Eulogizing W. Bradford Jones

Church of the Future

Brad Jones has left us. He was called back home to his creator. Back to the ether. Back to the stars that composed him and back to the ashes and dust. Ashes tapped on the sides of a porch ashtray or rising to the sky over the holy backyard firepit. Brad Jones was our brother, our father, our friend. Brad Jones was our inspired confidante, enlivened glory and a man we truly loved, admired and sought to emulate.

Brad Jones walked to Bear Lake like a prophet and hollered “Helloooooo” so sounding and triumphant we turned our fishing boat to giggles in hot pursuit back to the shore to see him. Brad Jones was a friend unlike and unrivaled by any that we are blessed with in life. Brad Jones was an utter gift, an era and time and place and product of only himself.

They don’t make them like Brad Jones anymore. Brad Jones does not give a shit what it looks like to the neighbors or the public. Ask Brad Jones what he thinks of the war in Gaza and he says, “They’re killing each other” tipping his empty palms up for a moment and shaking his head. Brad Jones puts potatoes on the charcoal grill and leaves them be. His enchiladas were legendary. He taught us how to handle racks of ribs in sublime late dinnertimes, he taught us to par cook logs, he taught us to laugh in the face of cancer and authoritarianism, he taught us to have another hit of fresh air.

Brad Jones used his hands to infirmary shaping wood, carving creation and making comfortable perches for all his fine human feathered friends. For years, I dropped into his Adirondack chairs. I set my drink on the handmade coasters and wrapped my bird legs curled crouched to his sofas. Who makes a sofa? Brad Jones does.

Brad Jones was the most unique person I’ve ever met. Utterly unaffiliated but somehow belonging to us all. Too imaginative for tribes, too unfiltered to fit in a case, too beautiful for clichés and platitudes. Brad Jones didn’t shame me for puking in his yard. Brad Jones didn’t appall at anything I ever said out loud or inside mumbled. He utterly accepted me, and this is not an unusual stance for him. He utterly accepted humans in life, on this earth, on his path, in his way. His way bent for anyone; his conversation opened the afternoon to allow any talk to happen.

Brad Jones understood things. He understood addictions, compulsions, aversions, motivations, persuasions and everything stupid and smart that humans do. He is a man of the people who found the others in life and went in deep, open, right on and resonant, blowing contemplative smoke to the sky. Brad Jones was not a nervous energy smoker. He was a cool guy and that’s final. Brad Jones made me feel far less alone in the world because he saw things differently.

Brad’s family and friends were the most important thing to him—no accomplishments, he asked me not to say them, no accolades, he asked me not to share them, no awards and no sympathy – just the love that made life livable for him and for us who knew him – the lucky throngs who got to call him friend. He had a million friends and every one, he said, had such an influence on his life. Every one had such an impact and he is only the sum of these relationships, he said. He is only the result of the people he shared life with.

“Like you,” he said, “you’ve had such a big influence on my life.” Me, Brad? How can I influence you when you are so much influencing me? This is a puzzle of life that never ceases, and gives it its mysterious splendor and glory. How we change and grow and influence each other in this lifetime. Limbic attractors. How we intersect as no accident on this mortal coil all strewn with love and love and more love.

Or if we believe that it is all one big blessed accident that brought us together, we will still cry - Oh God, I will miss you Brad, and accidents too are no less than a miracle.