Memory Eternal, Nikolas Doucet

Nikolas Andreas Doucet, age 8, died painlessly of sudden cardiac arrest on Friday, November 8th, 2024, at 7:03 PM Central time. He was buried on Friday November 16, 2024. (A previous post concerning Nikolas can be found here.) The following was the eulogy that I, his father, gave at his graveside.

I’ve heard a lot of bad eulogies in my time. There’s at least three different ways to give a bad eulogy.

First, I could pour all of my efforts into denying every ounce of grief, insisting instead on “celebrating the life” of Nikolas, pursuing the absurd goal of making sure nobody gets sad at the funeral of an eight year old boy.

Second, I could robotically recite a list of dates and anecdotes, leaving you with little more than a disjointed Wikipedia summary of Nikolas’ life.

Last and worst, I could make this all about me, making myself the main character at my own son’s funeral.

I regret to inform you that I will surely fail in each and every one of these ways, so settle in for a bad eulogy. Forgive me.

Nikolas was with us for eight short years, and the last of these he spent bed-bound after sustaining a tragic brain injury that left him in a minimally conscious state. He passed suddenly and without pain last Friday.

I think a lot of people misunderstand what a minimally conscious state is, rounding it off to “brain-dead” or “vegetative.” That’s not the case. A better way to describe Nikolas’ condition would be “extremely disabled.” He couldn’t get out of bed, he couldn’t feed himself, he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t see, but he didn’t need machines to keep him alive, his heart and lungs were perfectly functional, he could smile, laugh, move his arms and legs – and he could definitely hear. He would clearly react to us talking and singing to him, though how much he actually understood – if anything – we’ll never know.

Before the injury, Nikolas was a rambunctious and energetic young boy and got into a lot of trouble. But he also possessed several virtues that I will be forever struck by.

First and foremost, he was quick to forgive and would not hold a grudge. To be clear, he could get storming mad as you’d expect of any child, but within minutes he would be back to his happy self, having seemingly forgotten the entire dispute, and ready to play again with whoever had just upset him as if nothing had happened.

Second, he possessed deep wells of tranquility, patience, and bravery, which most clearly manifested in visits to the doctor, of which there were many. The first time we took him into the emergency room – I think it was for stitches after he had cut himself on something – the nurses and doctors were amazed at this little boy who sat patiently, neither crying nor complaining through the whole procedure. On the way out the door, he picked up the discharge forms meant for Mamma as he bowed and solemnly said to the nurses, “Thank you so much for the papers.” Emily noted early on to me what an incredible skill Nikolas had for being a good medical patient, and then, pausing, added, “I hope he never has to use it.”

Third, Nikolas had a knack for perseverance motivated by an unflagging zeal for his interests. It is not uncommon for young boys to have obsessive interests, and Nikolas’ particular objects of fascination will perhaps not strike you as so unusual, but bear with me a moment and you will see what was special about him. He would get up early every Garbage day and wait outside for the garbage truck to come by. He would count the garbage trucks on the road on every car trip, along with the churches, and especially, the churches with bell towers. He was obsessed with machines and would walk the streets of our neighborhood on bulky trash day, hoping to find a discarded kitchen mixer he could disassemble. He had a deep love for musical instruments. One day after his injury, Emily found that our Dictionary had been meticulously annotated with dozens of tiny makeshift bookmarks. At some unknown time before, Nikolas had gone through every single page, noting each and every illustration of a musical instrument.

I mention all of this because Nikolas had a rare disease, and the diagnosis came three days after his brain injury. Among his symptoms was a global development delay. Put simply, everything was difficult for him. Talking, walking, putting on clothes, tying his shoes, eating, drawing, swimming, everything was at least twice as hard for him as any other child of the same age. And yet he persisted, doggedly, enthusiastically even. He kept at everything he set his mind to without giving up. You can look at me by contrast. I am a man of many talents, and yet at the first sign of adversity and inconvenience my motivation plummets to zero. What little Nikolas had in natural endowments he gladly presented to his master, saying, “Look Lord, here you have what was yours, and more again.”

Nothing about Nikolas’ short life was fair. He was kinder, gentler, more patient, more forgiving, more long-suffering, more hard-working than I could ever hope to be, and he now goes home to his master.

A final note. Many of you know me as a man of deep faith, but I confess to have long been plagued by moments of doubt, moments that are the darkest when thoughts turn to the inevitability of my own death. It is of some relevance that I am also possessed of a pathological phobia of falling from great heights. It is therefore no surprise that when I imagine the experience of death, I picture myself falling into a great yawning abyss. I see myself falling, falling, falling, headlong into that great nothing, and God is not there to catch me.

Nikolas changed all that. I cannot confess to having had any great religious epiphanies in my life, save one – when Nikolas’ brain was first injured I perceived that already his place in Heaven was secured among the saints. Whether and how he was ‘already’ there despite yet clinging to a greatly diminished life, I cannot say – but since Heaven is eternal and outside of time, perhaps I too at that moment was–or am–standing there along with him, watching this mortal world welded to the arrow of time, looking in through a window from a vantage point wholly outside it.

I’ll leave the metaphysics to the philosophers and the theologians. The thing that matters is that I realized then and there that what had been plaguing me my entire life was not doubt, but fear. Not doubt that there would be no God to save me from falling, but fear that he would withdraw his hand, as I so surely deserve.

But if Nikolas can do it, I can do it too.

O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?