By Aggie Brenneman
(read at St. Alberts Priory)

One of my fondest memories of David occurred right over there. Every Christmas Eve the Gulassas come over for a traditional Slovak dessert, Babbalki, and then we walk over to St. Albert’s for midnight mass. Usually we arrive late, and one year the only place left to sit was on the side of the altar where extra chairs were placed. David, Cyrille, and Lise were on one side, and Stefan, my kids, and I on the other. Throughout the entire mass David made us laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe. (I’m sorry Father) We knew we shouldn’t look at him, but that magnetism of his compelled us to, and he tortured us.

I am here today representing so many of you who watched David grow. Actually, David was already 13 years old when we moved into the neighborhood. We took many family trips together, mostly to Baha where David and his siblings entertained us at night with shadow hand puppets from behind a tent screen, and made magnificent sand castles on the beach.

You know, sometimes you meet a kid who is a really old soul -- who is 14 going on 40. And in many ways David was that kind of kid. It’s not that he wasn’t playful; we all know how funny and goofy and “over the top” David could be. But when he worked on a project, he exuded such confidence. When he was 16, he constructed a doll house for my daughters. It has such refined detail, including a roof of tiny cedar shingles and porch pillars that he had turned on a lathe.

When he was 17, I asked David to design a deck for our house. The carpenter was ready to extend the small side porch into a larger rectangle, but David had other ideas, starting with raising the deck to make it an extension of the kitchen. He came up with a most complex plan that integrated the design of the house. It blew us away! At age 17, how did he know so much?

The Birth Order Book characterizes a “later born” as being unconventional, non-conforming, and adventurous. That does describe one aspect of David, but he was much more. Harriet had nurtured and inspired his creativity by putting her art studio in the central part of the house -- the dining room with the white smooth surface table top that David had installed.

Cy’s cleverness and wit instilled the storyteller, actor, comedian in David. I’ll never forget David’s talent for languages, when wearing his black beret, he spoke in perfect Italian, “Fettucini Alfredo oso bucco. Chiao Rigatoni!” And when David sat around the dinner table with all his siblings, the level of competition for the funniest act was certainly raised.

But more than anything, Harriet and Cy gave David their trust. They encouraged him in his projects, even if it did mean tearing off the roof at age 15, or bicycling across the states at 16, or trekking in Nepal at age 19. He did so much, and he did it with style and grace. I remember David taking us on a tour of the foundry outside Snohomish. He wore a white linen suit and matching shoes in the middle of the black carbon-laced foundry. (Funny thing is -- when I mentioned this to Cy the other day, Cy recalled that David had worn a white suit the day he had taken them around).

Yes, David is very much a product of his parents, and like his parents who place a lot of importance on family gatherings, David became a magnet in the Pacific Northwest, embracing his siblings into the company, and then finding the house on Vashon Island that he and Tracy purchased with Harriet and Cy.

I’ve heard it said that some people in the world are comets, shooting across the universe with boundless energy, creativity, and influence; and only a few lucky others are there to witness the dazzle that they create. All of us here today were fortunate to have caught that glimpse, and to have experienced the comet that was David.

And now we hold on to the memories, and laugh and cry as we think of them, and hope that by doing so, we can glean the energy and be illuminated -- so that we can find that other way to build a deck that pushes out the limits of the rectangle, that allows the tree to bloom in the center and the stairs to cascade like a waterfall, and to bring in those we love, to share the fun and laughter while we do it.

Oh second born son
You did your role well
Adventurer, Risk-taker,
Nonconformist.
At a young age you set out
to burn bicycle tires on beaten paths,
trek high Himalayas,
sift sands of Greek Isles.
You, who embodied the cleverness
and humor of Cy,
the esthetic sense of Harriet,
and packaged it with your
own magnetism and style.
You, the third born, almost
middle child, who brought
the ends together.
Your stories are the stories
of your brother and sister above,
and the three below.
Your tales will be retold
and carried in the hearts,
minds and actions
of all the Gulassas
and of everyone
you touched.