I wake up late in the afternoon and the room is dappled with light and shadow. I make no effort to get up. I have no place to be and where I am seems as good a place to think as any, perhaps even nap a little longer. But then I think of Fennie. She has not been walked since early this morning and she is not averse to leaving me messages I would have to clean up later if her walking schedule is not kept. I look around the room. Fenway, good girl that she is, is laying on the sofa directly opposite my chair making sure that some hobgoblin or some other evil spirit did not bother me while I slept. She is not alone. Sitting next to her is my mother or at least the early twenties version of her. Hair cut so it just touched her shoulders, wearing a white blouse with a princess collar, a navy cardigan and matching skirt. There is a single strand of pearls around her neck.
I am not completely surprised to see her. This is not her first visit with me during the last few months. They mainly occurred during activities that reminded me of her such as going to the supermarket I used to take her to on Saturday mornings or the hairdresser we both used to get our haircut. Or when I felt particularly alone. She rarely said anything. There was no need. Her presence was enough.
Today was different. She asked, “Did you like the book?”
I said, “I really did.” She looked at me the way she used to when I was young. The one she used when I would come home from school, and she would ask how school was. “Fine” was not an acceptable answer. She wanted details. What had I learned that day. Whom had I played with. Had I had any troubles during the day. A full report. Not some dismissive thrown away line. Understanding her look, I continued “You know I love Verne. He writes with joy and a little snark. He beckons the sense of adventure in all young boys no matter how old they are. And he is a hopeless romantic, like me, so reading his book makes me feel as if I am reading a kindred spirit. Even the late nineteenth century style of writing, when the author is being paid by the word does not bother me because he uses glorious words, we don’t use any more like “pedant “and “savant.”
Mom smiled in the way teachers smile to encourage their students to go a little deeper. She asked, “What did you think of the book’s conclusion.”
“It was very romantic.”
“True. And?”
“I think he missed an opportunity?”
“How so?”
“At the end of the book Heather tells Oliver that they no longer need to search for the green ray. Her quest to find the ray, to ensure she finds love, is complete. She has found him, and her quest is complete.”
“And?”
“I don’t agree. Happiness is a constant struggle. Love, once found, needs to be nurtured and cared for. Joy and happiness are temporary states of being. If they weren’t we would never grow. And not to sound like a greeting card, or some television guru, everyone is on a constant journey to find happiness and to make sense of the world. Just because you have it now does not mean you will have it tomorrow. It is a never-ending journey. Not a destination. The obligation that we have to ourselves is to constantly search for our green rays, whatever it is. And if you find it, amen! But it shouldn’t stop because the sun has set on that day. There is always tomorrow’s green ray that needs to be found. And if you don’t see it, if you don’t experience it, that is okay too. Tomorrow gives you another opportunity. It is the struggle and the hope that makes the green ray special.
Mom smiles and says, “Top marks” and opens her arms beckoning me for a hug. As I attempt to extricate myself from the chair my book falls to the floor. I bend over to pick it up and when I look up, she is gone.
I feel the boat’s engines burble off. The boat is adrift, but Captain Kam has, with the skill of a sea goddess, positioned the boat so its stern is facing west. We are adrift. Waiting for the sun’s daily swan song. From where I sit, I can see on my right the black silhouette of the hills of the Kapalua peninsula jutting out into the inky blue of the Pacific. To my left, the northern tip of Lanai and perfectly centered between the two, in a robin’s egg blue sky is the golden sun. The rest of my party has not joined me in the stern. I don’t know why. Maybe they are not interested in postcard perfect sunsets or seeing green flashes. Or maybe they just don’t know that the day is about to give way to the night. Captain Kam and Mo are also strangely absent. Perhaps they have seen too many sunsets for this one to matter or far more likely, knowing the captain, she feels her presence would be an intrusion.
None of my ghosts are here either. Mom, Dad, Desmond, Wen, Duke and Con and all the others have decided that, at the moment, their presence is not needed. I am alone and grateful for the quiet. The sun, now a brilliant yellow, with a tangerine halo, is a perfect circle just centimeters above the sea. The sky above it is an ombre of pumpkin to burnt sienna to apricot.
The last eighteen months have given the gift of time. Time to think unencumbered by the normal daily distractions of life. To evaluate where life’s journey has taken me and to contemplate which path I want to take next. As cruel and unforgiving as Covid has been it has also given me time with personal ghosts. Those spirits, that in other times, would haunt you in the middle of the night, and keep you from returning to your dreams. Most of those phantoms are no longer belligerents and are now allies. I no longer struggle with them but instead, when they visit, they help me in my battles for sanity and self. The few I still wrestle with remind me that the journey continues, and I find peace in that too.
