Saturday, October 10, 2009
HM Homecoming Football Game, Dedicated to Jonathan, Saturday October 24th
Horace Mann will be dedicating its October 24 Homecoming Football Game to Jonathan. The team will be wearing his number 32 on their helmets for that game and the entire season, in honor and memory of its captain. They also retired his number for the season, and are leaving his jersey on the bench in his memory. In addition, the team's coach will be reading letters written by former teamates before the game. If anyone would like to write one, please send it to samantha@ghk.com or sabrina@ghk.com by October 22. Please please come to the game at 2:45 and help show Jonathan how much he is loved and missed and what a legacy he is leaving. We know he will be watching. - the Family
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Jonathan, my angel, we are working so hard to let everyone know about the Horace Mann Homecoming Football dedication to you. It is truly amazing (as you would say) (though not surpising) how many people have already said they will of course come and how many of your former teammates have written to us what an impact you made on their lives, what a leader you were, a hero, and a wonderful friend. Jonathan, the Family misses you so much that we all feel like our hearts are literally broken. I know you are around us though all the time - please please visit me in my dreams. i need to see your face and hear your voice. i love you so so much. Samantha - ps - i tell Chase every day that you are his guardian angel and he told me you are protecting him. i know you always will. he also put up a lot of pictures of you in his room which we look at all the time. love and miss you more than i can bear, your big sister forever
ReplyDeleteIt feels like just yesterday but I can vividly remember the day Jonathan was born. Samantha and I were at school and Mr. Fountain made an announcement on the loud speaker. Since that day, I will always remember Jonathan as a beautiful, golden haired child. In my mind, he is still no more than 6 years old and Samantha and I are chasing him down the boardwalk in Atlantic Beach. I can't help but laugh when I think of all the times little Jonathan would stick his head in while I was in the shower! Back in the city, Jonathan used to have cheese and crackers with us after school, the Kleier's house always felt like my second home. Jonathan, I knew you as a child and sadly didn't get to know you well as an adult, I do know now what an impressive man you had grown to be and how proud you made your family everyday. You are missed by everyone, and your family is working so hard to keep you with them and your memory alive.
ReplyDeleteI have so many wonderful memories of spending time at the Kleier apartment – which always felt like a second home to me. During my high school years, Jonathan was an ever-present little cherub, hiding under prom and Sweet 16 dresses, and trying to make his sister’s friends laugh (and succeeding). I loved getting to know him as an adult, too. In recent years, I would always be happy when Samantha would mention her brother would be at a Horace Mann event or at some get-together that I was attending, because I looked forward to talking to him and hearing his fresh perspective on things. He seemed to think things through more thoroughly than any 23, 24, or 25 year old I’d ever encountered. Luckily, we shared great passion for topics like the Sopranos, the Kleier family and puzzling out seemingly mundane human interactions. He was the opposite of the stereotype of the self-absorbed young person, always wanting to know what and how I was doing; genuinely interested in ideas and people. That’s what made him special to me as an adult.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard the Family (now I am capitalizing the f, too) had recently started to watch Mad Men, I assumed it must have been at Jonathan’s urging. I was so looking forward to talking to him about his theories on that show. Jonathan, I know you must have some insights that would blow my mind.
I’m excited for Homecoming, to be at HM where Jonathan starred on the field. I hope everyone reading this helps us remember Jonathan and will try to be there too.
