Two eulogies will be delivered at the services for Matthew Kerhin. If you can not attend, we understand and will posted them here to help those to be as much a part of Matthew’s life as we can.
The Honorable Judge Leah Stuller MD
Hello. I want to thank you all for coming to celebrate the life our dearly loved Matthew James Kerhin. Matt loved to share friends and bring people together and I would like to begin by acknowledging how lucky we all are for having a Matt Kerhin to share our lives with. Not everyone gets to have a Matt Kerhin. For those of you who don’t know me I am Matt’s best friend the honorable Leah Stuller. Now I know what you all are thinking. Who is this lady? Honorable? As Jim would say with all that stuff in her face. The nerve of her coming up here and claiming to be Matt’s best friend when clearly I’m Matt’s best friend. I don’t blame anyone for feeling the way they do. And that’s because Matt had a unique way of making every person in his life feel like they were his best friend, like they were the most important person to him, but I guarantee you I’m her. He told me, all the time. He said you’re my very best friend in the whole world every time he hugged me. He also told me that I could put whatever accolades before or after my name and no one would ever question it, so from this day forward I would like to be acknowledged as the honorable Judge Leah Stuller, MD
When Pat asked me to write a eulogy for Matt I panicked, not because I didn’t have a multitude of stories to select from and I know you all do to, but because 100% of the stories I could tell you about Matt are completely and insanely inappropriate to tell in the Catholic Church and would require several trips to the confessional, and hours of penance, and quite possibly a bath of holy water.
The only quote that would come to my mind over and over again is “What a piece of work is man.” I spent my entire life thinking that was a prolific lyric from the Hair soundtrack but its actually a Hamlet quote. And what a piece of work Matt Kerhin was. It’s hard for me to say was because I still feel like he’s here. He was a trip. He had that je ne sais quoi. I think that means annoying in French. Matt was unapologetically himself. He spoke his mind and acted on his own accord regardless of whether we were offended or not. It took a significant level of strength, resilience, and mental fortitude to hang with Matt, and I thank you all for hanging in there with him. I think we would all agree he was not for the weak.
I met Matt at Central highschool when he was a freshman and I was a sophomore. Matt loved pretty girls and was always surrounded by them. Matt was always up for adventure. In fact he was responsible for nearly all of our adventures in highschool. He was the type of guy who didn’t mind being thrown in the back seat of the car to be whisked away to Chi-Chis for a spoonful of hot sauce just to appease our girl group-me, Kelly, Medea, Shelley, Sherry, Margaux. Sometimes we’d only have room in the trunk, or on the hood of the car. He didn’t mind that either. As a matter of fact he didn’t even mind when I closed the car door completely on his entire hand. He just stood there wiggling his fingers and calmy said, “Ummm I’m gonna need these.” Aside from the hot sauce, Matt would drink just about anything the girls concocted. Matt and I bonded over absolute ridiculousness, we were callous and obnoxious, we loved music, prank calls, rollerskating, sledding (Matthew had some unorthodox ways of sledding resulting in multiple injuries in our friend group) parties, rock and roll shows, popcorn wagons, smart mouthin’ and all other forms of stupidity and chaos. And our parents never found out! I do apologize Pat, Jim, Mom.
We spent our days cruising the dollar store parking lot or sneaking into the zoo- did you know Hippos release an ear piercing scream if you throw a pumpkin in their cage? and our nights were spent walking to the Paradise theatre in west allis, going through the taco bell drive thru by foot, cruising highway hunnerd in the ford Fairmont, hitting up budget cinemas and Denny’s, running around in parks, going pumpkin smashing, starting things on fire, dancing at mad planet, baileys, and club Marilyn on teen night-Matt was the cutest dancer-he loved to dance to Pet Shop Boys, ABBA, and Men Without Hats. We snuck into all 14 days of the state fair, Matt dressed as a coca cola vendor and repeatedly asked every single person there “Would you like to help yourself to a sample of an ice cold coca cola from the coca cola factory?” while we all giggled from the bushes. We wandered the east side, visiting our crushes at their various jobs, ate breadsticks at pizza shuttle and sat for hours on end, him irritating, or charming, as he saw it, the waitresses at George Webbs on Farwell. When we got a little older we would go pound on the door at WMSE to bother Pete and Joe, we both had crushes on pete and joe. I always got Matt back to his doorstep, or at least seated on the curb somewhere on his block. You’re welcome Jim and Pat.
