.
Now, he is gone. My life will not be the same, and I don’t want it to be the same. Right now I feel pain and emptiness. Amidst the pain, I need to learn from Paul and honor him as well as others around me.
Please learn from Paul. Be unique and pursue legacy projects. You will be remembered longer than you will ever know.
If you knew Paul or if you missed the chance and want to get to know him a little bit, feel free to watch a few of the videos that have been playing frequently since the funeral:
- Paul’s toast at my wedding
- A hilarious acoustic version of J-Sean’s “Down“
- “Heaven’s Gained an Angel” – A song by Paul honoring his grandfather, with words so haunting, you would think he wrote it about himself
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