Day 135

Another memory of Damian by one of his classmates that was shared with us not long after Damian died. 

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Beisner,

As I came to Lakeview, Damian was one of the first people I had met. He was a great friend, defending those close to him, and finding peaceful solutions when problems arose. I sat next to him in AP World History and would compete against him in Slope instead of doing classwork, and if our teacher ever came over we would minimize the window and act like we were doing classwork. To me Damian was the perfect example of a friend, and he taught me how to be a better person to those around me. 

Sincerely, 

Malachi

Malachi, 

Thank you for sharing your memory of Damian. He was great at doing what he wanted vs. what he as supposed to be doing. There were a couple of times that I caught him gaming online when he was supposed to be in class via a Teams call.

This happened in the first month after the start of the Covid lockdown. I was sharing my home office with him. I think he was secretly hoping that I would go back to my work office and that he would have the home office all to himself. At first our sharing arrangement was ok, but it became increasingly more difficult for me to have conference calls because the longer Covid went on, the less he restraint he had while gaming. He would often yell at the computer or to whomever he was playing with. To make matters worse, he was always wearing headphones so when he did speak it was always at a much higher than normal volume. One day, while we were both in the office together working (me) and in class (him),  I noticed that he was constantly moving his mouse. When I got up to see what he was doing, he quickly shut down his second monitor. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that he had been gaming. It was all but obvious. So we had a nice chat about it. Father to son. I told him that if I caught him gaming again during any of his classes that he was going to lose his gaming PC for a month. Never one to concede defeat, he waiting a day, maybe two, to test me. And he lost. Game over. I made him go upstairs and bring back to me the power cord from his PC. He lasted about a week before he started begging to be allowed to game again. While I didn't totally cave, I did relent slightly in that I agreed to restore his PC privileges but only the weekends. This lasted about another week before I gave him back the power cord permanently. Because he wasn't able to go to school and see his friends, I knew that he was lonely. He didn't have any friends in our neighborhood since there aren't any other kids his age. It was a tough time for him. I'm kind of a marshmallow that way. 

I also like and appreciate what you said about how Damian taught you to be a better person. He did that for me, too. Made we want to be a better dad. I made a point of trying to do things together, but it got harder as he got older. Many of our weekends were booked with either his activities, mainly robotics, or mine. But I still tried to make time for him, for us. I'm certainly glad that we did. Getting back to the point, even now that he is gone, he still motivates me to be a better person. To do right by others. 

I'm glad that you got to know Damian and spend time with. It certainly sounds like you and most of your classmates had a high opinion of him which, as a dad, means a lot. I can't take much of the credit for how the Damian you knew got to be that way, but I feel like I did play a part in helping to shape him into the kind friend that you knew. 

I hope that you are doing ok and that school is going well.

Regards, 

Chris Beisner


 

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