A small gust of wind moves across the ocean’s surface, flattening it as if by an unseen hand. It disturbs a flock of seagulls who were resting in our wake, it brings with it the scent of the clean, crisp briny smell of the ocean and a hint of jasmine and hibiscus from the nearby shore. It is the smell of paradise, or at least this one. I wish that I could bottle it and take it with me. But as I can’t, I breathe it in, hoping that my memory will be an adequate repository for it.
The sun touches the sea. It is now a small globe so yellow it is almost white surrounded by a pyramid of saffron with a terracotta scarf that spans the horizon. It is descending rapidly now. It seems to have cast off Maui’s ropes as it urgently moves for the day to end. I appreciate its haste. How many times over the last sixteen months have I just prayed the day would end? Hoping against hope that when I woke on a new day that the nightmare of fear, disease and failed leadership will have evaporated in the night and been replaced by a world that more closely resembled the normal world that came before. But it never did.
Over time I have come to see it as a gift as had so many others. Instead of plodding along on the course we set ourselves on years ago we have been forced to question it. Confront the lives we are living and decide whether it is what we really want or is there a better way. While I welcome the night, and the rest that it brings, I know longer dread the days because the light of those days has made me who I am, and I am better than I was before.
The setting sun has shape shifted again. It is now a half dome with a core near white light surrounded by a saffron case. The sea is stained with golden highlights and there is a beam of shining gold that seems to start at our boat and run directly into the heart of our sinking star.
The halo changes. The sky above it is an ombre of pumpkin to burnt sienna to apricot. Slowly, by millimeters it descends into the sea. First a quarter, then a half, and finally just a fingernail of golden yellow. Then, without fanfare it dips beneath the waves and just as I think I will be disappointed once again, there is a brilliant flash of jade.
Kam is at my shoulder. She asks, “Did you see it?”
Without taking my eye of the horizon I reply, “I did.”
“And?”
“I am glad to have seen it.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“Honestly?”
“You don’t need to lie to me.”
“I was a little underwhelmed.”
“You didn’t think it was beautiful?”
“No. It was amazingly beautiful.”
“Then what?”
“I guess that part of it is that I have that looking for the green flash for so long to have it come and go in seconds and with as little fanfare as any other moment in any other day seems incongruous for me. I am not saying there should have been heavenly music and a bolt of energy pass through us leaving us physically and emotionally different, but it should have been more than what it was.”
Kam caught my gaze and gently said “You said that was part of it before I say anything, what is the other part?”
“Had this been even a few years ago, there were so many others I would have delighted in sharing this moment with…not the least of whom were Duke and Con. I wish they were around so I could share with them that I had finally seen the green flash and we could laugh and make jokes about it.”
“But…”
“Now that I have seen the flash, what is next?”
“Are you going to stop looking for it when you see the setting sun? Or are you going to say I wonder if there will be a green flash tonight and wait and see if you can see it again? Of course, you are going to look. It is like any other goal you have in life. When you reach it does not mean that is the end. It is really the beginning of what is next.”
“Then why I am I so sad?”
“Endings are sad until you decide that they are not.”
I look off to the west. The last light of day is an incandescent tangerine hovering at the horizon. I turn and face Kam and say “Perhaps, every once in a while, we have the time and the opportunity to look for the Green Flash. What a gift. If we see nothing but the last moments of the day that is great. We have taken that moment for ourselves. But even if we are lucky enough to see it nothing has changed. Every time I look at a setting sun into the sea, I will still wonder whether I will see the flash or not. I am not going to stop looking for them just because I have seen one. The quest does not end. The journey continues. No matter how many flashes we see or don’t see we will always look for it because that is our nature.
It is the Golden Hour. The time-of-day cinematographers and photographers cherish as it bathes the world with perfect light for their craft. We are heading east; the jade and gold hills of Maui are to my left lit in perfect relief. The light accentuates their steep slopes, precipitous valley and ravines. The few trees that populate these hills stand out like mushrooms in a sea of grass. I am sitting in the aft, facing the setting sun. I am alone by choice. After a shot of tequila to honor Duke and Con, Del, Sam, Hadley and Liam retreated to the bow seating area with the bottle. It is clear their intention is to dissolve the sting of the afternoon with a bottle of Herradura Anejo. I understand. Olive therapy has helped me through more than one emotional crisis. But it was alcohol that killed Duke and memorializing him with drink seems wrong to me.
Kam taps me on my shoulder. She asks with her mild Hawaiian accent “You look all alone back here, are you doing okay?”
I appreciate her kindness and say “Thanks. I am fine. I am content being by myself.” Laughing I add. “It’s how I have spent most of the last year and a half, so I am used to it.” I don’t share with her that the real reason I am sitting by myself has more to do with not spending time with Del and ripping open old wounds than anything else.
She says “Well, I don’t want to disturb you. Just let Mo or me know if there is anything you need.”
I reply and say, “Would you mind answering a couple of non-serious questions for me.”
She gives me a quizzical look and says “Sure, shoot.””
