Death of a Friend

I’m told I write about death too much; whether it’s been about Bill, my parents, my grandmother or Nick and Julie.  A quick perusal of this blog can offer ample proof of those claims.  

In writing about death, though, it helps me connect more directly with how I felt and continue to feel about whoever I’m writing about.  I don’t expect life to always tickle and so it is the same in writing about the people who’ve passed.  Conjuring memories that are often bittersweet or cruelly sad, in the end, can bring a smile to my face when I think about the joy they brought to the world.

Last week was the third anniversary of Nick’s death.  His passing was one of a soul-emptying experience, and not just because he was too young and too funny and too perfectly obnoxious.  He was life-changing to everyone he touched, and it’s difficult to get around the idea that there are hundreds of lives who will not be positively transformed because they will never meet him.  It’s not hyperbole to suggest he had that kind of affect on people. He could smell uncertainty or concern or anguish in anyone around him and it would set him on a mission to turn that person’s life around.

Another reminder of the loss of a gentle soul came from a social media calendar letting me know there’s an upcoming birthday for Sessie.  Why I hang on as “friends” to people who no longer need a social media account is probably a useful session for a therapist, but I have maybe a dozen of them.  Sessie was born to have a short flame.  She carried a rare neurological disorder from birth and she pretty much lived to the age that was predicted for her.  I don’t know all the intricate details of her case but, from my vantage point, she died from an aggressive sarcoma that resulted in the removal of her leg with the promise that would end the growth.  It didn’t.  She passed about two months later, and I can’t help but think Western medicine wasn’t at all helpful to her in the end, especially when she survived most of her life under the practices of Eastern medicine.  

Bill and Sessie were shocks and Nick and Julie allowed us to see them suffer and perhaps suffer far too much.  

These days I’ve been thinking about some words Paul Simon wrote 50 years ago, “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”  I’m feeling that way, but I do know why as I suspect Simon knew back then as well.  He had just returned from England to find fame in America, leaving his love Kathy behind.  

For me, and this is the buried lede of all buried ledes, I’ve had another death in my family.  For 39 years, I was involved in a Stockholm-Syndrome relationship with my business.  Despite attempts to extricate myself from this relationship, I acted the part of the battered spouse and came up with credible reasons why I should stay in the relationship – for the kids, for the relatives, for financial security.

I never set out to make a career of the business, it was just a short-term way to make a little extra money.  It wasn’t built to last 39 years, not by a long shot.  But its rickety body survived past a marriage, some friends, numerous partners and other hangers on, dozens of name changes, and a huge, and often wonderful, cast of characters.  It was housed in so many offices that a tour around more than one city devolved into me pointing and saying, “I had an office in that building once.”  

Whether by choice, neglect or a sign from the Cosmos that the time had come, my business has passed away. It hasn’t been buried yet and, as one may expect, there is a bit of odor coming from being stuck without a beating heart in suspended animation.  But the grave has been dug, the casket purchased and we’re awaiting the mourners to dress in black and say something good and hopeful about the deceased. Like so many other deaths I watched it suffer for a long time, although it’s still a bit of a shock that the flame burned out nonetheless.  Some think the company is still alive and will live on forever and others thought it died long ago.  That probably says something about the company and its uneven leadership performed by none other than me.  

I remember one of my first campaigns.  I was up for the final 48 hours of the drive and was doing my best to pretend I knew what I was doing in our rented house.  I was delirious but pumped up that the campaign was ending, too.  I thought to myself that maybe it was a good idea to sleep for a half an hour so I could finish out the final night.  I found a secluded closet that turned out to be so secluded that nobody could find me for four hours.  It turned out to be a good nap and one that allowed me to rely on others to get the work done, something I always felt awkward doing.  

When the morning came around and we knew that we had succeeded, I remember driving to watch the Boy and the Girl at a swim lesson, which was the first normal life thing I had done in a while.  That particular day looked different to me.  Somehow the sun was warmer and the sky bluer and the idea that I was free of the burden of that campaign made me feel I was in the pocket of a slingshot waiting to be fired into unchartered waters.  And so it is today.  I’m in that pocket and pondering how far I’ll fly into the distance and into new beginnings and new adventures.  If I look with the right kind of eyes, I can see a bright professional future, one that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time.

Editor’s note:  This post was started several months ago, and I just got around to finishing it.  In case you wondered….