Andres' funeral

Fr. Michael, family and friends,

My name is Michelle. I speak to you today as Michael Andres’s mother.

Every part of my being, every part of my heart, wants to reject the reality before me, that my son, Andres, has passed on from this world and entered eternity, that my firstborn’s life here on earth is over, that all of his hard work to achieve his dreams will never see its full fruition, that his future family will never be, that his adventures and friendships, soccer-playing, creating of art and photography has come to an end, that his joy in living life as he did, with such passion and vitality, has come to an end.

I do not want to let him go.

Every part of me wants to cling to him, to hold him, to wrap him in the arms of my love, but Our Lord has asked for him back.

I know, from all of the messages we have received, and from those who have been with us throughout this difficult time, including today, that I am not alone in not wanting to let him go.

In trying to make sense of this situation, the following lines, from Psalm 139, have been on my mind and in my heart, these difficult days and nights.

“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

And of course, John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

How do you capture the sum of a life?

How do you recount the many, many memories you have, the smile, the joy, the accomplishment, the many conversations, the thoughts, the jokes, the hopes, the dreams, the friendships, but most of all the depth of shared love? How, with mere words, could I ever do justice to the person I know my son to be?

Michael Andres, “Andres” to those who knew him well, may my words in some small way honor you today, for it was my privilege to receive you as God’s great gift, my joy to know you, my gift to hold you so close in my arms, and forever my honor to call you my son.

~

Andres was a child who rarely cried.  I had naïvely assumed this was related to the way in which he was parented and the power of motherly love, but it was not about me, my parenting or my love, but rather one of Andres’ many gifts, the gift of living life with joy.

Andres wasn’t just joyful; he was also a super active child. As a young mother, I was constantly worried about his safety. He climbed things far too high for his small size and took on adventures without fear. Other parents would remark, in sheer amazement, “Is he always that active?”

Adventurous from the start, Andres was also an imaginative child. He created adventures for himself and anyone who would come along. I often exclaimed to Amaro that I did not understand boys, all this need for climbing, running, jumping off high things, seeking adventure and the conquering of everything around them.  When he was very little, I didn’t want him playing with toy guns – I didn’t want my son to know violence like that – but boys will be boys. With no toy guns from mom and dad, Andres and Alex used my garden tools, my shovels and rakes, to fight the invisible enemies of the world about them. After that, I decided it would be safer to provide them with toy weapons.

Andres was moving from the time he woke up until the time he went to bed. For us, it was just what we knew, but I now realize that his energy and drive were early clues to his remarkable athleticism.  Andres was a gifted athlete and soccer became one of his passions, as Andres’s brother Alex also shared with us. I think one of Andres’s crowning achievements in sports was earning a position on the San Diego White Tigers, a semiprofessional soccer team. He did this while attending school full time and working. He worked so hard to be there and said the intense training sessions with this team were the hardest he had ever trained in his life. Despite that, Andres went above and beyond, adding his own gym workouts and runs before those intense practices.  Most recently Andres had been playing indoor soccer with his good friend and longtime teammate, Alex Galinski, or “G” as Andres endearingly called him. “G” had moved out to California and Andres was so excited to share time with him again. Andres and Alex “G” were planning to train together for the White Tigers’ next season. Andres would tell me about the rhythm they still had, and the goals they scored. I could hear the excitement in his voice.

 Andres played his sport hard and well. He brought and left everything on the field. He played with heart and gifted athleticism, but he had so much more fun being a part of the team -- that was what mattered most to him. It wasn’t so much about the winning (although that also mattered) but more about the friendships he developed, and the joy he had playing with his teammates. With all of Andres’s athletic accomplishments, I am most proud of the person he was both on and off the field. For his coaches and teammates and also his opponents, Andres was a loyal friend, willing to forgive bad calls, look past lack of recognition, or reduced playing time and move on.

I recall one game in particular, Andres was asked play to center back, a position he did not usually play in high school but knew well from past training. Once again, he brought and left everything on the field. The game ended scoreless, zero-zero, and went to penalty kicks. The other team won.

Andres cried because he had given his all, but mostly because it was and end to something good, high school soccer was forever over, done, just like that.

I cried for my son because I knew how well and hard he had played and I suddenly realized it was the last time I would ever see him play high school soccer.

Then, like now, I was not prepared for last things.