Jonathan, we have a guy named Arun (rememeber the tutor arun who charged 500 an hour 15 years ago??) - well this is a new arun and he is amazing and he got all your messages off mom's cell phone so we all have cds of your voice now, but now he is here at the office and he is trying to save the 900 messages that mom saved here from the year 2000, the ones that were wiped out when the system went down on that horrible day, so the Family is all chanting here we need you chanting and putting your magic on him and helping him to get these messages back for mom. Please Jonathan, please, focus all your energy on Arun right now. he is sitting in Dan Wollman's conference room - the room we shot the pilot for the tv show in. Focus, we need him to get these back. Love and miss you beyond words. i love you, Samantha
ReplyDeleteI only met Jonathan a couple of times, and in those times it was in the context as Samantha’s brother, or the young man who my wife Robin remembered as a little boy. As it turns out Jonathan was a lot like all my best friends a decade removed; we went to the same college, like the same TV shows and love football. I've been thinking a lot about football lately, because in the past few weeks I’ve been doing story after story about high school football across America. One town I went to in Vermont could only field a team of 22 players, of which 10 were shrimpy freshman who couldn’t safely be inserted into a game. Try as they might this team could never win, they could barely even score, but all the players swore by the sport, and said it was the most important thing in their lives. Football gave them meaning. The town I most recently visited was on a military base, where players are sometimes forced to leave the team as their dads are deployed elsewhere. Last year a player’s dad died in Afghanistan. This year a 17 year old junior collapsed in practice, and died in the hospital a few days later. That player’s parents still go to their games wear their sons’ # 73, and have adopted their son’s teammates as their support network. Football gives them hope. I met those parents literally 2 days after attending Jonathan’s funeral. They were talking about what it means to lose a son, and how football was so meaningful to him, and how football has become so very important to them since. They probably thought that I was welling up as I interviewed them because of their sad story, and that was part of it. But of course it was because so much of what they were saying reminded me of another young man who unfairly and meaninglessly left us too soon.
ReplyDeleteI say meaninglessly but there was something that was said at the funeral of the young player which a few people told me about.
The base chaplain put it this way: “When something like this happens, we ask ‘Why?” There is no answer to “Why?”. Part of the reason there is no answer is that it’s the wrong question. We should be asking “What?” -- “What next?” “What now?” “What do we do? ” “What do we do in our own lives to make this meaningful? What do we do to remember.. what do we do to support… what do we do to honor?”
That football team had their own answer, they dedicated their (currently undefeated) season to the player, they honor and spend time with the parents, they go the extra mile on the field, and have a new attitude off it.
Part of our answer the question of “what” begins at the game at Horace Mann on the 24th. It’s a small, small part ,but for the school to stop and remember a player of almost a decade ago, and to have so many people there who knew him, and, perhaps more impressively, so many finding out about Jonathan for the very first time is the right tribute. So many of the memories I’ve read and heard of Jonathan were him tearing up that football field , running into the end zone, and reveling in his status as a member of a team. It also seems to me that in the rigid structure that is a football team Jonathan found a lot of freedom and a way to stand for something that was uniquely his own. Robin and I will be there on the 24th, I hope everyone who reads this and who has even has an inkling of interest answers the question “What next?” in the same way
-Mike Pesca
I never really knew Jonathan "the man." I only knew (and will always remember) Jonathan as my pseudo "little brother" with a curly mop of blonde hair. He was naughty and funny and beautiful. He invented the "language ba-danguage" that Saboo and Magoo still speak. He would karate chop us and try to get sneak peeks of the girls as we got ready for a night out. He would fall asleep at Mother Kelly's on Michelle's lap with a napkin gently draped over his head so not to get baked ziti or gorgonzola salad on his face. He had a husky voice and a slight lisp. He lost a toe in a bicycle wheel on the Atlantic Beach boardwalk. He LOVED his family and worshiped his sisters. He had an unbelievable amount of energy. He was such a gigantic part of my early life and I find myself thinking of him every day. He will be painfully missed.
ReplyDeleteI am so sad that I am going to miss Homecoming this year. Please know that I will be there in spirit.
Love Always,
Nancy (aka Magoo)
I will always remember Jonathan as a little boy, with his endless blond curls, devilish smile, insatiable curiosity and sweet heart. He was my little buddy and the most memorable 4 year old I ever met. And the kid could deliver a punch line or the chorus to a Beastie Boys song right on time. Our friends would prompt him with “you’ve got to fight for your right” and little Jonathan would answer with “to party”. And we sang it over and over and it never got old.
ReplyDeleteSo much time spent together with the lovely Kleier family on 90th Street. The closest family I know. It was an amazing time in my life.
In recent years, I hadn’t seen Jonathan as often. But my dear friend Sabrina, so proud to be his big sister kept me informed about everything he was doing. How, in what seemed like the flash of an eye, had that same little guy become such a wonderfully talented young man. Anyone who has read his blog or seen his short film, iJack.iRob.iSin knows that Jonathan was really coming into his own as both a writer and a filmmaker. I can only imagine what he would have done next.