I ask, “Is Namaka, an ancient Polynesian name?”
She chuckles and says, “I think that you know that it is.”
“Sister to Pele, right?” She nods and I share with her the self-satisfied smile of someone who has solved a puzzle. I look off to the west. The sun is hanging a couple of fingers above an indigo sea, the horizon beginning to develop a corona of tangerines and pinks. I say, “About thirty minutes to sunset, right?”
She replies, “Something like that.”
I ask, “Do you think there will be a green flash, tonight.?”
She pats me on the shoulder and with a grin says, “That is a question even I cannot answer but you know what we Hawaiian’s say?”
“No.”
“That seeing the green flash is reminder of Pele’s presence and her volcanic temper.” She pauses and adds sardonically “Like we need reminding.”
The Sea Goddess continues its leisurely cruise in the golden glow of late afternoon. Its wake is a white v on an indigo ocean generating small waves in each direction that diminish the further they travel from their source. Above us, sea birds circle, no doubt looking for a late afternoon meal and perhaps mistaking us for a fishing boat where they can get it without too much work. My father was a birder. When we had been to Maui years earlier, he had spent hours with a pair of small binoculars trying to identify birds that he had never seen before. I remember names like spectacled tern, masked booby, and Laysan albatross. I don’t have his encyclopedic memory of avians nor a pair of binoculars to help me see them better. Instead, I just enjoy their effortless flight, surfing air currents and rarely if ever flapping their wings. If only life were so easy.
I had never heard of the green flash until Conor, and I had gone on vacation to Key West together in our early twenties. We were single and poor, and we wanted to go on vacation somewhere that wouldn’t break the budget and where there was at least a possibility of meeting friendly young women. Key West fit the bill. After our arrival it did not take us long to discover that the kickoff celebration for the night of partying was the daily ritual of watching the sun descend into the Gulf of Mexico from the pier at the foot of Duval Street. In addition to the tourists from the north who had not felt the heat of the sun in months, there were the card-carrying members of the Conch Republic whose lives were caught up in the Margaritaville lifestyle of sun and fun. They earned a living by juggling, sword swallowing, tight rope walking, playing the steel drums and dozens of other ways of having the tourists gathered on the pier fund their lifestyle.
The second time we attended this nightly festival of fun, Conor charmed our way into meeting two comely young women from Miami who had come to Key West as a mini bachelorette party. Kaydee Brown, willowy and blonde was a flight attendant on American Airlines and was the bride to be. Her companion, Leila Tove, was 5’3” with sun-streaked dark hair, large engaging brown eyes and an easy smile, was an account executive with a large Hispanic advertising agency who spoke with a mild Latin accent. They had been fast friends since their undergraduate days at the University of Miami when both pledged Delta Delta Delta (TriDelt) sorority. Kaydee’s schedule wouldn’t allow for a normal bachelorette weekend and this trip had been decided on the fly when her schedule had suddenly been shifted.
Kaydee immediately attached herself to Con. Perhaps she sensed that if you were looking to sow wild oats, he would be the right one to harvest them. It didn’t bother me at all. She was way too loud and way too forward for me and the idea of having an affair with a woman who was about to be married bothered me. I am not a prude, but I know me. I tend to fall in love with people with whom I have sex. And falling in love with a soon to be married woman would not be good for my heart.
Besides, I found Leila far more attractive, physically and otherwise. There was more to her than her party girlfriend. There was laughter in her eyes. She seemed happy with herself and her life, but she was also holding something in reserve. She was not going to share all of who she was with just anybody. You needed to qualify first. She had secrets and if you wanted to plumb them you would have to put in the time first.
While our friends tried to determine how many Hurricanes or Woo Woo’s a person can safely consume within an hour, we would find a quiet corner in the bar and talk. She had not grown up in the United States. Her father, a veteran of the OSS in WW2, had gone to work in South America. She was vague about what his business was, but he moved around quite a bit and somewhere along the way he had married a Brazilian woman and Leila was the only child from that union. When Leila was ten, and they were living in Rio, her mother died. When I asked her how, she changed the subject and would not return to it. They left Rio and moved to Sao Paulo, then Buenos Aires and just before she left for University, Montevideo.
Over the course of the next few days as our friends made them scarce and our hotel rooms became off limits to us, we spent a lot of time together. We found we could talk about anything and everything from her favorite soccer team, Flamengo, to politics where we shared the same progressive outlook, to what we hoped our life would bring to us including family and devotion to our partners. We only had one major disconnect. She was determined to spend her life in Florida. She was a warm weather woman and could not see herself living somewhere the temperature routinely dipped below sixty. I, on the other hand, could not see myself living in a state where every strip mall had a strip club, and the average age was near death.