Are we ever prepared for an abrupt end to something good? I remember being upset at how that game went down, and I stayed upset about it. At times I am still upset about it! Not Andres. He moved on and taught me to move on and the acceptance of things as they come to be.

Michael Andres, my son, you are still teaching me, today. Right here, and right now.

~

Following his soccer and adventure-filled childhood, and teenaged years Andres moved out to Southern California where he continued to live life with a “seize the day” spirit. Living in California, he enjoyed the outdoors and going for hikes with his friends and with his love, Samantha, someone who mattered so much to him. In fact, he even learned the words of a country song for her and actually sang it to her. I add that his brothers and sisters are a little dubious about this as they know Andres does not sing! But this is the beauty of the gift and I know it meant a lot to Sam.

Andres had a heart for everyone in his life, including the littlest among us. He loved babies, and whether with his immediate family or with his cousins and aunts and uncles from Wisconsin, Texas, Virginia or Canada, he was frequently holding little babies. He had a deep and devoted love for his family, his brothers Alex and Noah and sisters Analia and Grace, and as Alex also let us know, they loved him so much, too. They were and remain loving siblings who also have a great friendship – what a gift for them and for others to behold. Andres, Alex and Noah we constantly together as children, played soccer together, had many outdoor adventures, building forts, fighting the worlds enemies and attempting stunts. As they grew older they connected on a different level and often would game online together. As for his sisters,  Analia recalls Andres taking time to make sure she was safe and signing in to her father’s computer to show her different computer techniques used to create art. For Grace, Andres recently spent a significant amount of time making a beautiful piece of 3D art for her birthday.

Andres used his personal creativity in various ways, often for the sake of others. Perhaps this creativity grew out of his love for music which began early with piano and drums as a youth and ultimately found culmination in the violin which was his instrument of choice. Andres had just gotten his violin out to California and was re-learning his Suzuki pieces. His personal gifts and interests in the creative arts turned into the studies he pursued in college and then as a very promising career, at Drive Studio, which he so enjoyed. He worked so hard at his job, and he was constantly seeking to improve himself and his techniques.  He again brought everything he could to his professional field and leaving it all there, too.

It is not surprising at all that Andres had a love for photography and film and that he devoted so many hours, personally and professionally, to perfecting his creations. He enjoyed the created world about him and used the camera to capture the intricacies and beauty as he saw it.

~

As I have been grieving the loss of my son, the loss of his smile, the loss of his embrace, the loss of his joy, his joking, the twinkle in his eye, his dreams, his creative gifts but most of all the loss of his generous, beautiful heart in this world, a world that so needs the strong and great-hearted, I came to the realization that in reality these things are not lost. Andres lives on, as a child of God, and also in every one of us. In whatever way Andres has had an impact on your life, he lives on in you. You carry a part of him in your heart, and in your thoughts, words, and deeds.

 St. John Paul the Great observes that when there is suffering, when there is tragic loss, there usually follows a releasing of love in the world, a giving birth to works of love and mercy towards others.

On behalf of Andres’s dad and his siblings, I can say that as a family we have been the recipient of such an outpouring of love from friends, family and the community, both gathered here in Wisconsin and in California. I have seen love in action, tenderness of heart, works of mercy, forgiveness, and intercessory prayer for my son and for our family.

Andres, my son, the way you lived your life has again reminded me that one of the greatest gifts we can give another is the gift of true friendship and this is love. Andres may not have been famous in this world, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because we know, from his favorite books, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, that “even the smallest person can change the course of history.” As everyone who has written on the memorial website, and directly to our family, and gathered here today testifies, Andres made a difference in this world. He left the world a better place for having lived. He gave what he had to give and it – he, Andres -- was a blessing to the hearts of others and changed people for the better. Andres lived a life of joy and was Christ’s love to others.

I would like to conclude with these remarks:

In the tragedy of death, God speaks eternity into our transitory time. Death sends lasting reverberations through the lives of all those who are in some way connected to the deceased. The death of someone we love tears open our hearts, it changes our perspectives on the world about us---- it changes us----- it sharpens our purpose and reorders our lives and renders a prioritizing of our loves.

That prioritizing of our loves finds its ultimate source in the love of God, for us. The resurrection of life, which was made possible by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the goal of every human life. It’s not until we are confronted with the resurrection that heaven’s victory over earth is total. Only then do we realize that the Father can change even the last enemy, death, into eternal life.