I think about Jonathan daily and will always keep the memory of our time together in my heart.
Dear Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteWe have been thinking about you all the time. We think about what a terrific person you were and how much we enjoyed seeing you and speaking with you over the years. You had such a nice and welcoming way about you. No pretenses. You made everyone around you comfortable.
I (Amanda) remember walking on the street a few years ago on the Upper East Side, being busy, lost in my thoughts and seeing you very briefly out of the corner of my eye. We hadn't seen each other in several years and I wasn't even sure you would recognize me, but before I could even smile, you gave me a big "Hi Amanda, How are you?" What a nice guy I thought. It was the type of interaction that could brighten your day.
Last year, David and I ran into you after we had all attended the Larry David presentation at the 92nd Street Y. You were glowing -- you just loved the show and we just loved sharing the moment with you. There was no one we would have enjoyed discussuing the show with more. We could just see the passion so many of your friends spoke about. When we walked home, David and I went on and on about what a great guy you were. We found you to be a mensch, a good soul. A nice, good, honest, friendly, outgoing, funny, thoughtful, inquisitive, intelligent and warm person. And this was our shared reaction after only a few minutes of talking to you.
We miss you very much Jonathan and we carry you in our thoughts all the time.
Love,
Amanda and David
Friends:
ReplyDeleteWhen Jon’s sisters asked a few of his former teammates to write something about Jon, I imagine that there was a prevailing and consistent reaction. How can you describe the leadership that Jon brought to our team? I was at a loss for words. And then I read a story about Pat Tillman. Tillman’s former coach Dave McGinnis said the following:
“I remember when he came to our team meal before played Seattle that weekend [in 2003], he just walked into the room and there was silence. The room was stunned. Everyone on that team respected him so much – and you’d have seen that respect if he went out and played again.”
That’s a lot what it was like to be Jon’s teammate. He walked into a room and instantly the room was silent because we knew what a fierce competitor he was. We knew how much he wanted to win and we didn’t want to let him down. For that, Jon commanded the respect of his teammates and friends.
As I think about my own football career at Horace Mann, I am reminded that it would have been quite different without Jon:
• There would be no trips down the hill as we snuck away from the two-a-day practices in the summer
• There would be no rants from coach Colandros as he yelled at Jon during the Monday afternoon practices: “Come on Kleier, sweat out the weekend’s festivities!”
• There would be no league championship game against Dalton in 2000
• And worst of all, there would be no heart on the team
Everyone who played with Jon would invariably agree on one simple fact. He was always someone you wanted on your team. Jon, we’ll all miss you. And we all thank you for the ways that you bettered our lives: in the classroom, in the cafeteria and, most of all, on the field.
Jonathan, went to AstroGems today on 34th street - me mom and sabrina all got amethyst necklaces and rocks for our nighttables - we are going to go back and get one for your desk at the office and your room at home. thank you for sending us to that store - we felt like you definitely went there. we know it. it says about amethyst "assists spiritual, psychic opening in grounded way. creativity, sobriety, courage. intuition, self-esteem. transform old habits, relieves depression and is excellent for meditation as well as protection." we love and miss you more than you can imagine. please stop the rain from coming tomorrow. love you so much. samantha
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I ever told him this, but Kleier (I know people are calling him Jon here but I can't call him anything but "Kleier") was the first person at Horace Mann to talk to me. It was the first day of kindergarten and I was scared to be in a new school. Some of the other kids already knew each other and Kleier was one of them. He was in the center of a group of kids and they were all laughing at a joke he made. When he saw me standing alone he walked over to me, stuck out his hand and said "hey, come over and talk to us". That's how he was, you know, never afraid of anything and always willing to stick a hand out if I ever needed it. And I did need it. I needed it that day in kindergarten before I knew anyone. I needed it later in summer camp when I couldn't play sports as well as the other kids and he taught me how to dribble a basketball. I needed it in high school when he helped me pass economics class. That's always how Kleier was. And for as long as I can remember this kind, brave, loyal person has been in my life and I miss him to death.
ReplyDelete-JD