Nice memories and tribute. Thank you for sharing. I haven't written nor given a eulogy, but this is close.
“Good evening, everyone. I am honored and privileged to share with all of you my love and admiration for Jason Sheftell, whom Richard and I are grateful to have had as a close and fabulous friend for nearly 30 years, and for whom Bailey House’s Real Estate Award shall hereafter be so befittingly named. Jason personified this humanitarian award, as he was passionate about both people and real estate.
Humanitarian means compassionate, humane, unselfish, altruistic, generous, magnanimous, benevolent, merciful, kind, sympathetic — Jason embodied all of these transcendent qualities, and these, combined with his dynamic personality and dedication to his craft, are why his career in real estate was unparalleled.
Jason loved people, loved life — had an insatiable appetite for experiencing life through all of his senses and an intense intellectual curiosity. This is what made Jason’s work, writing about real estate, so unique and successful. Jason realized that real estate is so much more than its bricks and mortar — that real estate is not mostly about location, location, location. Jason realized that behind the architecturally significant facades and interior designs that he wrote about, the true essence of real estate is the people, the people, the people — it’s about all the people who make up our industry — the owners, developers, financiers, brokers, designers and builders, but most of all it’s about the people for whom we design and build — it’s about whom we are and how we live life — real estate is about where we call home — and home is where the heart is — and Jason’s heart was huge, warm, and welcoming.
Above all Jason was interested in meeting and knowing about people inside and out. So Jason embarked on a journey of walking the streets of our great city, absorbing all he could with his eyes, ears, nose and taste buds — our friend Jason loved to eat — not just to write about buildings and the people responsible for them — but to write about neighborhoods, because neighborhoods, more than the buildings that comprise them, are a community of people with stories to tell, and Jason loved to talk, and to listen, and then write so we could all experience the wonders of our world through his artful prose.
Jason came across Bailey House on his pilgrimage of discovery. I encourage all of you to read Jason’s article on Bailey House — a wonderful example of Jason’s talent for composition that fuses real-estate development and finance with an important human story of Bailey House’s successful campaign to provide comfort to a generation.
I had considered giving these remarks in the present tense because while Jason no longer resides in the realm perceptible by our physical senses, he is still present. He lives on not only in his works and deeds, and not only in our memories and in the tabernacles that are our hearts, but quite simply has rejoined the eternal infinity of the Universe, from where I know that Jason, together with his father Fred, will continue to be Karen’s and Lauren’s angel, and a friend to us all. And so Karen and Lauren, it is with a heart both poignant and uplifted, that I present you with Jason’s award.”
I wrote and delivered that address in March 2014, 10 months after he passed. I handed the award to Jason's mom. I couldn't cry then as it wasn't the time nor place (of course plenty of tears were shed, some sobbed, 10 months earlier--the call with Jason's mom is seared into me--she had called me looking for him, as I found out a couple of hours later when I called her back, and she squeezed out the words that another friend she sent to his apartment discovered his body. I did cry again when I pulled this out of my computer last March (and a bit while writing this comment) on what would have been Jason's 56th birthday and posted it along with a new poem I had written for the occasion. https://marcus17043.medium.com/haiku-sonnet-for-my-friend-jason-c64fafec763e
