Written By Kyle Lee

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Dear Ralston,

My first memory of you was actually in competition. I remember comparing how many pages we could write during morning journal time in Ms. Brown’s 2nd grade class. After each session, you’d come up to me and state your number and I’d reply with mine. 10 to 8, 9 to 12, 6 to 7. It was a fierce daily ritual that made us far less focused on the quality of the writing and more concerned with how fast our hands could move on paper.

In addition to completion, I also remember the following. Every bike ride into the Oakland hills, I would watch you disappear up the hill while I struggled to put my pedals down. You were smiling, so calm and relaxed at the top of the hill, as I would walk up to meet you. Panting and exhausted, and slightly embarrassed.

I will miss your passion and motivation, your speeches about 4:30am runs because “that's when the trails are less busy.”

I admired your independent and critical thinking. Exploring consciousness and building a Utopian society. And helping me establish my Asian roots and identity. 

I admired your dedication to art and living outside the box. I remember visiting you in Berkeley, surrounded by speakers and sensors in your technology jungle, setting up your Oculus VR, and showing me underwater whales and giant robots that melded to the music. 

I will miss all the videos we made, staring at you through your camera lens as you shot and directed the scene. Your push to create stories and introduce new forms of expression even captured me in some dance videos. And while you didn’t always act, your scenes on camera were charismatic, committed, and often included a fair bit of screaming. 

I cherished our bond. Our bond of being outlawed Asians in preppy white schools. Our bond of fitness, of biking, hiking, and routine Theragun therapy. Our bond of creativity and thinking outside the box, making new films and discussing new ideas on flow state and how to help others. It was touching, comfortable, and personal. A place where I could not only listen to your ideas but listen to your soul, about your relationships and health in LA, about what you wanted and what you were going through. 

I grieve you now, miss you always, and love you forever. 

Kyle