By Josh Linehan
The Brookings Beacon
Stories are how we remember. Telling each other — that’s how we create the world in our own minds, and how we share that world with others.
That’s a big reason this column is called Step Out On Your Porch. The soft parade of life rambles past us, daily, but it can sometimes feel like we’re all inside — inside our homes, inside our heads, inside our phones.
But you cannot petition the lord in prayer, and you cannot become anything you weren’t the day before without stepping outside and making yourself a part of something you don’t control.
When we laid our friend Jeremy Deutsch to rest in May, we told the stories. And, it turns out, everyone in town has a JD story. He was my first boss, and I’ll never have a better one, I heard. He used to pick me up when I didn’t have a car. He listened to me when nobody else did.
Here’s how his aunt Kim Vig says it:
“As I was trying to come up with the best ways to honor Jeremy, my mind kept going back to all of the stories we heard, both while he was sick and after he passed. Whether it was people messaging us, stopping us on the street or even in cards the family received, we heard so many stories of so many great things — big and small — Jeremy had done for people that we never heard about. Jeremy never did anything for attention or an attaboy, he did it because he truly cared about people.”
So Kim and Jeremy’s sister Kendra decided to try to take something awful and make something good out of it. To try and take the good he put in the world and multiply it, push it further, add another ripple in still waters. It will never cover the hole he left, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be used for good.
This weekend marks a year since Jeremy got his diagnosis: an aggressive brain tumor in an inoperable location. Everyone who loved him felt helpless.
And what better way to fight the feeling of helplessness than by helping others — and honoring Deutsch in the process.
Kim and Kendra came up with the idea of Live Like Jeremy Kindness Days. And the ask is simple: This weekend, do something kind for someone. It can be big or small. Buy a coffee for the car behind you in line. Cut a neighbor’s grass. Buy a stranger a beer, and toast to absent friends.
Here’s how Kendra and Kim put it:
“Jeremy spent his life helping others. He was generous, compassionate and always willing to lend a hand, often without seeking recognition.
“In his memory, we have chosen to transform those difficult days into something different.”
Can you do that for Deutsch?
Go and sit with someone who doesn’t have any visitors? Have a catch with a kid? Write a letter to an old friend? Buy a stranger a drink and cheer for the 49ers, if you can stomach it?
“Early on in his battle, Jeremy and I had a great talk about how his fight taught the rest of us to live life with more purpose and intention,” Vig said. “That’s what I hope these two days will help people focus on.”
There are cards available, too, if you’d like to do your good deed anonymously, but still challenge the recipient to pay it forward. Or just let them know about JD. You can pick them up at Cubby’s, the Beacon office, Brookings Radio and Cleanslate Design.
A year ago we all truly did feel helpless. It’s honestly still hard to think about it without feeling it, again.
But we are not helpless — not any of us. We can’t do a lot of things, but we can push JD’s light out into the world. We can make sure it’s as bright as a South Dakota summer afternoon, and we can keep him in our hearts and we can help other people, like he did.
And we can tell the stories. We can step out on our porch and engage with the whole world, not just the parts an algorithm feeds us. We can do what he asked us to do, with his last few months:
“Take a step back and try to take in all the beauty of life. Never take any day for granted. Don’t take your loved ones for granted. Love your friends harder. Do your best to be a good person.”
Linehan is the Beacon’s managing editor and welcomes story tips and comments at BrookingsBeacon@gmail.com