Andres has lost his life here on earth but he has gained so much more, for “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Those of us, here, still, remembering Andres, grateful for him, praying for him and for each other because of him: Let us love. Since that is what our hearts were made for.” St Therese

Fr. Michael, Mom and Dad, Noah, Analia, Grace, family and friends,

My name is Alex Lopez. I am Andres’s younger brother. I want to begin with a quotation from a book that I know meant a lot to Andres. It’s from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. This quotation means a lot to us, right now: 

“How could the world go back to the way it was, when there’s so much bad that has happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day must come.”

That new day might feel far away right now, but we believe it will come, and that in the meantime, beyond thanking all of you for your prayers and kind words and gestures during this difficult time for our family, I wanted to share some memories of Andres that I think will give you a sense of why he was the person he was, for me and my family, and for so many others. 

Many times throughout elementary and middle school, Noah and I found ourselves on both sides of the camera, usually performing stunts for the video series Andres created, “BMX Mexicans.”

It began like this. Andres, Noah and I were bored on a summer day, about eight years ago, and we had recently gotten shred sleds, which are like two-wheeled skateboards. As my parents know from too much evidence, we normally would just charge into each other and try to knock each other off. 

That day, Andres had a better idea. 

We needed a ramp. 

We went to the fort we had constructed years before, in the woods behind our house, and found some material to make a ramp. Our ambition was greater than our skills as architects, we discovered, but then we saw the picnic table, in the garage. It looked sturdy enough. And so we used the picnic table as a ramp, thus was born the BMX Mexicans.  

For the next couple hours, we attached a rope to a bike and pulled each other on the shred sleds and launched off the ramps or rode bikes off of it.  

There were many times when either we failed to stick the landing or the ramp failed, but after an afternoon of fun Andres had much film to create the critically-acclaimed BMX Mexicans movie that debuted on his Facebook. I recommend you watch it.

While the BMX Mexicans were messing around, Analia and Grace always watched from a safe distance. As they grew up, they joined in on our adventures, like the long journeys we would make in the winter, to the sledding hill. Andres also had the privilege, more than Noah or me, of being, well, attacked by Analia and Grace, for hugs and affection, which Noah and I enjoyed watching from a safe distance. Andres was always willing to help his sisters when they needed it, and they eventually became models for Andres’s photography when they visited him in California and went hiking and to the ocean. 

Beyond Andres’s love for media like photography and videography, which had started when he was very young and led to the start of a very promising career, Andres also loved to play soccer. He started playing soccer at a young age , with the Neenah Gunners, which led to his making great friends whom he loved and was loyal to, on and off the pitch. I remember growing up at those games, watching Andres. I remember joining Andres and the others at practices, and even playing in a few games, the first official ones that I played with my brother. Beyond those games, the Gunners also had a tournament, at the end of each season, called the Paper Cups, which was a mini-soccer game the members of the team played, tournament style. One year Andres won, and with winning he was awarded the “Paper Cup”. The mini trophy was displayed in his room with all of the other trophies that he had won – and believe me, he won a lot of trophies. It always made me smile that he kept that simple paper trophy. I think he did so because of the relationships and the memories that he made with the team, and the joy and pride he took in winning the simple cup among such good friends. 

Andres’s soccer playing continued in high school, where he played four years of varsity at Xavier and made more great friends, and where for one year I was able to share the field with him. He kept playing soccer when he went to college in California, playing semi-professionally for the San Diego White Tigers FC before graduating.   

Whether it was filming or starring in BMX Mexicans, or playing soccer for paper cups or semi-professionally, whatever Andres decided to do he did with the fullness of who he was, setting an example for others to follow, whether his siblings, his cousins, his teammates and friends, or his co-workers. We looked up to him, and learned from him, and admired that he was one of those rare people who, through his ambition and actions, was able to create a promising career out of his passion. 

I want to end these remarks by speaking directly to my brother.

Andres, thank you for being my older brother, and for walking the way of life ahead of me. Your example will continue to inspire and guide me through this life and I know that I will see you again. 

I love you and I miss you. 

And as Gandalf comforts Pipin when the castle Minas Tirith is about to be overrun, 

“Is this the end? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. 

White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

Thank you and God bless.

Coming soon.