Todd W. Sebastian

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…

If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

-Shel Silverstein

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In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Todd's name to the ALS Association at www.alsa.org, or a charity of the donor's choice.

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Mike and Alison's Eulogy for Todd Sebastian, presented by Mike at Memorial Service on 10/13/2012:

The first time I met Todd was in the summer of 1992. I had started dating Alison the previous spring, and it was time to meet her family. So I came over to the Sebastians’ beautiful house on River Drive, slid into the restaurant style booth in their kitchen, and started talking with Todd, and immediately felt that I had found a kindred spirit. We’re both generally quiet, and not entirely at ease when meeting new people. But we started talking and soon found ourselves discussing treehouses, and the features, gadgets, and customizations we engineers would design and build into one. As we talked, the structure became more and more crazy, impractical, ridiculous, and expensive, and we exchanged that knowing smile Todd would give you when he really felt you were connecting.

After this, Alison told me, “I knew you would like my brother.” Indeed I did! And who wouldn’t?

Todd is fundamentally one of the most wholesome people I ever met…nothing was more important to him than family and friends. He was an abstract thinker, with a great imagination and a penchant for fantasy, yet he was meticulously organized and neat, complex, and detail oriented, with diverse interests and a belief in balancing work and play, with an emphasis on play. People remember his gentle and reserved nature, his eccentricity, his understated humor and wit, friendliness, and humility.

The modesty was striking because he was an intellectual giant. He won many accolades at work, but it’s the personal memories I like the most. If you put any new gadget in the same room with Todd, you would soon find that he had performed a Star-Trek style Vulcan mind-meld with it. He would have discovered all of its features including many you never knew about, and he would have added about 20 new ones. He often said he loved designing hardware and hated software, even though he was an absolutely gifted programmer. At Virginia Tech, engineering projects were like “play” for him – enjoyable – frolics in the digital world. In a senior design class, he built a math coprocessor, for a computer that wasn’t designed to have one. For fun, he ran one of the best bulletin boards at Tech, Exit 37, in the late 1980s when the very idea of the internet was still new. A surprising thing to do for a quiet person like him!

But Todd had a real talent for drawing people around himself. In college he spent a summer at Oxford, and there he surprised everyone, including himself, by organizing a trip to Paris to explore and to see a show. At work, he kept a bowl of chocolate on his desk, continuously filled, and continuously eaten by him too – but the main reason it was there was to draw others around him. He had an ability to gather people together, and to imbue the gathering with fun and thinking and joy and creativity.

He loved games, as anyone who has seen his collection will know. It was a veritable Library of Congress of board games, card games, adventure games, bizarre and weird games. He had them all neatly organized, categorized, and alphabetized, of course. Most were there not to be played often. They were there because if the perfect occasion came along, he wanted to have the perfect game right on hand. His favorites, I think, were the open-ended ones that gave people a framework for being creative, and made them laugh. It wasn’t about competition for him…it was about group conviviality.

Todd loved hiking and walking…he walked on the beach daily. Like so many things about him, his walks were unusual – fast, covering long distances, and with that characteristic bounce in his gait. Hiking appealed to him because he loved nature and the outdoors. He had incredible stamina. When we climbed Mt. Adams with Richard, he was first to the top by far.

Todd loved movies. He had over 2000 and had watched them all, some several times. Even more than that, he enjoyed discussing them afterwards: what was done well, what wasn’t, making observations about the characters in them. He liked to analyze real people, too, and what made them tick. The three of us had many conversations on that topic.

Todd appreciated quality, not only in movies, but also in things. You will understand this if you have ever seen his waffle iron, or his vacuum cleaner. He loved things that were well-made, well designed, with a lot of thought and attention to detail.

He loved cooking, good food, sweets, family recipes… Smorkraut. Muffins. Butterscotch caramel rolls. I think he added several good ones to the database: jalapeno ice cream, and green Christmas wreath cookies with red hots for berries.

Todd was fearless, especially when skiing. He loved speed, and loved a thrill. In his big green parka, Todd would point his long skis down the hill, hold his hands up above his head, and fly. On one of our first trips to Whitetail with Richard, he took pride in describing a major wipeout by saying with a grin “I took out three moguls with my face.”

