Chapter 13: Day 3: 4:35 PM

I am startled out of my reflection when Liam calls my name.  “Uncle Danny do you want to say anything?”

I replied, “Sorry. Just lost in the moment. I do.”

I look around at our group. Sam is holding Del’s hand and looking at the deck as if he contained the secret of salvation. Hadley and Liam are also holding hands, but they have their eyes fixed on me as do Con and Duke.”

I clear my throat and say “Con and I talked about what I would say at his funeral. I told him that whatever I said it would be without hysterics, chest pounding and wails. I would try to remember him as how he was with stories that humanized not beatify him. The person we loved. Not a fairy tale version who bore no resemblance to the one who lived. “

“With that in mind, let me begin by saying the obvious, Con was not a perfect person. He had glaring and massive flaws. For example, he was way too charming for his own good, and he knew it. No doubt his charisma was rooted in his Irish heritage and perhaps a pinch from the time we kissed the Blarney Stone. He would use his charm to his advantage despite the consequences to the person he was charming. Such as the night he convinced me to steal an industrial size jar of pickled onions from the snack bar at the Hill Club where I worked, and his family were members. I cannot remember how he convinced me or why, except that pickled onions were, for some reason, a favorite snack. Karma bit us on the ass that night. Somehow the1/2-gallon jar of onions broke in the back seat of his father’s car. Needless to say, his old man was furious. He made us detail his car and then reported our shenanigans to the management of the club as he sat on their board. The result was I got fired and his father got a clean car and Con had a new story to tell.”

I look over at Con, he is chuckling and gives me a thumbs up. I continue “Please do not get me wrong. I have free will. I could have said no, and over time it was something that I became adept at with him. I mention this story because it is symbolic of a bigger truth about my buddy. There is not a single person I know who loved Con who hasn’t felt the backside of his charm.  Where they have done something that they should not have done because Con convinced them that it would be a good idea to head down that path.”

“The amazing part of this is not that Conor had used his charm and lied to us or betrayed us in some way. The amazing part is we almost always forgave him for it. So complete is that gift, that now, a little more than a year after his death, I struggle to remember any of the bullshit he managed to foist on me or on others. I only remember the laughs and fun we had before, during and after our little adventures.

“Suffice it to say, that wherever Con was, there was a party, or a good time was to follow. As a disciple of Hunter S. Thompson, he insisted on it. For years, whether it be in Stockholm where he got a party started by telling a group of Swedes gathered for a wedding how fucked up their country was or in Key West the night Ronald Regan was elected President and he kept pouring “Hurricanes” down my throat to ease the pain brought about by that victory, he insisted on calling himself the Dr. (as in Hunter S.) and me his attorney based on characters from Con’s favorite books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. .

“I never asked Con why he loved the Dr. so much. I did not have to because I knew. It was the Gonzo writer’s code for life. He believed that “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What A Ride!” And “the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived rather or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed.”

I look over at my friend. He has one arm draped around his son’s shoulders and with the other is pointing to his nose and then at me.

“Con, and for that matter Duke would have wanted a funeral like Thompson’s. His carbonized remains were shot from a canon placed upon a 150-foot tower accompanied by red, white, blue and green fireworks while accompanied by Norman Greenbaum’s” Spirit in the Sky” and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” That is the type of finale my buddy would have loved only he probably would have substituted Bruce Springsteen’s “Growing Up” for Tambourine Man. Unfortunately, Thompson’s funeral cost an estimated $3M and that was not in our budget. Which is why his carbonized remains will be quietly placed into the sea on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. Not quite as spectacular but I have no doubt that Con would have approved.”

Duke and Con both give me a thumbs up.

“I do not want to leave you with the impression my friend was a complete hedonist. He wasn’t. That was only the part that showed above the surface. For as long as I can remember Con was seeking a bigger truth. Whether that was embracing transcendental meditation and the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi when we were in high school or reading the poetry of Kahlil Gibran to becoming “born again” and his embrace of evangelical Christianity he sought deeper meaning for his purpose on earth.”

“The bigger meaning and what came next was very much on his mind after he received his diagnosis. Shortly after he began his first round of chemo, I flew out to Manhattan Beach to hang out with him. Sitting out in the California sun, eating donuts, he confessed to me while he was telling everyone else that he was going to lick this thing “even that had to give him a new brain”, he knew the score. The clock was ticking and getting louder every second. He was staring into the abyss we all will face, and he was scared about what came next and he wanted to know my thoughts.

I told him that I was the last person in the world he should be asking that question. I was a heathen: a non-practicing Jew. But he insisted that he wanted to know my thoughts. I told him since my dad’s death I had spent a lot of time thinking about it. I told him that it made no sense to me that the essence of who we are would not be preserved in some form.  Newton’s law of the conservation of energy state “energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. I told him that science suggests our energy will be converted into something new.

“I asked him if he remembered a book we had read together in our humanities class in high school called “The Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham. There was a quote I loved from it “Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely, we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. … “

“I told him none of us knew when we would die. For all we knew I could pass away before he did. Our sacred obligation to ourselves and to those around us is to delight in our life while we have it. He had the greatest capacity for delight in life of anyone I knew. He should not abandon that just because of a cancer diagnosis.”

“I have no idea whether what we talked about that day gave him any comfort. I hope so. I can tell you that when Liam and Hadley took over as his primary care givers, he found joy every day because they were there for him every day. Perhaps it was in the comfort of his care that he found the true meaning of his existence. To paraphrase Maugham

“The man I am speaking about is not famous. He never will be. When his life came to a close, he left no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. But it may be that the way of life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over those who knew and loved him so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very remarkable creature.”

I can’t hold back the tears and begin to cry. Liam puts his hand on my shoulder. I steady up and continue.

“Con you were a remarkable friend and father.” Pausing for a second, I chuckle and say “No doubt there have been better at both, but you left your mark on everyone who knew you and loved you. And even though your time with us has ended, who you were and, what you shared with us, carries on.”

I look over to where my silent audience has been watching. Duke is patting his father on the shoulder and my friend Con nods his head, acknowledging my words.