Trey, we are so proud of you. And we are so thankful to have you in our lives. Your achievements and successes instruct us every day, the bright shining Light star shining and showing us where and how to align our lives with, unpacking directions on ambition and hard work, vision and faith, patience and adaptability. And yet as impressive and grand as those achievements are, they pale in comparison to HOW you’ve gone about your work; It is the manner in which you serve that is the most revealing. Grace, honor, tact, awareness and dignity. Good humor and a sense of history. These are the qualities that jump off your soul, that leap off your body, that animate the spring in your step, that pull your face into that wide smile and underly the gleaming diamond of joy in your eyes.
You cannot know what it is like on this side of the fence, to be us, even though you were once, us. The truth is that only the most special people sit in an audience and decide that they don’t want to merely enjoy and appreciate, they want to give and provide. They want to be the source. Perhaps they need to be. For more than 30 years, you have done this, and today, we are grateful to you, for you, with you. Everyday that stretches into the past is marked by your love for us, is kissed by it, the way the sun touches the dew on a blade of grass, revealing a globe of import, a universe at every step.
We are the luckiest people in the world and it is our absolutely our intention to repay you, and the world, for the sustenance that you’ve provided, for the leadership you’ve shown, for the humbleness and modesty you’ve exhibited and for the vision you’ve exemplified. You are our joy and we are yours.
Do you realize how overwhelming it can be to try and keep up with you? How will any of us ever be capable of matching what you’ve done, ascended the stages you have? (The truth is we won’t. The truth is, we already are).
You have showed us what it means to keep ourselves challenged every step of the way, and how important it is to always be stepping into the new. Into the Freezer.
When all else has been done and said…
Even before Santa Clara and Chicago, the past few years have been a whirlwind. We’ve put on our Wingsuits and learned how to leap. We’ve occupied haunted houses with the Ghosts of you and me. We danced with Wombats and been awash in Broadway marquees. You woo’ed us and we woo’d right back. You tucked and we tucked. You are our headlight and our love light. You are the Light streaking through time and space, the final delivery of the Dark Star. In short, we’ve kept it rolling.
But this year is something else. It really is. This is the year when everything changed, just like every other year. Which is really the key to understanding you. You stayed right there, but never stopped spinning in circles, and walking in straight lines. Will you be my Valentine?
The lines are important. All the lines you talk and sing about, the line that takes us back home to our friends and family, into the past so that we can see the future. The line that separates hero and scapegoat. We followed the lines going South and found a way to heal the injuries, historical and biographical.
We know, and you know we know. We don’t even have to talk about it, for fear of corrupting the sacred creed, but don’t for a minute ever forget that we know who you are, we know what we have in you. This year was a reminder. It could only ever have been you. And now it is, and we can move on, and move with it, it is inside us now, it was you, you were there, and we were right there beside you ever step of the way, every practice and rehearsal, aboard every flight to California, every minute backstage, and when the lights went down, we were there for you then. To help you understand and own your legacy, the one you’ve been preparing for your whole life. We are positively green with envy but more than jealousy, it is gratitude that you are here, with us, that the promise remains an unbroken chain.
You weathered the storm and found your port, with wide berths and glossy inlets. And of course, just as you have, it’s time once again to set sail. So up the rigging Trey. The ship is sturdy and seaworthy, the great unknown, the next challenge, the next monument, lies just over the horizon and we’ll follow you, to the ends of the earth and back, until the end of time. And then we’ll just look up humbly and consider our journey, and steer a new course backwards down the number line, singing songs to our friends, serenading our families with them, whispering our accumulated wisdom into tiny ears and move into the future with the same humbleness and gratitude, grace and hope that you possess every time you step on stage. Knowing every show is star dust and today is all we have.
You’ve given us so many days. How will we ever pay you back?
We won’t and we’ll never stop trying, for as long the music never stops, we’ll stay right here, boogying and dancing and tweezering until the cows come home. Moo!
