April, 1993 – July 4 2014. God rest the young man Waverly “WAVE” Roberts. He impacted people in so many innovative and positive ways that I’m only just beginning to understand. #TowsonTiger for life. Rest in perfect peace and power buddy. Glad I got to know you if only for a little while.
Its taken me a month to write this and now I am finally sharing it. Rest assured my Dad and I have talked about it and to my friends who have been affected my thoughts aren’t new. On July 4th of this year, a college friend of mine passed away. I believe that he was 22 years old and a senior at Towson University. His name was Waverly “WAVE” Roberts. I don’t know the causes. I did want to know when the news broke; we’re usually like that initially. But as the days wore on and after I had the privilege of sharing touching moments at his open funeral service, i realized I don’t want to know how he died. Its way more important to know how he lived.
I only knew Wave for 4 or 5 months last year. We took the same directed study class maintaining film equipment in the lab. He was a very laid back guy but very focused. Great smile too! His concentration was in Audio and he wanted to be a music producer. He could always been seen carrying his laptop or a keyboard and ever present Beats headphones.
He also had a walk, a gate about him that was cool but slow and methodical too; like he was at his own pace and nothing would interrupt it or even rush him, if he didn’t want to be. Like the pop song he would “go his own way”.
That’s kind of along the lines of what the pastor at his service said, summing up Wave’s life. Wave happened to you; and you couldn’t control him; just like a real wave. He had an energy certification of some kind in his community and was a serious academic according to his friends and cousins. And that inspired a lot of the people that Wave surrounded himself with.
In fact it hit home for me seeing as over 200 people came out to support his family at the funeral service! he touched a lot of people.
When I got the news it freaked me out but not in an explosive way but in a confusing way. He was the youngest person to die that I knew. It didn’t seem right that someone with so much promise didn’t even get to graduate college. It was even weirder because though I wasn’t his close friend, I felt that we could have been and even maybe collaborators in the far flung future
Maybe we will be – in heaven one day.
Wave has inspired me to be the best that I can be, as cliche as it sounds. but really what other response is there when someone dies? The guy was remarkable in ways I am only beginning to understand, and so much of it blew me away at that service, how proud his loved ones were despite the pain.
You could feel the love.
I still think about him and the little bit that his life impressed on me. i hope I never forget him and what I know he stood for. I hope I can impact the world in my own positive way, and ride the wave. if I can’t ride the wave, I hope to be surrounded by loving people just like Waverly was who can help me.
Thanks for the brief yet powerful ripples in my life, Wave, and rest in perfect peace my brother.
Yours,
JOSIAH
jomarkcreative 