FORCE
I tried to get in the AJ mindset when writing my remarks, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to sit next to Claudia with a bucket of champagne while watching the Ravens game and listening to Springsteen simultaneously.
My name is Oren Katz. Like AJ, I also grew up in Baltimore. I went to Krieger Schechter and then Gilman, and I knew plenty of people who went to Park. Dr. Shari Kohn, AJ’s mom, was even my dentist when I was very young. AJ and I must have had at least 500 mutual acquaintances growing up, yet somehow even with all of that, we never crossed paths until September of 2014, just as his freshman and my junior year at the University of Miami was beginning. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was entering a classroom at the exact moment that AJ was exiting the very same one, both of us clad in Ravens jerseys (I had Flacco, AJ was wearing his beloved Jimmy Smith). We practically walked into each other and smacked our foreheads together. I didn’t recognize him, and I knew more or less every Ravens fan on campus since there weren’t very many of us, so I knew he had to be a freshman. I said as much to him, and I was rewarded with a chuckle and the first of many of AJ’s trademark smirks. He told me his name, where exactly he was from, where he went to school, etc. and I instantly thought, “his last name is Kohn…he’s from Pikesville…he went to Park…he’s gotta be Jewish” and GOTCHA! Just like that, he was an AEPi pledge six months before he even knew it.
I invited AJ over to our fraternity house to watch the Ravens/Steelers game that night. He gave me all sorts of excuses, like “I have dinner plans, I’m going to watch with my friends from my dorm, I don’t know how to get there”, etc. But with every objection he came up with, I managed to find some way around it to get him there to watch the game together that night.
Now, my intention here isn’t to brag about swindling AJ and coercing him into spending time with me. Rather, it’s that that initial encounter and the ensuing evening are a wonderful microcosm for both our friendship and AJ’s personality as well. Our relationship, and really everything AJ did, was defined by force. At first, for us, it was me forcing him to watch that Ravens game together; but even over the course of that inaugural night, the tables turned and the nature of it evolved. By the second quarter, AJ was forcing me to understand that the Classic Rock on which Tommy had raised him was clearly the far superior genre to my beloved 90s to early 2000s hip hop. In the following weeks, I snatched a copy of his class schedule so I could force my way into his lunch break, and “coincidentally” bump into him on campus when I knew he would be free. A few months after that, I was studying abroad while AJ was pledging our fraternity; I kept a blog of my activities while away, and I leveraged the fraternal power dynamic between us to force AJ to read each and every single post and provide me with feedback, which A) ensured that he knew exactly what was going on in my life and B) opened the conversation for me to ask the same questions of him. It’s truly incredible what indentured servitude can do for a blossoming friendship. That fall, the forces of the universe brought us even closer when we both had fallouts with our housing arrangements and instead teamed up as roommates, living together for one indescribable year. When I graduated in 2016, AJ forced me and Rachel to get lunch with him, sparking a new friendship that turned my brother’s sister into one of the very closest people in my life. I always like to say that there must have been a sale I stumbled upon since I bought one Kohn and got one free. By that point, there was nothing AJ and I could do to get away from each other even if we tried, and we spent the next 3.5 years enmeshing ourselves into each other’s life, forcing one another to take on more and more of the other’s day to day details, core attributes, life-long dreams, and inexplicable passions.
The concept of force that so defined AJ didn't just entail us shoving our hobbies down each other’s throats. It was even more so related to AJ’s disposition in its purest form. The magnitude of his personality was so great, so immeasurable beyond any metric, that it simply could not be stopped from impacting everyone around him. His glimmering eyes and flashy smile were so contagious, bringing a similar one to all others’ faces whether they wanted it to or not (which, side note: was a real problem when you were trying to be mad at him). His compassion was palpable, and it infected the rest of us, inspiring us try to be more like him. AJ’s innate drive to succeed and always aspire for only the very best automatically filed others behind him to follow his lead. It simply wasn’t possible to avoid his charms or not be steamrolled by the level of care that he brought to each situation, and more importantly, each of his relationships with all of us. The power of his devotion to Claudia was awe inspiring. I can’t possibly begin to describe the lengths he would go to in order to move mountains for her. It really put the rest of our egos in check. The sheer tenacity with which he attended everyone in his social circle was staggering. If you needed advice, you went to AJ Kohn first for a level headed response and damn good bear hug. If you just needed an ear to vent to, he was on the phone with you instantly. You just wanted to sit in silence? No problem, he popped on some groovy Classic Rock tunes or an outstanding film you had never even heard of, and AJ would make sure everything was alright. He was always there for all of us, no matter what. And even though we may not have all possessed the same surgical level social skills that AJ did, I know each of us tried our very best to reciprocate it for him.
AJ Kohn was the shining light of so many of our lives. The joy he brought to us on a daily basis always reminded me of a rising sun- you couldn’t blame yourself for not noticing its impact at first, as it subtly crept across the landscape of our community, but come hell or high water it was there every day, ensuring each crevice was touched with the warmth only he could emit. It’s extremely fitting that AJ was such a huge Game of Thrones fan, as George R. R. Martin once wrote that “once the sun has set, no candle can replace it.”
I don’t know what I’m going to do the next time I go to Chipotle and I don’t have AJ sitting next to me, each of us pushing the other to break our personal records for speed eating a burrito. I don’t know what I’m going to do the next time I'm in the mood to quote all of Pulp Fiction verbatim and I don’t have AJ there to play John Travolta opposite my Samuel L. Jackson. I don’t know what I’m going to do without AJ always being ready to have an absurdly awful dance party together, just the two of us, or stay up for hours talking about nothing. I don’t know what I’m going to do without AJ’s lack of an inside voice. I don’t know what I’m going to do without his witticisms. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him supporting me through my own trivial issues. I don’t know what I’m going to do without his smirk. I don’t know what I’m going to do without his opinion and advice. I don’t know what I’m going to do without my little brother. I don't know what I’m going to do without my best friend.
I don’t like not knowing what to do. AJ always came to me for direction, and I loved to help because he was my younger brother, genetics be damned. I was always so unbelievably terrified of him ever thinking even for a moment that I might not have an answer for him. Now it feels like I don’t have the answers for myself and I didn’t have them for him either. I hope one day I can figure it out; I hope we all can. And until then, we’ll all just have to try to spread around an iota of the impact he had on us, using his memory to force that endeavor along.
Finally, I'd like to conclude with a poem that was extraordinarily meaningful to me and AJ. I always forced my love of poetry onto AJ; frankly, he wasn’t usually the most willing participant, but he truly loved this one, so he’ll have to indulge me one more time. The poem is titled The Dash and it’s written by Linda Ellis.
The Dash
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
See, that dash represents all the time
that he spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved him
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not how much we own,
the cars, the house, the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So think about this long and hard;
are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real;
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we have never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent your dash?