“Nicholas was my older brother by three years. Everyone who met us always commented on how different we were, not just because I’m black and adopted, but because of our personalities. But today I’m here to tell you how similar we are, too. It was my brother who instilled in me my love of cinema and for that I am eternally grateful. I saw my first R-rated movie with him when I was nine. Old School was playing on HBO and my parents had gone to some wedding, so we were alone for the entire day. I didn’t understand a lot of the movie, but we had a great laugh at the part where Luke Wilson gets drunk at his friend’s wedding after catching his wife cheating on him, and he starts to give a hilarious speech about why love sucks, but his other buddy Vince Vaughn stops him. None of this is important, but what does matter is that my brother and I spent the rest of the afternoon making up funny speeches that we would give at each other’s weddings when we grew up.

“Nicholas told me that he’d announce I used to sleep with a fork under my pillow because I was more scared of cutting myself than having an efficient weapon against the monsters that I thought were under my bed. And I told him that I would tell everyone that he wore these green Tigger footy pajamas until his dirty toenails burst through the seams like he was the Hulk.

“As we got older that was something we would always threaten each other with. We’d say, ‘You better watch it or I’ll tell everyone what you did when I give your wedding toast.’ I know it’s an absurd thing, the two of us so young talking about our future weddings, but it’s just something we did and it’s important for me to let all of you know my brother was more than just some junkie who OD’d in Arizona.

“I had a whole speech prepared that I wrote the night I found out that he died. It was pretty epic, if I do say so myself, but I’ve decided not to give that speech today. Because it was far too angry, because I am so incredibly pissed at my brother for letting his addiction get the better of him. It was far too self-pitying, because I’m even more incredibly sad about my brother being gone. And it was far too preachy about the perils of drugs. If you want more info about the opioid crisis you can read about it in The New York Times. But you don’t come to a funeral and talk about the tragedy of a life. You come to a funeral to talk about the beauty of it.