Our disconnect meant that we could not see a future for us. Still, the attraction between us was palpable. Being together, while wonderful, became difficult. We were like two magnets. The closer we got to each other the harder it was to pull us apart. Something had to give way and on our last night in Key West something did. We were at the end of the pier, standing shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching and hyper aware we were not, when Leila asked, “Have you ever seen the green flash?”
I had no idea what she was talking about and told her so. She laughed and said “You northern boys! You don’t know anything important. The green flash happens every once in a great while just as the setting sun dips below the horizon there is a brilliant green flash. Some say that if you see it tomorrow will be a beautiful day. Other people say that if you see it whatever you hope for comes true.”
Flirting, I said “Really? So, if we see the green flash this evening what will you be hoping for.” I knew what I was hoping for, but she would not take the bait. She just smiled and continued to look to the west where the sun was minutes from touching the horizon.
Being nervous, and at a loss of what to say, I utter “Are you sure the green flash is not some myth created by the local chamber of commerce to drum up revenue for local businesses?”
Leila, still gazing out at the rapidly setting sun, responded by taking my hand and saying “My favorite myth about the green flash is that it has the virtue of making anyone who sees it impossible to deceive in the matters of the heart. If you see it, you will not only be able to see more closely into your heart but read the thoughts of others.”
The sun touched the sea. I have no idea if there was a green flash that evening as Leila and I were too busy kissing when the sun disappeared below the horizon.
That was the only evening Leila and I ever spent together. Distance and timing made sure of that. But we remained friends and over time used to tease each other about the Green Flash. I took the position that the green flash was a myth, and she defended its existence. On occasion I would send her photographs of the setting sun and say, “Yet again no green flash.” She would return the favor like the time she sent me a YouTube clip from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Hector Barbossa: “Ever gazed upon the green flash, Master Gibbs?”
Joshamee Gibbs: “I reckon I seen my fair share. Happens on rare occasions. The last glimpse of sunset, a green flash shoots up into the sky. Some go their whole lives without ever seeing it. Some claim to have seen it who ain’t. And some say-”
Pintel: “It signals when a soul comes back to this world from the dead!”
At that point, Leila was living in Los Angeles with her husband and son, so I wrote her back and said, “And we all know that everything created in Hollywood is true.”
But my curiosity about the Green Flash and my cynicism about its existence did not begin and end with Leila Tove. I joked with everyone about it. Conor, the boys, other friends, even my father on our trip to Hawaii.
The Christmas after the trip to Hawaii with my parents, my mother, the antiquarian book seller, gave me the first American edition of the Green Ray by Jules Verne. It is a magnificent book with wonderful illustrations by Mary De Hauteville and a hand colored, imprinted 19th century depiction of seaside life surrounded by a frame of ivy. The note that accompanied the book read, “I overheard your conversation with your dad about the Green Flash in Hawaii and thought you might like it.
I did. I loved it. Not only had books been my escape since I had read the House at Pooh Corner when I was four, but Jules Verne was a particular favorite. His book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the first adult book I ever read. Mom also knew that books were my weak spot. If I read a book, I could not give it away or even lend it to anyone. Which is why my library has grown to eight full bookcases and a few stacks located at strategic locations around our home. The Green Ray was given a place of pride, un-read on the bookshelf in my living room that contained my most cherished books.
It was not until shortly before I left on this trip that it occurred to me to read it. And then only by accident. I was walking through the living room early one day and the morning light highlighted the colorful spine of the book. It stopped me in my tracks. Mom’s death was still raw and here was a gift that she had given me that I had not even bothered to read. It made the near constant undercurrent of guilt I felt about my mother’s passing acute. I would receive no more gifts from her. To assuage my guilt and perhaps to feel the warmth of Mom’s hug one more time, I pulled the Green Ray from the shelf and settled myself in the brown leather Swedish recliner that used to be in my Dad’s office and now graced my living room and began to read.
I read it in a single four hour sitting only getting up when nature called and to refill my cup of coffee. It is the story of an indulged nearly eighteen-year-old wealthy Scottish girl Helena Campbell who is being raised by her bachelor uncles. She reads in the local newspaper of a phenomenon known as the “green ray.”
What intrigues Helena Campbell is not the visual. Her Uncles are anxious for her to marry. While she is sure they have her best interest at heart she also knows them well enough that when it comes to love they know less than little. The article says “The Green Ray has the virtue of making him who has seen it impossible to be deceived in the matters of sentiment; at its apparition all deceit and falsehood are done aways, and he who has been fortunate enough to once behold it is enabled to see closely into his own heart and read the thought of others.” For her, seeing the green ray is the only way to ensure her future happiness.
She convinces her uncles to go on an expedition so she may see the Green Ray. They travel from their home in Glasgow to the West of Scotland where they hope to catch the phenomenon. Things do not go as planned. First, she runs into the suitor her uncle’s hope she will marry. He turns out to be an unattractive boorish mansplainer who provides anyone who will listen to the history of and origin of everything he sees. He thinks the “green ray” is nonsense. Worse, he ruins her opportunity to see the flash on two occasions.
