Preface: Almost four months ago, I lost my dear friend and coworker Adam Kazery. This post is way overdue — I’ve been working on it for two months and still can’t make it “perfect.” There’s just far too much to say about Adam! I’d love for you to read The Reflector's news story about him here and the editorial that our editor Kyle wrote here. I’d also love for you to read what April (the 2010-2011 Reflector editor) wrote here. This post is long, but it still doesn’t even begin to do him justice — trust me.
There are certain people I think about every day. Adam Kazery is one of those people. It’s amazing what little things make me think of him — the Spell Number app on my iPhone, a Radiohead song, breaking news stories, photography, big black trucks, any technology updates/gadgets, yellow Post-It notes, pianos, Sundays at 5 p.m., MSU maroon “Bully Bikes,” Naked Juice, and countless other things.
Adam’s dad asked us (those that worked with Adam at
The Reflector) for stories about him. I feel like I have enough stories about Adam to write a book. With the help of The Reflector staff, I’d have enough for a series. All the “little things” I mentioned above have a story hidden in them:
-The Spell Number iPhone app: Adam installed this application on my phone for me. He used to send the funniest text messages with these hilarious emoticons and icons. When I couldn’t get the application to work correctly, he took my phone and figured it out (all within a span of about 30 seconds…of course. He was a genius with anything.)
-Radiohead songs: Adam loved Radiohead, and the Radiohead bear (see the image above). He had it on his desk at work, on a vanity plate on his truck, as his Facebook profile image, as his iPhone background, everywhere. He even stamped a bunch of one dollar bills with the bear symbol and gave me seven of them saying, “I want these to end up in all 50 states. See how many places you can spend them.” (For the record, I got them into four states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas — now, I’d do anything to have one back.) After his death, our Chief Designer
Carl created a Radiohead bear badge that ran next to the dateline on all our front pages for the rest of the semester — a small tribute to Adam. I’ll forever associate the Radiohead bear with Adam.
-Breaking news stories: Whenever something big happened, Adam knew about it. If it was in Starkville, Adam was on it immediately. One of my last story memories with him was following up on a rumor about a rape in town. Adam drove me to the jail, sat with me as we waited to view the jail log, and almost had to help me sweet-talk the officer into letting me view the log (since it was past viewing hours).
-Photography: If anything big happened, Adam was there with a notepad and a camera. We never had to call him and ask him, he just jumped right into the action. He also took amazing candid shots and won journalism awards for his photography. (You can see some of his work
here.)
-Big black trucks: Adam drove a big black Nissan truck. He never wanted anyone to walk home after work, so if anyone stayed later than he did at the office, he took them home. I can’t even begin to count how many nights Adam kept me from walking to my apartment!
-Technology updates: I’ll never forget telling Adam, “Hey, Verizon called me. They offered us a free advance trial of two Android phones. Would you be up for playing with them for a week and writing a story?” He was so excited —he looked like a little kid on Christmas morning! He had a great time playing with the phones and learning everything about them (of course, he had already researched them and knew all about them before he picked them up for the trial). His story was great and still remains as one of the top-read Reflector stories of all time. (You can read it by clicking
here.) That’s just one of a million stories I could tell about him and technology…seriously. He was an Apple guru and loved anything related to Macs. I’d love to ask him what he thinks about the new iPhone.
-Yellow Post-It notes: Adam was great about writing little encouraging or funny notes to people in the Reflector office. He’d write a brief message on our yellow Post-It notes and stick one on your computer screen when you weren’t looking. They were simple and yet encouraging. I’ve saved mine and will treasure them. His last one to me: “Aubra, Keep being awesome. Adam.”
-Pianos: Adam played piano, even though he didn’t tell a lot of people about it. During he last semester, he was taking a piano class. He played by ear and told me he wanted to take the class to learn how to read music. I told him he was truly lucky and gifted to be able to play by ear. He shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I want to be better, and reading music will make me better.” Typical Adam — always looking for a way to improve!
-Sundays at 5 p.m.: The Reflector editorial board had meetings every Sunday at 5 p.m. Often times, many of us were late. Adam was always prompt and we could always count on him being there. We weren’t always happy about coming back to work after the weekend, but Adam was there with a smile ready to get back to work. He was quiet during meetings, but never ceased to keep us entertained. He loved sending funny texts to us to make one of us laugh and also loved taking candid photos of us and posting them to
his Twitter account.
-MSU maroon “Bully Bikes:” Adam loved his vintage bike, but he always found something goofy to do with MSU’s Bully Bikes — like the night that he found one on campus and rode around on it in the Reflector office to make everyone laugh.
-Naked Juice: Occasionally, Adam would show up to work after class with a treat from the State Fountain Bakery and a bottle of Naked Juice. I loved Naked Juice and hated it when the bakery stopped selling them on campus. Adam made my day once by telling me, “Hey, you do you I’m buying these from that new store inside the Union, right? Let me go get you one.”
Though I still miss him, this week was the first week that I didn’t shed tears, bite my lip or freeze when I heard his name. Two weeks ago at Target, I smiled through my tears as I heard a young mom gently say, “Adam, please stop playing in the clothes rack and come here,” to her skinny, grinning, adorable 6-year-old son. One week ago, I swallowed and let a tear fall on the phone when the Census Bureau dispatcher said, “Thank you for returning our call, Ms. Whitten. My name is Adam and I’ll be asking you some questions today.” This week during my new intern training for RUF, a fellow intern turned to me and said, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Adam.” Without any hesitation or tears, I immediately smiled and extended my hand. “Adam, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Aubra.”
