Matt Miller and Gavin Powell Remembered In Rap and in Other Tributes Over the Weekend

Former Las Lomas High student Spencer Sharp created a tribute for Matt Miller and Gavin Powell in a unique way. A rap. 

"I was actually sent a couple messages by people asking for a tribute song," said Sharp.  "I wasn't fortunate to ever meet these amazing kids, but after seeing all the love that was shown to them I felt like I knew them myself."

He was just one of thousands of people who celebrated the lives of Matt Miller and Gavin Powell over this past week and over the weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Walnut Ceek community paid respects to the two Las Lomas juniors with services. Mourners crowded into local church sanctuaries where they grieved, cried, meditated, prayed, and remembered with laughter, sadness and joy two young men who they say were among Walnut Creek's brightest stars.

Spencer Sharp's rap refers to the rafting trip the Las Lomas friends set out on last Saturday. On that afternoon, a storm was rolling through the Bay Area, dumping nearly an inch of rainfall and causing the creeks and flood-control canals that flow through Walnut Creek to rise to dangerous levels.

The boys, adventurous, strong, free-spirited and determined enough that they together both ran to the top of Mount Diablo, decided to go on a journey around their hometown waterways.

Something happened in those torrential waters, something we will probably never know. As spiritual leaders have pointed out, our grief over their deaths is compounded by our inability to know "the truth" of when and how these two promising young men lost their lives. But to some degree, this mystery is part of the realiy of this traumatic event, another aspect of our grief that we have to accept in order to eventually let go. 

All we know is that Matt and Gavin didn't make it to a scheduled rendezvous with a friend.  And, neither made it back to their homes on Saturday night. The worst fear of any parent was realized when the news came Sunday that the boys' bodies were found in a flood control canal in Concord, a few miles north from where they set out on their journey. Matt's parents lost their only son, a 16-old who turned 17 this past week, a boy who filled his parents with enormous pride and happiness. His father, Bob Miller, has expressed gratitude to authorities for finding their son so quickly and "bringing him out of the cold."

Gavin's parents lost their only child, a boy who was exhuberent and enthusiastic about everything his bright but "eccentric" mind committed himself to: art, music, bike riding, hiking, the environment, Buddhism, meditation and the fine art of drinking tea.  "I felt like I had the dream child," his mother Julie Powell, has said. 

A friend of Gavin's described other events in human history when a population is under siege, feeling lost, terrified, facing the death of people they love. There was London in 1940, this friend said, when German bombs were dropping on London,  blasting away entire neighborhoods, killing hundreds of people, and upending a way of life and a way of viewing the world. 

Then there is Walnut Creek 2011, he said. People in Walnut Creek--even those who are strangers to Matt, Gavin, and their families--have shed tears over the past week. They have been wrenched out of their comfort zone and left to wonder whether anything makes sense anymore.

Spencer Sharp was feeling the loss enough that he made this video.

The forecast for this past weekened seemed to be a repeat of last weekend's, only worse. The forecast promised not just snow, but more dark clouds and showers to fill our creeks and canals and make them just as deadly as they were on the weekend Matt and Gavin died. 

But by Saturday, the storm rolled by. Blue filled the skies on Saturday and Sunday. Daffodils, dogwood trees and fruit tree blossoms showed their bright, hope-filled colors and offered signs of spring and of renewal everywhere in Walnut Creek. 

Whether or not you believe in miracles, it's almost as if Nature said "Let me make these two days--these days to honor Gavin and Matt--as glorious as possible." The two, after all, liked to spend as much time in nature as possible. 

Sun filtered in from outdoors and filled the sanctuary of the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church Saturday, where Gavin's service was held. Those who spoke remembered his unique brillance, and his kind, goofy "That's so Gavin" spirit. 

Writer Lou Fancher, like a fair number of us, didn't know either boy personally, but she wanted to pay respects. She left the service for Matt Miller holding her son a bit closer.

She also left inspired by the grace of Matt's older sister, Hannah, and his father Bob. Matt's father spoke about findng some way of to make sense of his son's death in the ancient Greek myth of Daedalus. 

This myth tells the story of a father, imprisoned with his son Icarus in a tower in Crete, because of knowledge the father has that threatens the king's power. Daedalus, an inventor, creates two pairs of wings, for himself and his son. These wings, the father hopes, will give them the power of flight--power in those days reserved for birds and for gods. Fight will allow Daedalus and Icarus the chance to escape their tower prison and to fly away home.

But the wings, as well as they work, require beeswax to told hold the feathers together. Once Daedalus and his son make their escape, flying like raptors out of the tower prison, Daedalus warns his son to not fly too high. Don't go near the sun, the father says, where the heat will melt the wings. 

With their amazing wings, the two pass over several islands in the Aegean. But Icarus, feeling that youthful sense of immortablity and newfound power of flight, disregards his father's warnigs. He begins to soar up, up, up to the sun. The blazing sun melts the wax of his wings, which fall off. Icaraus plunges to his death in the sea. 

Likewise, Matt Miller and Gavin Powell, with their youthful enthusiams and spirit of adventure, flew too close to the sun last weekend, his father, Bob Miller said. Matt's death left this father to continue his flight in life without his son.