examining absence: what i've learned so far

I was feeling sad today. I thought maybe all the feelings of gratitude from Thanksgiving left me with a hangover, the way filling yourself with alcohol leaves you dehydrated, and disappointed with the reality you wake up to. But maybe it wasn’t that. One year ago today, I was supposed to meet a friend for coffee. Just as I was about to leave the house, he texted: “I’m sorry to cancel last minute but I’m feeling terrible.” He died that night from a heart attack. He was 39. And I miss him.

Most people close to me, or who follow my posts, know that 2016 brought a series of lessons in loss. It felt like a coming of age film in fast forward. 2017 seems to be continuing the trilogy. What might be an even more painful truth than having a loved one die, is experiencing that life goes on without them. I am still having trouble making sense of the world without the people who made it make sense, if that makes sense. It feels as if it goes against hope, against love, against time itself. When a person is an intimate part of your experience of life, no matter how much or little time you actually spent with them, their absence is not an end to your journey together. Their absence is a blank canvas for you to paint all your longings, regrets, secrets, and wishes. And like any work of art worth a damn, it’s fucking painful to create.  

It’s easy to walk through life thinking you will have another chance. In rare cases, we may have that opportunity. In even rarer cases, we may actually take it. But when people around you die, it puts all of those excuses on trial. All the, “Yeah, we should get together sometimes,” and the, “I’m sorry, things have just been so crazys.” I am as guilty as anyone. My phone is a graveyard of good intentions. Text messages lingering awkwardly by the snack table. Looking back, there are so many situations I would do-over in a heartbeat. But it begs the question, for whom?

If the person is no longer here, but I knew I had been kind, or gone out of my way to spend time, what difference would it make? Surely no difference to them, wherever they are, if anywhere at all. So then, is it really about them, or is it about me? Maybe regret is just a way to make sense of the crater our loved ones left behind, and how gravity isn’t the same without them. It’s an alluring idea, that we may have found relief in a parallel universe where we’d called back, or said I love you one last time. But more likely it’s that the pain is all too much. My heart crumbles in the vacuum of their absence, and my regrets eventually dissolve with the realization that it’s supposed to hurt, and the hurt is how much I love them.

This circuitous route to self-acceptance is one I travel often, and I don’t always reach the finish line. Forgiveness can be a wild beast. I have spent days replaying an exchange with my dad, as if through some loophole of modern physics I could change history with my mind. That by rejecting myself, I can somehow even the score.

I may not be able to change history, but I can change how history changes me. Does it make me kinder and more accepting? Or does it make me closed and more judgmental? It’s a fight. Perhaps one of the few worth putting it all on the line for. One of the few where surrendering isn’t defeat.   

One thing I can say about my journey so far is that I am definitely more affected. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it. I mean I am more easily moved. The same way someone who has never skied can’t appreciate a bluebird day, someone who hasn’t experienced loss can’t truly understand the space it occupies in your heart. I cry more. I hurt more. I laugh more, at least the real, deep, belly ones. I am more comfortable in the pain, and I roll up my sleeves instead of running away. I’ve lost the innocence that accompanies endless summers and bottomless sodas. I know now that everything comes to an end, and too much of anything is probably bad for you. With one exception: the ability to love and have compassion for this curious journey called being human.

adam yauch + a humble reminder

Hearing the news of Adam Yauch’s death hit me in an unexpected way today. Seeing a facebook post that read “RIP MCA” led me to investigate and sure enough the twitter and tumblr-sphere were alive with RIP’s and condolences. I would say my fan cred lies in that grey area between die-hard and clueless, probably just like most people within my age demographic. I know all their hits and most serve as anthems for one life phase or other. The Beasties were a staple of suburban teenage-dom and discovering them was a rite of passage for any white kid trying to make amends with their rebellious streak. I remember thinking the music video for “Sabotage” was brilliant because it was a music video but it also pretended to look like a movie (how clever!), and it was campy, self-aware and bad-ass. I think that was the first video my friends and I recreated once we got our grubby little hands on a video camera, donning hipster moustaches before they were a thing. Anyway, having one of your adolescent idols pass away is inevitable and not all that uncommon. I remember the day Kurt Cobain died. I cried, and for months was scribbling “K.C.R.I.P.” on all my notebooks. The sadness and disillusionment with life came with the teenaged territory and we wallowed in our esteemed rockstars’ woes. Meanwhile we saved our lunch money for concert tickets and used our creative energy to make fashion statements out of safety pins and try not to care too much when our purple hair dye washed out and made it look grey.

So what does this have to do with the Beastie Boys and Adam Yauch’s death? The Beasties were different. They were positive and empowered. They were smart and worldly. Admittedly they had their misguided attempts in the world of role-model-dom, but they weren’t famous for their struggles. They were famous for being fucking rad, knowing how to party and having sick rhymes. And just like they didn’t live for their struggles, Adam didn’t die by his. He died from something that can happen to any of us. He died from something that happens to distant relatives and friends from high school’s parents. Or our heroes.

Obviously I’m not the same age as Adam, but sometimes sharing an imagined identity forms a much stronger connection than how long you’ve been alive. I can relate way more with the Beasties and their frame of mind than I can with a lot of people who share my graduation date or who watched the same after-school specials. I feel deeply saddened by his death. I feel humbled by the reality that no amount of external anything - fame, fortune, friendship or fly beats - can keep us from the inevitable. Adam’s death is a reminder of that; that thing we all know, but conveniently avoid as we put things off or fail to tell our fellow humans we love them. I hope he was able to be with the people he loved during his final days, and reflected on his life believing he’d done alright. I truly believe we all do our best, but allowing ourselves to embrace that truth can be the hardest of all. In the end, we all just gotta fight… for our right… well, you know. Peace and love in the next world Adam.