Til minne om bror min / In memory of my brother

(Click here for the English translation below.)

(Vestlandsnytt 18. august 2017. Nettversjonen sløyfar namn på andre familiemedlemmer, og vert lagd ut på bloggen på dagen eitt år etter at vi bar han til grava.)
 

No i midten av august er det eitt år sidan bror min døydde, og 44 år sidan han vart fødd, Gard Abrahamsen Tuur-Eggesbø, tidlegare Gard Eggesbø Abrahamsen. Eg vil fortelje litt om han i rollene som bror, fagmann og menneske.

Eg var tre år gammal, men eg hugsar at eg tok mor mi på magen for å kjenne på babyen som sparka. Så vart han fødd, og eg hugsar at vi vitja mor og barn. Eg hugsar at vi trilla han i barnevogn, og eg hugsar fyrste gongen eg skuva til han så han datt på rumpa.

Som små sat vi ofte i same lenestol og såg Barne-TV og anna saman. Ein gong vart eg sur på han fordi han røpte ei overrasking nokre sekund før tida, nemleg fyrste ordet i namnet på programmet som snart byrja, «Universet». Eg sat der og venta med attlatne auge, men han var fem år, og hadde nettopp lært å lese, på eiga hand. Han har sidan gjeve storebror æra både for å lære han alfabetet munnleg i forvegen, og for seinare å introdusere han for datamaskiner og programmering.

Vi både krangla og leikte saman, sjølvsagt, og di eldre vi vart, di meir følte vi også på omsorga for kvarandre, anten det var ein ramp som hadde gjort ein av oss noko, eller det var foreldra våre som hadde grunn til å vere misnøgde. Ein gong tok han imot tidenes skjennepreike for telefonrekninga, utan å røpe at storebror var den skuldige. Ein annan gong skreiv eg ein seks sider lang rapport til hans forsvar, der eg problematiserte forståingsgrunnlaget for den påstanden at dagens ungdom sløser med pengane. Som ungdommar og unge vaksne spelte vi inn absurde humorvideoar saman (og saman med andre venner), eller gjennomførte diktanalyse på musikkvideoane frå MTV til langt på natt.

Som vaksne var den geografiske avstanden større, men det var alltid godt å snakkast. Vi hadde dessutan felles interesser, gav gjensidige råd, hjelptest åt, og hadde felles humor (av og til så intern eller sær på andre måtar at berre vi to forstod moroa fullt ut). Då Gard fekk sitt fyrste nettdomene, laga han ei feilmeldingsside med bilete av morgongretne meg i senga og teksten: «This page has not been awakened.» Då storebror fekk problem med den fyrste bilen, så stilte lisjebror med pengar. Då eg vart saman med henne som eg no er gift med, var Gard den fyrste som fekk vite det.

Gard programmerte frå han var 10 år gammal. I 1990, han hadde enno ikkje fylt 17, reiste vi saman til Unge Forskere-konkurransen i Oslo, der han vart premiert for eit komprimeringsprogram, og eg for noko språkleg. Han laga og fekk på nett ein av Noregs aller fyrste webserverar i 1994 (altså serverprogramvara), medan han studerte ved dåverande Møre og Romsdal ingeniørhøgskole. Dette tok høgskulen på senga, og førte til at han same år fekk ansvar for å setje opp den fyrste offisielle webserveren til det som den sommaren hadde vorte Høgskolen i Ålesund.

Våren 1995 var 21-åringen Gard med på å setje opp den fyrste vevtenaren til Møredata, med dei fyrste nettsidene til møbelindustrien i Sykkylven, som brukte hans tenarprogramvare. Også på høgskulen var programvara hans i bruk. Seinare det året laga han nettløysingar og nettsider for Ålesund bibliotek, m.a. med søk i bokbasen, og han hjelpte til med datainfrastrukturen i Ålesund kommune.