I don’t know exactly why it finally “clicked” this week, but I’m thankful. I’m not a tearful person, and I know Adam wouldn’t want tears or sorrow from anyone. He’d be glad that I smiled with genuine joy at meeting another Adam this week. (Don’t worry, Adam. No one’s ever going to replace you — I promise!)
He’s far from being forgotten by any of us. I do still occasionally start to text him when I hear a rumor about a new Apple product. He was the second number I dialed in late April when a fire broke out at my complex. (Had he been around, he and his camera would have been there in five minutes!) In March and April, I sometimes had problems at 4:50 a.m. while doing the website; my first thought was immediately to call or e-mail Adam. I don’t dwell on those dark, sleepless, draining February days anymore — I smile when I remember him and still laugh when I read our text messages and Facebook posts to each other.
Throughout this whole ordeal, I came to appreciate Adam more. I knew he was amazingly gifted and talented, but I didn’t know just how gifted and talented he was. At his visitation, I listened as friends shared about his many gifts, ranging from skateboarding to piano to graphic design. When Kyle and I were forced to quickly pick up the Reflector website duties, we learned what a genius and mastermind Adam was with our site — we ran our site through a publishing platform, but Adam had skillfully modified parts of it and created custom HTML code to help the site work and look better. He was humble and quiet — he never told any of us that he created custom codes or reedited our works to make them optimal for online purposes. He did all of that without asking because as he once told Kyle, “I just want it to look good.” Kyle and I initially struggled with the website, especially during the first night without Adam, but we got it working. (I know he’d be so proud of us for figuring out how to activate the site and how to modify the HTML code to keep everything running properly!)
Adam was an incredibly hard worker. I knew this, but I didn’t fully recognize it until I became Managing Editor. As Online Editor, Adam was the last one out on production nights — he stayed later than me most productions nights! He graciously put up with the staff’s procrastination, last minute changes and crazy HTML issues. He never complained about being the last one out of the office, nor did he complain about waking up at 4:50 a.m. twice a week to activate the website. (That’s another example of his humility: until I mentioned the early morning aspect at our end of the year banquet, his own mother didn’t know that he had been getting up at 4:50 — he never complained about it, even to her!) When someone else didn’t do his or her work, we sent Adam to do it — and he always did a great job. Adam saved us on countless occasions. He had a great eye for page design, knew AP Style, re-edited photos, fixed bugs on the pages, created house ads at the last minute and caught countless errors. When Kyle asked me in January who I thought should get the Editor of the Year award at our annual banquet, I immediately said, “Adam. He’s saved us so many times, and he never takes credit for it. It should absolutely go to Adam.”
Adam was funny and knew how to make your day. One of his responsibilities was to lay out and run the bulletin board/ads page. As Managing Editor, I had to proofread and edit all the pages for every paper. One night, I was really behind on editing pages and Adam knew I was in bad mood. He came up and slipped his page to the back of my stack of pages saying, “Just read it when you have a chance. I’ll wait.” I finally got to his page and broke into laughter. He had changed the whole page into Russian! I looked over to see him grinning at his desk. “You needed to laugh,” he explained with a grin. “And don’t worry — I didn’t save it in Russian. I’ve got an English version for you right here.” I could tell stories for hours about how he made us laugh!
Adam constantly thought of others. He knew when one of us was having a bad day, and he did whatever he could to cheer us up. He’d bring you a treat from the bakery, leave a Post-It note on your computer monitor, or simply come by your desk and say, “Do you need anything? Let me go get you something to eat.” (In fact, the day that he went missing, I had brought $6 to work because I owed him for buying of us Abner’s on a particularly crazy production night.)
After the almost 24-hour period from Adam going “missing” to finding out what happened, I remember sitting at my desk waiting for Kyle’s phone call. I’ll never forget the tone of his voice. I’ll never forget my fellow editors staring at me as I clung to my phone. I’ll never forget standing the middle of the newsroom, clutching my desk counter and delivering the worst news I’ve ever given. I'll never forget calling former editors and writers as I re-delivered that terrible message over and over again. I’ll never forget holding another editor tightly, watching tears run down her cheeks as I wondered, “We’ll never be able to replace Adam. How in the world will we ever make it without him?”
In the midst of intense sorrow and pain, God reminded me of His sovereignty and providence, whether in the form of text messages, scripture, hugs, phone calls or food dropped off at the office. Within an hour of telling my newsroom staff, I had friends text me saying, “I love you. I’m praying for you and the staff” and “I love you. I know it’s production night. Hang in there. Can I bring y’all dinner?” Though there were many scripture passages that spoke to me, especially during the first few weeks, I found one passage that I hadn’t really noticed before (and yes, I know the verses are out of order — I kind of took rearranging liberties):
“When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul … If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would have lived in the land of silence … But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.” (Psalm 94:18-19, 17, 22)
I won’t say that I know why God allowed everything to happen this semester. I’m not God — I’m human and will never understand His plans fully this side of heaven. I do rejoice in the fact that the Lord is gracious and compassionate and has brought healing and restoration — and He promises that He will continue to do so, never forsaking those that He loves.
I’m thankful that I have so many great memories of Adam. I’m thankful for how despite a hard situation, I bonded with my dear coworkers and Reflector family. I’m thankful for a great advisor who forgot about herself, going above and beyond the call of duty to check on us and watch over us. I’m incredibly thankful for Adam’s amazing family, who has been such an encouragement and inspiration to all of us. I hope that someday they will know how the Lord has used them to bring each of us much hope and healing. Above all, I’m thankful that I have a God who knows exactly what He’s doing and uses all things, even hard situations, to glorify Him. I can’t wait until the day when I can finally see and understand His plans and reasons for this last semester. Until that day, I’m going to wait patiently.
(Oh, I think I’m going to find a Radiohead bear sticker to put on my car. I know Adam would definitely approve.)
