One Year Anniversary Gathering

I'm glad we had a little gathering for the one year anniversary. It seemed to honor him.
I am thinking back on some of the stories people shared, and I wanted to share snippets of them below:

Chicken Mask
Jaal was playing a game called Assassin at the high school, where people are on teams, and try to shoot each other with nerf guns, while not at school. It can go on for weeks. Jaal lasted a couple weeks, and then one of Jaal's friends offered to buy Lev a chicken mask if they would let him in the house so he could "kill" Jaal. Lev let them in at the agreed upon time, and Jaal was assassinated. He wasn't mad, as it was part of the game. Lev was thrilled, he got to turn in his brother, and got a mask. He would have done it for free.

Fireworks
Last fourth of July Jaal and Lev took off together to drive up to the Skagit Reservation in Jaal's newly restored Datsun 280z to buy fireworks. Lev got a really good deal because a friend of his was working the stand. He was so proud of his fireworks. That night, Jaal went to a friends house, and we set off our fireworks in the backyard with our neighbors. Lev had a fabulous time.

Mumbling
Lev mumbled. He was hard to understand on the phone. It got better as he got older, and he really had to learn to annunciate for Debate Club. In third grade the other non-native English speakers were confused why they couldn't understand Lev, and the teacher said it was because he was speaking Levish. He would often mumble and then get mad if we couldn't understand him.

Switzerland
He dreamed of going to Switzerland with Zay. For college, or just to go, see the largest medieval weapons museum, be in a neutral country, I'm not sure why else, but they thought it was really cool and talked about it all the time

Carving things
Lev loved to carve wood

Mustache
Lev just loved his mustache. He started to grow it at about age 6, and it slowly grew in until it was a nice little fuzzy one at age 14. He was very proud of it. I think he had one before Jaal did.
He also loved growing taller. When he outgrew someone he was so proud. I remember the day he grew taller than Tony. He was jumping around, hugging him, trying to throw him down, punching his fists in the air, totally excited.

Devil's advocate
Lev liked to hold an opposing position to any argument

Keanu Reeves
In Costa Rica, with the band, there was this game going on for a few days, trying to fit Keanu Reeves into a conversation. The game kind of died down. Lev loved that kind of silly stuff. A few days later, we were on a giant rope swing in the jungle, where you swung out like 200 feet in the air. Some people held on for dear life, others trusted the rope and harness and released their arms and stretched out when at the apex. Lev was one of the last in our group to go. When he reached the top he released his hands and legs, stretching out all fours, and screamed at the top of his lungs into the forest: Keanu Reeves
He was the clear winner of a game everyone else had forgotten about.

The Power of Levity
The last day of school in eighth grade, the Honors English teacher read a story to the class. It was his tradition to write a story each year that included each student in the class and gave them a super power that fit their personality. He said that Lev was the most complex, and he had to strongly consider what power to give him. His power appeared at climax of the story, and it was the power of Levity - to laugh loudly at inappropriate times