A weekend junket turns into weeks. She travels from island to island looking for a spot in which she can see the Green Ray. There too she is blocked from the sight of it. Once by directing the ship she charted to rescue a man caught in a maelstrom. That man, Oliver Simpson, an artist and a romantic, becomes sympathetic with her mission and knowing the archipelago well directs her to a deserted island that boasts a completely unencumbered view of the setting sun. But before they can view the sun’s daily departure the island is battered by the remnants of a hurricane. Helena becomes trapped in a cave during the height of the storm. Oliver, heroically, saves her.
That evening, as often happens after a storm, the skies cleared. Helena, Oliver and the rest of their party climb to the highest point of the island to view the setting sun. Finally, the Green Ray is seen, an “incomparable tint of liquid jade.”
It is missed by Helena and Oliver who are busy kissing. Instead of regretting missing the Green Flash Helena tells Oliver “We have something far better still! We have seen the happiness of the legend attached to the observation of that phenomenon! And since we have found it my dear Oliver, let us be contented, and leave to those, who have never yet known it, the search for the green ray.”
The recliner is one of the all-time great napping chairs and even though I am tired from my reading I have to do one thing before I close my eyes. I punch up Amazon on my phone and order a copy of “The Green Ray” for Leila with a note that reads “I think at the very least you will find this book ironic and maybe realize we don’t need to see the Green Flash to experience it.” I am just about to hit the “Place Your Order” button when I remember that Leila is gone. She caught Covid while undergoing treatment for Thyroid cancer. Hers is a ghost I have not been able to confront.
It takes a while to fall asleep and when I do it is not an easy rest.
I Iook over at Del and say “When I asked you to say a few words today, I told you it would be just about Con. I told you that I would leave Duke’s eulogy to others. And I will. But with your permission I would like to say a couple words about my nephew.” Del stiffens. No doubt she is worried about what I am going to say and yet she cannot really deny me. Liam puts his hand on her arm to reassure her of my good intentions and with that she gives me a nod to proceed.
“Covid took so much from all of us. Everyone in this country, in the world for that matter, we all have a story or many stories about how Covid injured them. Everything from the inability to do day to day things like going to the grocery store or losing their source of income to losing someone they love. In Con’s case it was probably merciful. Covid ended his suffering. But Duke died of Covid too. Not from the infection itself but its side effects of fear, isolation, and despair. They conspired with his brain chemistry to create a toxic mix that ended him.”
“Perhaps it was a blessing for him too. All of us here know how he suffered.”
Moving my gaze to Del I say “And for a very long time I blamed myself for his loss. I practiced tough love with him. I would not talk to him unless he was sober. I did that because the family felt that was the best way to approach his disease. I did so despite the fact that Conor told me that approach would never work on his son. That it would just make Duke want to prove us wrong.”
“Had we lost Con and Duke in normal times it would have been much easier for us to bury the pain of their loss. We could have immersed ourselves in our work, friends, exercise, shopping, chores and all the mundane minutiae of everyday life so that the sorrow and grief we felt is diluted like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Covid would not allow us to do that. Coffee breaks were held in your kitchen. The gym was in your basement or spare bedroom. Your supermarket was Instacart. Your favorite restaurant, Doordash. Amazon became your mall.
For most, it was the first time in our adult lives, if not our whole lives, where we were forced to take a beat and evaluate our life and what we wanted from it. Suddenly people were stuck with partners that they had been escaping from every day through work and other means and forced to spend time with their significant others. Not surprisingly divorce rates skyrocketed which in my mind is a positive outcome.” And looking at Del I add “People who don’t belong together shouldn’t be together.”
“You don’t need to look far for other positive things to come from Covid. Like the “great resignation” where people left their jobs because they had the opportunity to realize that what they were doing did not give them anything more than money and they wanted more from life. They resigned in search of greener pastures. It created the “gig economy” where people were willing to earn less to have a better quality of life. Jobs became remote and instead of being tethered to a job that required hours of commuting every day or living in a place they did not like, folks could use that time for things they enjoyed or finding a place to live where their heart could soar when they stepped out their front door.”
“Covid did not give me those gifts. I was already a part of the gig economy. I did something I loved when I wanted to do it. I lived in a place I loved. What it gave me, as it gave to so many others, was an overwhelming amount of alone time. Twelve months where the only human company I had was two dimensional and on screen. I was alone. While Nadine and I talked multiple times a day and wrote each other lengthy emails it could not replace physically being with someone you love. When someone is in your arms it is far easier to share your fears and doubts. When someone is far away, and alone just like you, you don’t want to burden them because there is no hug to steady them, and you don’t want them to worry about your troubles because you know they have their own challenges.”
