Jerry Grzeskiewicz, Jr.

Jerome "Jerry" Thomas Grzeskiewicz, Jr. passed away on July 1, 2019. Jerry was born in Silver Spring, MD on May 29, 1983 and grew up in Bowie, MD. He Graduated from Drexel University with a degree in History and Political Science. Jerry was a coin collector, and avid reader, a history buff, had a quick wit, was eager to help anyone in need, a lover of animals and very devoted to his family.

He is survived by his parents, Jerry Sr. and Mary Carol; his sister, Jillian and brother, Matthew and many loving, aunts, uncles and cousins.

A Private family memorial is planned. Memorial Contributions can be made to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. www.nationalww2museum .org or the Prince George's County Animal Shelter.

A eulogy is a speech or piece of writing that praises someone highly. Jerry, you were the most eloquent person any of us knew and there is much to praise; I deeply wish you were here right now to help us say the right thing. As one quote of your particular liking goes: “You seem to have me at a disadvantage, sir.” So here is our attempt to provide you with a tribute that sounds half as good as one of your Christmas cards. Just like your MeeMaw, you wrote superior notes. Your sentiments were thoughtful and you always expressed what we needed to hear.

We are fortunate to have many proud and enduring memories of you: a movie and music lover, an agile athlete, a gifted piano and drum player; memories of you going to work each day with your dad, running any errand, dutifully bringing Grandma Mary coffee nearly every morning after Grandad died, courageously chanting “Go Ravens, you worthless bums!” in a family full of Redskins fans, lounging on the beach in Ocean City, buying my mom her first e-cigarette so she would stop smoking, being Mr. Fix It, building and re-building things without directions, ordering unsweetened Iced Tea at family dinners, earning outrageous tips as the friendly dog-walker extraordinaire.

This abbreviated list of memories leads me to the harsh reality that the hardest part about losing someone so unexpectedly robs us of the privilege of making more memories. The good news is that we have 36 years of them, multiplied by every single person (and animal as it were) that your young life impacted. Indeed, your impact was a given.

This is not only a eulogy but a collection of thoughts and things that we all wanted to say to you, Jerry, before you were taken from us too soon.

To your family, you were known as “Little Jerry” but we are now here to say: there was nothing little about you.

Your heart – not little at all.

Your brain – certainly not little.

Your wit – could not be contained.

Your generosity – bigger than the room.

Your hobbies – spanned the alphabet.

Your book & coin collections – could never be called little.

One of the most devastating tasks for a grieving family is to pack up their loved one’s personal affects and belongings after they pass. Since Jerry was renting his house, we were not afforded any time to procrastinate. For someone who, like most of us, has never lived with Jerry, helping in this process unveiled quite the revelation. That revelation is this: you can love someone deeply their entire life, but you may be appreciating only a fraction of their smarts, a fraction of their talents, a fraction of their creativity, all things that Jerry had in abundance, the depths of which proved to be remarkable.

To no one’s surprise, Jerry was an avid reader. His mom always encouraged him to write his own book, which undoubtedly would have been packed with wisdom and “Jerome-isms”. During family name-picking at Christmastime, Little Jerry was always a great name to pick because he would dutifully hand over a list of book titles to choose from so as to easily find at least one at Barnes & Noble. Seeing all of his bookcases neatly organized by content, some by author, some alphabetically, was a sight to behold.

What an amazing brain you had, Jerry. Many of your volumes would have surely solicited groans from even the smartest students, as their content would be too weighty and deep for the average mind. How astonishing to me that those same volumes held hundreds of small post-it tabs where you had obviously marked a profound sentence or paragraph that you probably revisited later. They were invariably in books written by masters of thought, like Winston Churchill and Ben Franklin. You could not help but feel compelled to investigate every tab in every book; Matthew tried, but there are literally hundreds of them. It is going to take a healthy chunk of time to peruse them all. I am certain they are thoughts you would have loved to share with the world. Thank you for continuing to model your unparalleled appetite for knowledge, even now that you are gone.

Jerry’s smarts were matched only by his diligence and creativity in silver smelting, one of his most passionate hobbies. He had always been somewhat of a coin collector, like his mom, but then discovered he had a knack for refining silver from nearly everywhere. He’d get tickled when he found a yard sale trinket or a thrift store throwaway that had inherent value in the silver trade. He would diligently melt it down and taught himself the whole process of making a sleek and valuable silver bar with his own personal inscription. In recent weeks, he had just finished his first silver bar to perfection.

Jerry’s friend and neighbor, Alex, shared with us that Jerry had acquired the love and affection of all the neighborhood kids. He recounted how Jerry would hold demonstrations in his front yard for them as they crowded around, teaching them about the silver process and then sending them happily off with a silver coin in their pockets. I also have my coin in my pocket, but we won’t be walking off happily today. If there is a silver lining anywhere on this cloud that hangs above us, Jerry will surely illuminate it for us. He is the Silver Chevalier, after all.

There are so many other things we adored about you, Jer. There was no problem that could stump you – you inherited your grandad’s handy qualities; you had the resolve to fix anything. Most recently, your mom’s leaky dishwasher and the garage door sensor. You once showed up to Jill’s house when the electricity went out with a mini-generator, 7 lanterns and enough supplies to sustain the battery life on her devices for days. If any of us had a flat tire, you were the first person on the scene with all the necessary tools and know-how. In fact, you even started doing this for perfect strangers on the side of the road. You reflected that you “never knew how to change a tire” until you had a blowout on I-95 and a kind stranger came along and helped you. You claim he “had your tire off and the new one on in NASCAR pit crew time”. Forever a learner, you figured out the type of jack and socket wrench he used and would later practice removing and installing your own tires for future incidents. After refusing a tip, that stranger drove away and you took it upon yourself to pay this act forward by pulling up behind any struggling motorist you spotted thereafter. Just another testament to your big brain and even bigger heart.

In addition to car help, you were the supplier of obscure history facts, pizza after basketball practice and quick comebacks. You would do anything for anybody who needed it. As Molly recalls it, you once told her, “Molly, I will drive you to Japan. I will do anything for you. However, I am not sitting through your graduation ceremony.” That deadpan humor, your ultimate trademark, is one of the things we will miss the most.

There is so much more life you deserved to live. It is that simple fact that makes this so unbelievably excruciating. You had big dreams and future goals for yourself; you had journals packed with reflections from your too-short time on this earth. There are many lessons you have taught us, but one of the most immediate is that we should try to glean knowledge from every experience, every book, every interaction and every moment. Remember it, record it, revisit it often, just as you did.

On Little Jerry’s fridge there was a Winston Churchill magnet that read, “If you’re going through hell, keep on going.”. I promise you, Jerry, we are going to try. Not only have you kept going, you have reached the exact antithesis of hell. Our loss is your gain, albeit far too soon for us. Nevertheless, we will meet you there some day.

Rest well on the hill next to Grandma and Grandad. We miss you – and will continue to miss you – so much, it hurts. We love you without bounds.

You are not really Little Jerry. You are Epic Jerry. You are Noble Jerry. And now, you are Eternal Jerry.