Den hausten, no 22 år gammal, vart Gard tilsett som spelprogrammerar i firmaet Gray Matter i Toronto, Canada. Eit par år seinare flytta han til Marietta utanfor Atlanta i USA som systemutviklar i MSI Solutions, og vart m.a. send på oppdrag til New Zealand, der han arbeidde med det nettbaserte fakturasystemet til New Zealand Post.

Men han hadde også eit liv utanfor datamaskina: Han byrja å skrive dikt og noveller som tenåring. Som 18-åring dikta han opp ein mytologi som bakgrunn for eit tidsskrift han gav ut på diskett. Det var mykje ein spøk, ja, men filosofien der om vidsyn og om inkluderande toleranse for andre menneske forheldt han seg medviten til resten av livet. I 1996 gifta han seg elles med den fyrste kona si (ein viktig grunn til å flytte vest for Atlanterhavet). Dei vart sidan skilde. I 1999 var Gard representert med eit dikt i ein amerikansk diktantologi.

Firmaet i Marietta vart kjøpt opp av Eclipsys i 1999, og Gard valde året etter å flytte tilbake til Toronto som programutviklar i Zox Technologies. I 2001 kom han tilbake til Noreg, og var tilknytt eit IT-firma i Ålesund, by.com. Samstundes starta han som konsulent i sitt eige IT-firma Stuffy Rabbit (humoristisk namneval med forhistorie), forgjengaren til det seinare føretaket Trollsilm. I 2003 fekk han jobb som IT-ansvarleg på Samisk vgs. og reindriftsskole i Kautokeino, og medan han budde der, gav han ut ei diktsamling på eige forlag. Undervegs hadde han byrja å måle. Han gifta seg med noverande kone i 2007, og endra samstundes etternamnet sitt. I 2008 flytta han tilbake til barndomskommunen Herøy med kona og då eitt barn. Der var han tilsett i stillinga som IKT-leiar i kommunen i 2008–2015, og fekk etter kvart oppleve arbeidsmiljøet i organisasjonen.

Mobbing er ein type overgrep som vi delte både røynsler med og interesse for. I 1999 samarbeidde vi om å starte e-postlista «Mobbelista» for mobbeutsette, bygd med Gards programvare for anonymisering av innlegg. I 2003 tok han initativ til lokalmøte for medlemmer av Mobbelista i Ålesunds-området. Fleire har fortalt meg at Gard har hjelpt dei etter mobbing eller andre vanskelege røynsler. Eg veit at han også hadde konkrete planar om meir systematisk mobberelatert arbeid, men han rakk det ikkje før han døydde.

I Kautokeino fekk han kjærleik til det samiske, og han melde seg etter kvart inn i samemanntalet då han fekk vite om ein del av slektshistoria som tidlegare generasjonar hadde gløymt. Han vart ein fantastisk far til fire kjekke gutar. Han snakka engelsk, tysk, estisk, litt nordsamisk, og var i gang med fleire andre språk. Han spelte fleire musikkinstrument, dei fleste byrja han med i vaksen alder.

Han sykla frå Paris til Amsterdam i 2011. Den fyrste lange sykkelturen hans hadde gått frå Montréal til Toronto i 1997, og han planla ein sykkeltur frå Milano til Taranto i Italia til tjueårsjubileet i 2017. Og eg var stolt av han då han skreiv det halvsidelange innlegget i Vestlandsnytt den 10. februar 2009 med tittel «Eg har vore mobbeoffer», der han nemnde seg sjølv berre knappast. Innlegget hans var sakleg, reflektert og informativt, og han fekk fort telefon frå ein skule der dei hadde diskutert konsekvensane av det som han hadde drøfta.

Han skreiv gjennomtenkte bloggpostar, mellom mykje anna om digitale distraksjonar, mobbing generelt, mobbing i arbeidslivet, dikt, langdistansesykling, sykling med astma, og om konsulentbruk og møtemaraton i det offentlege. Ein av dei siste bloggpostane hans handla om verdien av å lære om vektorar. For dersom du kan om vektorar, fortel han, så er det mykje enklare å programmere Playstation-spel med blodsprut.