I chuckle ruefully and say “Turns out spending all that time alone when those you love are dying and the world is locked down in a global pandemic will play with your mind. Who knew? For me I started having lengthy conversations with Fennie. Nothing really all that unusual. She and I have had one sided conversation since she was just a puppy. But as my time away from others lengthened, and my ability to distract myself diminished, hurts, slights, wrongs, missed opportunities and even lost loves began to invade my thoughts. They became the things I interacted with each day and wove themselves into the fabric of my life. I called them my ghosts because they haunted me. I guess I could have buried them if I had tried hard enough. Hide them away in some psychic cubbyhole. But they would always be there, and past experiences taught me they would escape their hiding places at exactly the time you wanted to see them least, creating more regrets, more hurt and bigger problems. “
“I decided, since I had the time and had nothing better to do instead of burying my ghosts, I would get to know them and try to figure out why after years and even decades they were still with me. And, if I could, come to peace with them. Understand the paths I chose and perhaps, if I were lucky, help me come to terms with my mistakes, so the road ahead would be a little less bumpy.”
“This morning, I went to Mt. Haleakala to see the sunrise. I went because it was a place Duke thought was special. A place he loved and shared with me in one of his epic text rants about how seeing the sunrise changed his perception of the world. I went there because I hoped I might be able to have a “conversation” with him. I needed to come to terms with his decision to leave because, I still feel guilty about his death. I had far too many unresolved could haves, should haves and would haves for his spirit to rest easily with me.”
“Haleakala is an improbable place. According to Hawaiian mythology it is where the god Maui convinced the sun to slow down so his mother’s laundry would dry, and the crops would grow faster. It snows there despite sitting on the equator and it is where they have a view on the universe found nowhere else on earth. Not surprisingly, at least for me, I ran into Duke’s spirit. When I asked him why he was there, he laughed and said, “where else would I be.” Of course he was right. I had conjured him. For a while we just stared into the stirrings of a new day and enjoyed each other’s company in silence.”
Just before dawn, as the clouds down below were bathed in the pink of the newborn day, I finally had the courage to tell him the reason I had summoned him. I told him how angry I was with him for leaving us in the way that he did. He had so much more he could give us. So much he could have contributed to the world. Giving up like he did was selfish and horrifically painful to those he left behind. The Duke I loved was compassionate and kindhearted. How could he have done such a thing to us? He was patient with me. Of course he was. He said I could not understand because I did not share his brain disease. His bipolar disorder took him places, dark places, that I could never understand because our thought processes were so much different that his.”
“I told him I would continue to try to make sense of his departure, but I was not confident that I ever could. As we spoke dawn broke. It was more glorious than he described to me. More magnificent than the pictures he had shared with me. It was then, in the light of the new day I told him the real reason I had come to Haleakala. I needed his forgiveness. I should have known tough love would not work for him. Con had told me, that compassionate engagement, not confrontation, was the way to reach him. I should have listened better. Tried a little harder and maybe I would not have failed him.”
“I thought he would forgive me. He knew how much I cherished him. Forgiving me was a nice thing to do. He said that if it was in his power to forgive me, he would, but he could not. The only person who could forgive me was me.”
I looked up and looking at our small congregation and said “I miss my brother Con. He has been a part of my life for so long and I love him so deeply that I doubt there will be a day in my life when I won’t think of him. But he had a good run. Better than most and I am at peace with that. Duke’s death is still too hard for me. Despite our conversation I still struggle to understand and perhaps I never will, but I will continue to try. Just like I will continue to try to find a way to find forgiveness for myself for being nice when I should have been kind.”
Del was glaring at me. I told her I only wanted a few minutes to speak about Con. A eulogy that she had lost the right to give years before. I should have mentioned to her that I also wanted to say a few words about Duke, but I didn’t want to have a fight with her about it. She would have wanted to know what I was going to say and there was no doubt in my mind she would have fought me about it. Not only were the metaphors I used not a part of the fundamental Christian liturgy but the words I had chosen carefully may have hit to close to home. Surely, if I felt personally responsible for my nephew’s death she should have felt more. And no matter how carefully I chose my words, she knew that I was telling her I felt she had forsaken her son when he had needed her the most. I also knew that at some point, if I were to find peace, I would need to find a way to forgive her. Which is why, despite her clear anger with me, I give her a wordless hug.
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.
The Sea Goddess is heading south-west in the golden glow of the late afternoons sun. Its twin six hundred horsepower Evinrude engines are cutting a long v shaped wake in the indigo sea. To my left are the verdant green hills of the island. They look new, untouched. No houses, just grass and the occasional lonesome tree. The island is one point five million years old. People have lived on it for over a thousand years. Europeans have been here for only two centuries. Yet this part of the island still looks unscathed by the assault of man and will no doubt outlast me and all of humanity. The thought humbles me. Our existence is so momentary, such a small speck of time, that we might not have existed at all. Except we did.
