Matthew Armstrong

Matthew Jay Armstrong passed away February 23, 2015, at his home in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the age of 44. Matt was born in Indianapolis and graduated from North Central High School and the Western Culinary Institute. He worked as a chef for many years in restaurants in Colorado and Indiana, and recently retired because of disability. He also played the drums in various bands in the Indianapolis area. Besides cooking and music, he also was a rabid Colts fan and an animal lover. He is survived by his Mother, Rosalie Roach, and his stepfather, Vincent Roach, of Fernandina Beach, Florida; his brother Bradley of Indianapolis; his sisters Shoshana Sloman and Melissa Herrera, ten nieces and nephews, his father Laurence; his fiancée Lynn Sanders; and his two kitties, Simba and Price. Eulogy: (given March 7, 2015 by Vincent Roach) Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." Matt Armstrong was my son. According to the law he was my stepson. But according to the heart he was my son. I was his father for 39 years and I did all the father things with him and for him, from scouts and little league to giving advice (taken or not), helping him fight his battles, arming him to make a living, nagging him, encouraging him, pleading with him, arguing with him, laughing with him, crying over him. I speak to you today as his father, from my heart, and also to express what I believe are the feelings of our Heavenly Father, from His heart. Thank you all for being here, to support Matt's family, and to show your love for Matt. Many people loved Matt and many of them are here today. I know your love was very important to Matt. And though I want to spend most of my time talking about the things that made you love him, I would not be painting an honest picture of Matt's life if I did not say that despite all the good that was in his life, and all the love that surrounded him, there was an empty space in his heart and a pain in his soul. As the doctors want to say nowadays, Matt chose to self-medicate that pain, and he chose a medicine that like so many others, was a hoped-for cure that was worse than the disease. Not only did it fail to cure, but it led us all to this place today, a day that is much too soon. Matt had a lot of love. He loved his family. Foremost, he loved his Mom, he loved his grandma and grandpa, and he loved his brother. I believe he loved me, too, but it was hard for Matt to show love to authority figures. You know John Mellencamp's the Authority Song, where he said, "I fight authority, authority always wins"? Well Matt did a lot of fighting with authority. But unlike in the song, with Matt often it ended up in a draw. Do you know who Arturo Gatti was, or Mickey Ward? Both were boxers who got bloodied in most of their fights, but never gave in. That was Matt. Fighting authority, he got bloodied a lot. But he never gave in. Matt was just as determined to stand up for his friends and for those he saw being mistreated. He battled authority (and sometimes just plain bullies) on their behalf as well. That cost Matt some bruises and sometimes a bit of consciousness, but he never backed down. Once Matt made up his mind, his mind was made up, and I have to admit some of us used that, to tease him. On the way down to a fishing spot on the Tennessee River with a friend and his son, when Matt was maybe 9, we stopped for lunch at a place across from the Kentucky Horse Farm. As we waited for service, we could look out the big glass windows and see beautiful thoroughbred horses grazing. I told Matt "you know if one of those horses hurts his leg, he can't race any more. So they put him down. Do you know what they do then? They cut him up and bring him over here and serve him as hamburgers." Of course Matt had ordered a hamburger and when he heard this, he refused to eat it and we had to order him a vegetable soup. When he was just two years old, he got into some mushrooms in the yard, and his Mom had his stomach pumped. Matt never ate a mushroom again and would refuse a meal if you told him there were "mushrooms in it." If I say "Matt was the Bold One" do you know what I mean? There used to be a laundry soap called Bold and in their TV commercial there was a little kid that was always coming in with his clothes really dirty because he had jumped in the creek, run his bike through the mud, tried to work on his Dad's car, or anything guaranteed to get you dirty. They called him the Bold One because it would take Bold detergent to get his clothes clean. That was Matt. Always experimenting, always reaching out just beyond what everyone else thought was safety, trying new things, listening to his own inner voice about what to do next, shutting out all the other voices. He had every haircut you ever heard of including shaved head, Mohawk, and mullet. He was the first guy in the family with an earring, the first to have a tattoo, and the first to go to the ER (many times as it turned out). For every pair of shoes we bought Brad, we bought four for Matt. He was hard on things. Often he was hard on himself. Matt loved animals and they loved him back. For more than 15 years his cat Jimi (he named for Jimi Hendrix) was his constant companion, going with him to California, Denver, and back to Indy. Jimi was loyal to Matt and Matt was loyal to Jimi. He took care of him to the end. Matt had a dog, Bishop, and we never got him to explain how he chose that name. We know he had a reason, though. Matt always thought those kinds of things through. One of the kitties he took in most recently, he named Price, and we couldn't figure that out either. Price's brother is Simba. That made more sense to us. No matter how little Matt had, he always found a way to provide for his pets. He had several aquariums, and many fish, which seemed to always be eating each other up. He finally gave up on them and concentrated on warmer, fuzzier pets. Matt brought a kitten home once and told us his friend was going to feed it to his pet snake but Matt intervened. He asked us to give it a home. We had Kris the cat for 22 years and he became a member of the family. As I said, Matt intervened a lot on behalf of would-be victims, human or