Gard var oppteken av at alle skulle behandlast skikkeleg, jamvel dei som hadde gjort han vondt, elles ville jo vondskapen vinne. Dei som kjende han, skildrar han mellom mykje anna som snill, omtenksam, påliteleg og med solid integritet, inkluderande og fordomsfri, tolmodig, reflektert, leiken, indignert når andre vart behandla stygt, ein gledesspreiar, og full av overraskingar. Overraskingar ja? Ein venn på Canada-tur fekk eit plutseleg jobbintervju takka vere Gard. Sjølv fekk eg ei overrasking frå han ein morgon då telefonen ringde frå eit sesongstengt museum som opna dørene til utstillinga fordi eg og kona var i området.

Framfor alt vil mange såleis hugse Gard nettopp fordi han brydde seg. Mottoet hans på visittkortet var «Make a difference, not indifference». Og slik levde han.

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Tidlegare: Bror min – Sorg – 13. august – Epilog til spelelista

 
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In English: In memory of my brother

(The original Norwegian text was printed in the newspaper Vestlandsnytt on 18 August 2017, one week ago. It is posted on my blog one year after the day when we carried him to his grave. In the online version, the names of other family members have been left out. Gard had many friends who do not understand Norwegian, and I have written this English translation for them. Some nuances will inevitably be lost, and there may of course be a certain element of Norwegian accent.)
 

These days in the middle of August, one year has passed since my brother died, and 44 years since he was born, Gard Abrahamsen Tuur-Eggesbø, previously Gard Eggesbø Abrahamsen. I wish to tell a few things about him in his roles as a brother, a professional and a human.

I was three years old, but I remember touching my mother’s belly to feel the baby kick. He was born a few months later, and I remember that we visited my mother and my brother. I remember him in the pram, and I remember the first time I pushed him so he fell on his behind.

As small children, we often sat in the same chair watching television together. One evening, I got irritated at him because he had revealed a surprise just a few seconds too early, it was the first word of the tv programme that was about to begin: “Universet” (The Universe). I had closed my eyes in order to get surprised, but he was five years old and had just learnt on his own how to read. Later, he has given me credit both for teaching him the alphabet orally in advance, and for introducing him to computers and programming at a later stage.

We both quarrelled and played together, of course, and as we grew, also our care for each other grew, whether a badly behaved kid had done something to one of us, or it was our parents who had a reason to be dissatisfied. I remember once when he was given the rebuke of a lifetime for the phone bill, without revealing that his big brother was the guilty one. At another point in time, I wrote a six page report defending him, where I questioned the basis for the proposed understanding that the youth of today waste money. As teenagers and young adults, we recorded absurd humour videos together (and together with other friends), or we analysed the lyrics of MTV music videos until late at night.

As adults, the geographical distance was bigger, but it was always good to talk. Besides, we shared interests, gave each other advice, helped each other, and we had our common sense of humour (at times, it would be so strange, or the references would be so private, that only the two of us would fully understand the fun of it). When Gard got his first internet domain, he made a 404 page with a picture of me, grumpy in my bed one early morning, and the words: “This page has not been awakened.” When big brother got a problem with his first car, little brother provided the money. When I met my wife and became her boyfriend, he was the first to know.

Gard started programming when he was 10 years old. In 1990, he was still not 17, we went to the Young Scientists Contest in Oslo, where he was awarded for a compression program and I for something linguistic. He created and got online one of Norway’s very first web servers in 1994 (that is, the server software), while he was still a student at the college of engineering. This caught the college off guard, but as a result, the college asked him to install their first official web server later that year.

During the spring of 1995, the 21 year old helped install the first web server of the company Møredata, hosting the first web pages of the local furniture industry; they used his server software. His software was also utilised at the college. Later that year, he made web infrastructure and web pages for the Library of Ålesund, among other things with a search solution for the book database, and he helped develop the computer infrastructure for Ålesund Municipality.

