Hey MT,
I coined this nickname for you during our time at LEWIS, which in hindsight was an odd choice since “MT” kind of sounds like “empty,” and nothing could be further from describing you.
I met you briefly in college, a friend of a friend of a friend, but I guess at some point we started following each other on Tumblr, and in January 2012 you messaged me for the first time on Facebook. You apologized for liking my Tumblr posts so quickly in case I thought it was creepy, but that you truly found my Tumblr more entertaining than others. Soon after you started asking me for job hunting advice, and I remember wondering at the time why you were asking me. What was your angle? Were you flirting? Or did you just trust me, despite the fact that we barely knew each other? Over the course of the next year I gave you advice, edited your cover letter, and referred you to jobs, until eventually I helped you land your first full-time job out of college at LEWIS - reporting into me.
I had just been promoted to Manager right when you were hired, and you unfortunately bore the brunt of my first year learning how to manage people. I was particular and had high expectations, and I often look back at that first year with guilt that I was so hard on you. But you were a model employee - always gracious accepting and implementing feedback, always willing to lend a helping hand even if it was to your own detriment, and always the first to befriend and welcome new people. In short, you were everyone’s favorite person, including mine.
It’s hard to fully describe our dynamic, as we wore so many hats in our friendship and had a deep, mutual respect for each other that existed beyond our time at LEWIS. I think you might have been a little intimidated by me in the beginning, perhaps because I’d seen a more vulnerable, sheepish version of you when you were just getting started in your career, and I was your boss and your mentor. I encouraged you during our 1:1s to bring the energy and confidence you had in your personal life over to your professional life, because you were so charismatic and so well-loved, I knew those traits alone could carry you far. But you helped me a lot, too, and I had so much admiration for you. You were the first person I ever mentored, and you taught me how to be a better leader, a lesson I’ve taken with me throughout the rest of my career, as well as a better friend.
You always reminded me so much of my brother with your charm and your humor and your love of hypebeast culture, I often told you that I wanted you to meet because I thought doing so would cause a rip in the universe, two twin souls meeting each other for the first time. I repeated this so often to both you and my brother that you eventually became friends on social media, much to my amusement. When you told me this past December that you were considering moving to LA for your next chapter, I was so excited to be able to spend more time with you, to introduce you to my brother and Liam, and to live out the SoCal stage of our friendship. You were a brother to me, so similar to my actual one, that losing you has felt like losing a part of myself. You were my go-to person anytime I needed advice or a listening ear and I will deeply miss having your support in my life.
The last time I gchatted you was the day after Kobe died. You were one of the biggest fans I knew and I wanted to make sure you were ok, but I never heard back and I thought maybe you were so devastated that you needed some space. It brings me some solace to now know that you got sick before Kobe died and that perhaps you never knew about the accident - because if the cancer hadn’t killed you, Kobe’s death might have.
I’m so thankful for the friendship we had, and I will cherish the memories we had together. And because I’m a nostalgic person, I’ve been going through our old messages everywhere and I’m so grateful to have found this one - which you sent to me after the Kaskade concert back in 2016.
I love you, MT, you were one of my favorite people and I will miss you forever. Rest with Kobe.