I wrote this to be read at Elliot’s funeral on Friday, as I won’t be able to make it. It helped me to write it and maybe it’ll help you to read it.
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Elliot and I met in kindergarten when I was only 5 years old and he was 4. He’s one of the first friends I ever made, so it’s hard for me to imagine not meeting him again and not being introduced to all the people who surround him as such. Everyone liked him and that can really be seen my all the people that I imagine are listening to this right now. He loved his parents and cared so much about his brother Eric. He was flattered that he looked up to him and so he was always thinking about Eric’s needs and future – wanting to always send him in the right direction. Elliot knew how to make people laugh, make people feel heard, and make them feel welcome. He was one took the time to listen to anyone and in doing so he brightened the days of many who were not used to being heard by a someone as charismatic, admired and loved as Elliot Wheeler.

We all knew him in different ways, as he had so many layers and so many friends from all walks of life. The Elliot I knew was adventurous, daring and free. But beneath that I also knew someone who was so sensitive to the needs of others. He would often ignore his own problems to hear mine. I can’t recall the number of times in our 20 years of friendship where he was the person that I could depend on for support and sympathy.

In university I saw a drive in him bigger than in most people I’ve ever met. He planted trees in the summers, working in roughest conditions in this country, to pay for his own tuition – not by circumstance but by choice. He said that he worked harder when he was earning it himself and so he did. I think we need to carry on the spirit of this great drive. If there’s something you really want to achieve, something you really want to have, or something that makes you happy, do it, work for it, and enjoy it. That’s what Elliot did and that’s what he would want you to do.

I think Elliot can see us. If he’s with God now, and if God is everywhere, then he’s sitting beside us right now, he’s beside me in Africa, he’ll be beside us when this day is over and he’ll especially be with when we’re skiing down the the slopes of the rocky mountains. I heard that he spent his last days doing what truly loved. For him it was skiing, being in nature, being with his friends, his girlfriend and being with his family. As we’ll all someday leave this world to begin life’s next adventure, I truly hope that, like my friend Elliot, we can all leave having spent our last days doing what makes us happy.