That autumn, he was now 22, Gard was employed as a programmer at Gray Matter in Toronto, Canada. A couple of years later, he moved to Marietta near Atlanta in the US to be a systems developer at MSI Solutions, where they sent him to New Zealand to work on New Zealand Post’s online billing system.

But he also had a life outside the computer: He started writing poems and short stories as a teenager. At 18, he invented a mythology as the basis for a periodical that he published on floppy disks. Although much of this was meant as a joke, for the rest of his life he kept living by his mythology’s philosophy about inclusiveness and tolerance for other humans. In 1996 he also married his first wife (an important reason to move west of the Atlantic). They later divorced. In 1999, one of Gard’s poems was printed in an American antology of poetry.

The company in Marietta was acquired by Eclipsys in 1999, and Gard chose to move back to Toronto in the year 2000 to work as a software developer at Zox Technologies. He returned to Norway in 2001, where he was affiliated with an IT company in Ålesund, by.com. He also started his own IT company, Stuffy Rabbit (a humorous name with a history behind it), the predecessor of his later company Trollsilm. In 2003 he moved to Kautokeino/Guovdageaidnu to work as the chief technology officer at the Sámi High School and Reindeer Husbandry School. While he lived there, he published a collection of poetry. At some time, he had also started painting. He married his present wife in 2007, and also changed his last name accordingly. In 2008 he brought his wife and their child to Herøy, where he had grown up. He held the position as the chief technology officer at the municipality from 2008 to 2015, and got to experience certain workplace environment factors.

We shared experience with, and an interest in, the phenomenon that is bullying. In 1999, we started the “Mobbelista” (Bullying List) electronic mailing list together, for people who had been or were bullied; the list used Gard’s software to anonymise the e-mails. In 2003 he took the initative to local meetings for members of Mobbelista in the Ålesund area. Several have told me that Gard has helped them after bullying or other difficult experiences. I know that he also had concrete plans to work more systematically with bullying, but he died before he had the chance to realise those plans.

In Kautokeino/Guovdageaidnu, he fell in love with Sámi culture, and he was eventually enlisted in the Sámi electoral register after he was made aware of a part of our family’s history that previous generations had forgotten. He became a splendid father of four wonderful boys. In addition to his native language, Norwegian, he spoke English, German, Estonian, somewhat Northern Sámi, and he had begun learning several other languages. He played several musical instruments; most of them he started learning as an adult.

He biked from Paris to Amsterdam in 2011. His first long bike ride went from Montréal to Toronto in 1997, and for the twentieth anniversary in 2017 he had planned a ride from Milan to Taranto in Italy. And I was proud of him when he wrote his letter to the editor covering half a page in the local newspaper Vestlandsnytt on 10 February 2009. He gave it the title “I was bullied” (alternative links: 1, 2), but mentioned himself just barely. His letter was instructive and to the point, and he was soon contacted by a school where the staff had debated the consequences of what he had discussed.

Gard wrote talented blog posts about — among many other things — digital distractions, bullying in general, bullying at work, poems, long distance biking, biking with asthma, and about the use of consultants and endless rows of meetings in public administation. In one of his last blog posts, he told about the benefits of learning about vectors. Because, if you know how to handle vectors, blood splat programming just gets so much easier.

Gard wanted everyone to be treated decently, even those who had hurt him, because otherwise evil would win. Those who knew him, describe him among many other things as kind, considerate, reliable and with a firm integrity, inclusive and unprejudiced, patient, thoughtful, playful, annoyed when others were treated badly, a ray of sunshine, and full of surprises. Surprises? One of his friends visiting Canada was suddenly invited to a job interview because of Gard. And he surprised me one morning when I got a phone call from a museum that had closed their exhibition for the season, but that day they would open the doors just for me and my wife because they knew that we were in the area.

And so, above anything else, many will remember Gard because he cared. On his business card he had written his motto “Make a difference, not indifference”. This motto describes the way he conducted his life.

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Earlier: My brother – Grief – 13. august – An epilogue to the playlist