animal, and often with people who were much bigger, or even with cat-eating snakes. Matt always had lots of friends. If you went into a room with Matt by the time you had met one person, he had twenty friends. Whatever it was about him, people saw it and were attracted to him. Once they were friends, they tended to stay friends, in great part because of Matt's loyalty to them. Matt always had a girlfriend. He was loyal to them too, and I never knew of him cheating on any of them. They had their battles and loud sessions, but he never betrayed them. Matt loved the Colts. When they lost he would text me that they were losers and he agreed with my name for them when they played badly, the Clots. The next week if they won, I would hear from him that they were Super Bowl bound. He was never blah about them. After they beat Denver in the playoffs, he texted me that next week they would make Tom Brady cry like a little girl. He did not figure on deflated footballs. Matt loved music, and was a musician. I'll talk about his musical ability in a minute. Aside from his own playing, he loved to listen to music, especially loud music. He and I and Brad went to several loud concerts together (Mom stayed home to save her hearing). I dropped out after we went to a Rush concert and someone threw a bottle that hit us and the hair on the back of my head got burned when one of the other concert goers inhaled butane, lit a match, and breathed fire on us. Of course Matt went to many more concerts and had quite a collection of tapes and CDs. Before he was a teen ager, he and Brad were charter members of the Kiss Army, and they both swore that Kiss really mixed their own blood with the ink that was used to print Kiss comic books. I think that was one thing that Matt changed his mind about eventually. Matt had talent. He was a drummer in several bands he and his friends put together, playing the popular music of the time, somewhere between hard rock and heavy metal. Matt picked up the piano on his own and even wrote a few songs. Matt was athletic. He got into running and on one of his first 10K's he got a medal in his age class. I don't think he trained for the race, either. He got into cross country in school and did well, and he was successful as a wrestler. He was a natural tumbler and took to the trampoline also with little training. At Leinert's gym camp he entertained the other campers with his trampoline skills, and "do a flip Matt" became a common shout there and at home. For those of you who don't know it, Leinert's was a summer day camp here in the city where many kids went to spend the day when school was out and parents were at work. Matt was a talented chef. His friends know that from the stuff he cooked and brought to football game parties. He was smart but he did not like traditional school. When we asked him what he really wanted to do so we could find the right training for him, he shocked us all by expressing his love for cooking. Maybe he figured that if he was in charge of the food he could be sure there was no horsemeat or mushrooms in it. He attended Western Culinary Institute in Oregon and graduated #2 in his class. He could open a wine bottle with a sword, make delicious entrees with exotic ingredients, cook up a batch of wings, or a seven course fancy meal with equal skill. He worked at a number of fine restaurants (and a few not so fine) but finally left, based on his good judgment that the work exposed him too much to alcohol, which was a constant fixture in kitchens everywhere he told us. Matt knew he did not need any added triggers in that respect, and I am sure that is why he did not pursue a career in a band as well. Matt had a lot of love. His many friends loved him, and his whole family loved him, as much as anyone could be loved. We all did. Bottom line, Matt got and gave a lot of love. I wish that had been enough for him, but there was always that empty space and that pain. Matt would want you to know he loves you and that he appreciates the love you showed him. He would want you to know that his early departure from this world could not have changed no matter what you did. What you did made him happier while he was here, and kept him here longer than if you had not been part of his life. He would also want you to know that he is at peace. Matt was not a church goer or demonstratively religious. But he was a believer and he was baptized and christened. We know our God is a God of love, mercy, and understanding, and that he knew Matt's pain and now He holds him tenderly in his arms, comforting him, filling the space in his heart and the soothing the pain in his soul. Knowing what he knows now, Matt would want you to know that in his love for you, that when you are in pain in this life, you should seek the comfort of the Lord, and not any destructive medicine, and that he prays you would never become the cause or the receiver of the awful grief that comes when a loved one leaves us too soon. Genesis 37:35 Jacob on hearing the report of the death of Joseph his son. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. Job 1:20 Job on hearing that an accident had killed his sons and daughters Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 2 Samuel 12:20 David on hearing that his child had died. (Different from the death of his son Absalom) Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped. 2 Samuel 18:33 And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! Matthew 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; Please pray with me if you would. Dear Lord, thank you for giving us Matt for the time that you did, thank you for allowing us to love him, and for the love he gave us in return. Thank you for having mercy on Matt and for comforting him now that he is with you. May all here gain from having known and loved Matt, and may they go from this place with comfort for their loss, a loss almost unbearable to his family, and better armed to live their lives because of having known Matt and seen the outcome of all of Matt's choices, whether beneficial or tragic. Thank you for your grace, for your mercy, for your love, and for giving us the chance to have a better life here on earth and an eternal life in heaven. Amen.