The thought of this makes me stare at the two light grey Grecian style urns at my feet. They are not from antiquity. They are a product of advanced science and modern sensibilities. They are ecologically neutral containers designed to hold the ashes of the dead. When placed in the ocean they will float until the bottom of the urn dissolves and releases its content into the sea. Then the container will dissolve until it is just a blur in the water. Their existence blending into the vast. The two urns at my feet are covered with written messages of love and remembrance from Del, Liam, Hadley, and Sam. I am the only one who has not added a note.
Despite my fears of being late, I was the first to arrive at the Sea Goddess.
She is well maintained, white, and about 45 feet long. She does not look like a fishing vessel as there isn’t an angler’s chair, crow’s nest, or bait box. Instead, she appears to be a boat designed for cruising and day trips where comfort is king. I see no one on board and for a moment I have that sinking feeling you get when you think you have fouled things up and arrived at the wrong destination late. I am about to consult my phone to make sure I have not made a dreadful error when I feel a tap on my shoulder.
I turn around and see a woman about 5’5” with a muscular build, honey brown skin, wide oval face, large brown eyes, and full lips that do little to hide perfect white teeth. Her long wavy black hair is tied in a ponytail routed through the back of a navy-blue baseball cap with “Sea Goddess” embroidered on its front. Her age is hard to guess because despite a life spent under a tropical sun her skin is flawless. She has an air of confidence about her, as if nothing can defeat her, yet her smile is broad, warm, and inviting. She says, “Are you here with the Ryan party?” When I nod my ascent, she introduces herself “I am Captain Namaka. The Sea Goddess is my ship. Please call me Nam.”
I introduce myself and she responds with “Maikaʻi ka launa ʻana me ʻ” which I know means “nice to meet you in Hawaiian. We shake hands. Her grip is strong, and I instantly get the feeling that I know her. As we step on board I see an exceptionally large man wiggle through a small cabin door inside the covered lounge. As he approaches, I realize that he is not just large, he is enormous, at least 6’ 6 with broad shoulders and a muscular build. He too appears to be native born, his thick, dark curly hair tied in a top knot. He has an engaging warm smile, but you get the sense it can go from friendly greeting to growl in a flash. Nam introduces him as Moe, her mate. When we shake hands, mine disappears into his like a child’s into an adults.
Nam gives me a quick tour of the boat. The aft seating area includes a wraparound couch that outlines the stern and a single seat facing the rear. The cabin area includes a small four-person table for eating or conversing, a “con” area for the captain including radar, radio and operational controls and a large well-padded chair for whomever is at the helm. There is also a tiny “head,” no bigger than a large broom closet. Nam says can be used for “#2”in a pinch but would prefer to keep it for “1.” Forward of the cabin is the bow seating area with two, three person “couches” that form a “V” at the front of the boat. Tour over, I take the single seat just short of the main cabin that faces aft. Moe asks if I would like a bottle of water and when I say yes, he reaches into a built-in cooler and pulls out a small bottle of Fiji water. I am just about to attempt a small joke about the brand of water when the rest of our party arrives.
First on board, wearing a matching set of aqua colored shorts and blouse that look as if they have been pulled from the “for seniors only” bin at TJ Max is Delilah. Her eyes are covered by a pair of dark, oversized polygonal sunglasses that make her look more bewildered than sophisticated. Her church lady smile is plastered on, and she greets Kam with the same tone of voice she used to speak to Con after they had fought, all saccharine, and no sugar. It instantly sets my teeth on edge and dredges up the deep anger I thought I had diffused.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath through my nose, exhale through my mouth. There is no time to meditate now but I try to focus on compassion. Despite our differences and my personal animosity for her, it is a time where we should support each other. This promises to be a tough afternoon for everyone and I will not let past grievances get in the way of what brought us here today. But I find it impossible to forget that she is the founder of this day. If not for her, we would not be here.
Del introduces Kam and Moe to the rest of our group. First, Sam, Del’s new husband, who boards wearing Docker’s khaki shorts and a lavender colored unbranded polo shirt carrying a large Styrofoam container. He is followed by Hadley who looks elegant in billowing white pants and boatneck three quarter sleeve navy and white striped tee. Liam is last. He looks as if he is out for a round of golf. A pair of Nantucket red shorts with a tucked in baby blue Vineyard Vines polo shirt. He too is carrying a large Styrofoam container. He and Hadley are wearing matching Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.
Introductions over Del comes over to where I am standing and presents her cheek to me saying “I am so glad you are here.” I don’t believe her. But that is okay. I am here because I want to be here. I need to be here. That is what friends do. That is what Uncle Danny’s do. They show up. Besides, I am too mindful of what those Styrofoam boxes contain and the grief they represent to say anything other than “me too.” Sam shakes my hand with a firm grip and a little nod. I want to tell him “Good luck. You are going to need it.” But no doubt he knows that, so I squeeze his hand a little harder than he is squeezing mine and return his nod. Hadley gives me a warm hug. I do not know her well but enough to know that she has a generous heart and is a fierce protector of Liam. Her hug makes me feel welcome and I return it with affection.
