Kevin’s death marks the untimely and most unwelcome finality of his valuable existence. He had so much more to accomplish in his life. He was a happy and successful man with a sweet two year old daughter and a lovely wife he loved so much. He was the stalwart of his family and shared everything he had with his parents and brothers and sisters. He was always an inspiring companion to his friends.
We grieve for Kevin, and today we must lay him to rest. We are heartbroken. This is distressing for his friends. But how unimaginably distressing it must be for a wife to bury her darling husband, or for a father and mother to bury their beloved son, or for brothers and sisters to know they will not see their brother again.
On losing my best friend, my philosophical friend, with whom I have shared the best years of my youth in conversation and intellectual debate, over many cups of coffee and many more bottles of wine, I feel – as I’m sure many of us feel – like I have been served a vicious cocktail of emotions: anger, sorrow, futility, grief, all mixed with cheerful memories of happier times.
Having had the privilege to have known Kevin, I think that on this occasion he would want us to be strong and keep our heads up. Kevin was a tough guy, a sort of stoic. He had the resoluteness to collect himself in difficult times, and get on with his life. I’m sure he would want us to move on with our lives with as little emotional baggage as possible.
As we mourn Kevin, let us also honor him. His life was a blessing for us all. We will miss him, but we will always be blessed with fond memories of him.
Kevin was a great guy – an exceptional person in every respect. He was a connoisseur of life who knew how to enjoy and appreciate the best things. He was articulate, witty and had a unique sense of humor. He was at once an outgoing person and a shy private person. He had tremendous self-control and was very conscious of the need for self-mastery. Indeed, for Kevin, being happy and free meant being a master of himself.
Kevin was a deep thinker, a genuine intellectual. He had a talent for grasping the most difficult concepts and explaining them in the clearest terms. He was an ardent lover of literature who started reading the classics as a child. His passion for literature and history were hallmarks of his personality. His interest in philosophy brought him to this country, where, at the Catholic University of Leuven he received his doctorate in 1988.
Philosophy played an important part in his life. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject but was less preoccupied with purely theoretical questions than with practical issues. For Kevin, the real philosophical challenge was to unmask disruptive and deceptive historical realities. To get to the bottom of truth, one needs to detect the lies; every lie of history conceals a deeper lie. Kevin’s passion for life – his feelings about what is important in life – came to the fore whenever he spoke about politics or history.
Kevin was a good man. He was prudent and had a deep sense of justice. He had fortitude and temperance. His views about ethics were the bedrock of his religious belief, which is something that he rarely spoke about. He held the conviction that duty is the basis of ethics. A sense of duty must prevail even when there is no love or friendship. To act justly and fairly is rewarding in itself, but injustice with impunity is detestable. Sardonically Kevin would say that if there is any use for immortality, it would be to ensure that justice is served. And if there is a place called heaven, then it might as well have tennis courts and swimming pools. Kevin said such things with his characteristic clever grin, employing the power of irony to shy away from an important issue about which, in fact, very little can be said.
If there is a lesson that can be learned from Kevin’s death, it is perhaps that there is no such thing as a complete life, but only a full life. Kevin’s life was utterly incomplete, but it was full to the brim. He sought and found ways of making life better for himself and those around him, and he took every opportunity towards the realization of his dreams. He worked very hard, he wasted nothing, but he was always kind and generous. He lived a short life but a good life, and so must life be lived.
Goodbye, dear Kevin, “may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”.
Victor Brias
24 April 2004