Now let me get to how I know I was Matt’s best friend. This man gave and gave and gave to me. He did everything for me and never asked for anything in return, ever. He fixed problems for me before I even knew they were problems. He built me a bike and custom painted it. I didn’t even want a bike. And it had a bell. He set up a 75 gallon aquarium in my house without my knowledge. I didn’t even want an aquarium. It had live plants! He custom built the stand! How many of you can say that? Who here can say that he did everything for them and asked for nothing in return but friendship and laughs and good times? Actuall don’t answer that. I bet a lot of you can say that. Im a teacher too so touch your nose if youve ever found yourself annoyed by Matt and his antics? So annoyed you could scream? If you touched your nose I guarantee you were one of the people Matt held in the highest regard. He only bothered the people he loved. He only guilted the people he loved. I still have vm of him guilting me “I can’t believe youre not coming with me to the brewers game, to Summerfest, to the bike race.” Im so happy to have ignored his phonecalls and have those messages. He just wanted to be surrounded by the people he admired. Matt was trying. He tried so hard this summer. I know he reconnected with a lot of you, met up with a lot of you, and was trying to get excited about the prospects of the future with a lot of you despite the life changes he was going through. I am so grateful for those of you he got to reconnect with this summer and fall. You gave him hope. The last experience he and I shared was the Riverwest 24.
I would like to end me and my best friend’s story with a few verses from one of his favorite songs, one we used to dance to at Mad Planet, one that will always remind me of the amazing and crazy times we had together. It goes
We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t dance
And if they don’t dance
Well theyre no friends of mine
We can go where we want to
A place where they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind.
We can dance (Dance)
We can go where we want to
The night is young and so am I
And we can dress real neat
From our hats to our feet
And surprise them with a victory cry
We can act if we want to
If we don’t nobody will
And you can act real rude
And totally removed
And I can act like an imbecile
We can dance.
Matthew I love you and I know you would’ve wanted it this way- the Safety Dance stuck in everyone’s head for the remainder of your funeral.
Brian Kerhin
Thank you, Leah, for sharing your life with Matt with all of us. I couldn’t have written these words having read yours a few days ago. I too did not want a fish tank.
Henry, Jack and Stella, please listen, you are the people on my mind most as I wrote this.
Most of my favorite stories about my brother involve my Dad. In our home my father was a very influential character. He is an icon of self-confidence thanks to the experience and skills he has gained throughout his life. As a child, I can remember coming home from church to watch the crafts man shows like this old house with Bob Villa. But nothing was finer than the new Yankee workshop with Norm Abrums. Norm had a quiet, calm way of talking and really explaining what he was doing as he created a piece of furniture. It was magnetizing for my father, brother and me. Norm also had a wonderful perfectionist phrase, “Measure twice, cut once”. As we grew my father would include us more in his building projects. My favorite was when he transformed a closet into a Sauna. Living in Wisconsin and having a place to escape that was over a hundred degrees in winter was like heaven. Truly a motivating reward for the work we were putting in to learn how to do wood working.
In addition to the new Yankie Workshop, we would also watch “Bill Dance Outdoors”. Fishing for a living Saturday morning on television. Matthew and my father for years would compete to see who could catch the most fish and between Bill Dance and Bass Proshops Matthew was sure he could win.
After years of effort my father announced one night that he would share with us the secret to his success. I remember it like this, “Matthew, you have better bait than me, better rod and real, cast further and spend longer diving to find where the fish are. But while you’re sitting in the boat working with your bait and hooks, I’m casting every square inch of the water. You can’t catch a fish if your bait isn’t in the water.”
So after years of telling my brother Matthew, “No, I’m too busy”, when he asked me to go hunting. I dropped my bait in the water. I said yes.
Without saying yes to his invitations to connect on the things he enjoyed I would have never learned how to hunt, use every part of that deer I can get, make food in my smoker (which he gave me), ride motorcycles, work on engines, build things with wood and metal, swim, snorkel, fish or fight.
After years of saying no, I could do that, I could learn to let go of what I wanted and I could meet him where he was, be a part of his world. That was the greatest skill of all that he taught me. This skill of meeting people where they are. This allowed me to learn about myself and things I would never have explored. It also allowed me to close the doors to activities that were not right for me.
For example, the day I went barefoot skiing with Matthew. It looked cool seeing those people with the giant rooster tail of water flying behind their feet in the water. Maybe I want to be one of those guys? So, I went out with Matthew on a fancy boat. I watched him climb out of the boat going 40 miles per hour and slowly put his feet down on the water making one of those amazing water features behind him. He looked back at me as he settled in holding the bar with both feet down. Water spraying everywhere, he looked ahead and then back at me, a huge smile on his face. I looked at him, then ahead and then back at him, only he was gone. All that remained of my brother was a huge man-sized ball of water with hands and feet popping out momentarily until he was gone under the water behind us. Nope, don’t want to do that, door closed.
Even as I’ve lost my brother, I continue to learn from him. Sometimes it’s not words but feelings that can be our teachers. Be patient with yourself. You have years to discover how and when to listen to yourself. You can also work on developing the skill of listening to others even after they are done talking. Rewind the words that echo in your head and feel which ones really connect with who you want you to be! Then roll up your sleeves and get to work being that person. You may not live up to the standards of Norm Abrums. But you can remember that it’s that journey of learning that makes life so beautiful.
Thank you everyone who cared about my brother, who came yesterday and today. Special thanks to Andrea Patnode for all your hard work assembling the entire slideshow and your guidance in creating this talk.
Now I challenge everyone to find Men without Hats in their cars on the way to the Harley Museum where it’s safe to dance!