Here are some of Alison’s memories from childhood. Both Todd and Alison share a love of swinging and rocking in a chair. A “Toddism” that warms Alison’s heart when she thinks of him is the way Todd would rock – not always in a rocking chair – and not always to the rhythm of the music. He rocked to his own rhythm, literally and figuratively. When singing, he was way off key, and when Alison thinks of his childhood violin playing, which was thankfully short-lived, she cringes…fondly, of course. She uses the word “comrade” to describe her relationship with Todd growing up. They were only a year apart in school, shared joys and pains, and many successful and failed adventures. They liked to believe the one walking across the frozen Potomac river to the shipping channel was a success, but the state police in their helicopters and on the shore and the Channel 4 news, and their parents did not share this belief. They read the same books, from Isaac Asimov to Carolyn Keen’s Nancy Drew as well as enjoyed creating and living in make-believe worlds. When bored, they would revert to their favorite board and card games or sit at the Apple IIe together and play computer adventure games that lasted day or weeks. Alison recalls Todd being like an art coach to her, especially encouraging her to participate in paint, model, or anti-coloring book projects with him. She enjoyed the process, not so much the results of her work, but she was always amazed at the results Todd would produce, and the passion he had getting there. Thanks to Todd’s generosity, our kids own every anti-coloring book ever published!

As adults, Alison and Todd frequently reminisced about childhood joys and challenges and how they shape our approach to life in the present and the conclusions we draw about our experiences. They often exchanged knowing glances with smiles watching movies or experiencing events together. Words were not necessary given their level of connectedness. This is one of the things she misses most. One of the greatest tragedies of Todd’s passing is that he had a deep interest in preserving his positive childhood experiences by attempting to recreate them for the large family he had hoped to create for himself. He recently emphasized this, and the fact that he had spent many years researching and ultimately acquiring every game, book, record album, and other important childhood item he and Alison shared together.

In many ways, he was a child at heart. Though we were initially surprised when he moved to California, we came to realize just how well it suited him. One of our favorite memories is from Disneyland…seeing Todd run away from us to dance with the Disney characters behind the Main Street Electrical Parade. Not to be funny, but because this was him.

Judy, Richard, and Minh gave us very special gifts last year for which we are especially grateful: the chance to be with Todd while he experienced two of his last wishes: going back to Longboat Key, FL, and going to Alaska. These trips seemed a bit risky, but he refused to let ALS slow him down. He pushed his limits. Todd barely had the use of his arms when in FL, but he was determined to go jet skiing with Alison. Not the safest configuration with her reaching behind to hold him with one arm, steering with the other, while pushing the pedal to the metal, both were screaming and laughing and crying. That’s a memory Alison will cherish forever. We and our kids will also remember the quality time we spent with Todd exploring Alaska and enjoying its natural beauty, people, food, and wildlife for two weeks, even flying in a small plane to land north of the arctic circle. The fact that we wouldn’t have his companionship to enjoy for very much longer was on all our minds, but Todd focused on the present, and he clearly enjoyed every minute of every day, as you can see in the photos posted on the memorial website.

Todd's first ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) symptoms started in spring of 2009, but were undiagnosed until Jan 2010. From then on it was a rough rocky road spiraling downward for Todd both physically and emotionally. Todd was his typical stoic self throughout despite the incredible frustration and worsening physical discomfort. ALS is cruel and relentless. Nevertheless, he still kept his spirits up, and didn’t lose his sense of humor. It was only the last month of his life that his condition seemed to get unbearable for him. The night before he passed, he was in rough shape; his face was pale; and he looked as if his soul had partially left his body already. He asked us to straighten the blankets behind his head, and reposition his hands yet again, but we suspected that what he really wanted was a big hug. We both gave him one and told him we loved him. His face lit up, and for a fleeting moment, 100% of Todd’s spirit was back. Alison’s hope is that his spirit is now not entirely resting at peace but rather that he is enjoying hiking, dancing, skiing, cooking, traveling and bringing folks together in the way that he likes to do in the heavens above. And I like to think that part of his essential self, his influence, and his memories, will live on in us, our children, all the loved ones here, and everyone else whose life he touched. I hope that in a way he will walk with us through life, keeping us company and influencing us to be wholesome and healthy and good, to have a sense of adventure, to live for today, and to live life to the fullest. It is just sad that he isn’t here to do all of that in person.

Todd would love that everyone has come together here, not only to celebrate his life, but also to be with each other. That is what it was all about for him.