Liam is last. He puts down the Styrofoam container to give me a hug that would make anacondas envious. He whispers in my ear “I am glad you are here Uncle Danny.” I hug him back and try not to embarrass myself with a damp face. This young man has been through so much in the last couple of years. He has handled it so well, but I know the depth of his hurt and in that moment, I just want him to know that I will be there for him as long as the heavens and fate permit. I whisper back “Where else would I be.”
I do not know what to write on my friend and nephew’s urns. I want what I say about these two men I loved to be the definitive goodbye. The words everyone else on board wished they had written. Part of this is my competitive nature but is fueled by my lingering resentment. It is hard for me to shelf my anger at Del. As much as I have tried, I still cannot get past the fact that she is largely responsible for the death of these two people I cherished.
I look up. Both Duke and Con are standing in front of me. They are dressed identically in light blue Hawaiian shirts covered with topless hula dancers; white board shorts adorned with vermilion hibiscus flowers. Both are wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses and trucker hats with a screen-printed Ralph Steadman drawing of Hunter Thompson
Con says, “Writer’s block?”
Duke adds “Can’t figure out all the nice things to say in such a small space?”
I reply “Not helpful guys. I am on a deadline here.”
Duke says, “A pun?”
“Yes. But unintentionally. I have to figure out what to say soon.”
Con asks “Why do you have to write anything?”
“Well, because I want these folks” pointing to the forward sitting area where Del, Liam, Hadley and Sam sat “To know the loss I feel. How much I love and cherished you both and do so in a way that they know I know who is responsible for all this.”
Duke says, “Why does that matter that they know?”
Before I could answer Con chimes in “What was it that your friend Des said? Wasn’t it something like “there is no unfinished business. I know who loved me and the people I know how much I love them.” Dude, we know. We have always known… What you did. Be satisfied with that. If karma catches up with him, so be it. If it doesn’t that’s okay too. Somewhere deep inside of her she knows what she did and what she did not do. Either that will bother her in the dark of night or it won’t. Nothing you can say or do will change that. Move on and let her struggle with her own forgiveness. And what was it your father used to say all the time” You can lead a whore to culture, but you cannot make them think.”
I reply “Yeah, he was quoting Dorothy Parker with his own twist, but I take your point.”
Duke adds “And Uncle Danny, didn’t’ you once tell me that saying nothing at times is more powerful than saying anything? “
We are interrupted by Captain Namaka. Eyebrow raised; she looks at me curiously and says “Have you decided what to write on the urns yet? I don’t want to rush you, but we are getting close to where we want to release them so if you are going to write anything, now would be the time.”
I smile and reply “Yeah, I’m done. I am not going to write anything. They know how I feel. I didn’t hold out on them while they were alive. There is nothing left to say.”
Nam grins, her white teeth gleaming and says “That’s the way to do it. Leave nothing left unsaid. Your friends are pretty smart.” With that she picks up the two urns and walks over to a small stand adjacent to the swimming platform that Moe has covered in red hibiscus, plumeria and white orchids and places my nephew and friend’s urn on top. I am slack jawed. I know the conversations I have had with those who are no longer here, while real to me, exist only in the fragments they left of themselves with consciousness. How then could Nam overhear my conversation with Duke or Con? Was she was speaking in generalities or could she see more than most?
Mo throttles back the engines and then cuts them completely. Around us the deep blue of the ocean is gilded with the light of the late afternoon sun, each swell perfectly accentuated in relief. With the engines silent there is no sound except the gentle lapping of waves on the hull of the boat.
Before we left the dock Nam told us she was taking us to was Maalaea Bay. It offers a glorious view of the Maui coast and is where humpback whales, dolphins, and false killer whales often feed in the late afternoon. When I told Kam I have never heard of false killer whales, she explains that they are the rogues of sea mammals. Too small to be Orca’s and too large to be considered dolphins, whom, she added, they sometime feed on and occasionally have sex. When I said this sounds like a complicated relationship, she giggled. What I don’t say, but think, is that they sound like the “Con” of the sea.
Del, Sam, Liam and Hadley come aft. Kam and Mo retreat into the cabin gracing us with a little privacy. We form a semi-circle around the small altar created for the urns. Hadley and Liam on my right, Sam and Del on my left. Directly opposite me, sitting on the gunwales, and smiling are Con and Duke.
For a moment we stand in awkward silence then Del steps forward and standing with her back to the alter, raising her hands up in the air says, “Let us pray in Jesus’s name.” I know this is how the faithful pray in her religion, using their hands as if they are the solar panels for god’s love but this act and her invocation of Jesus’s name immediately puts an end to my listening to anything she has to say. This is not disrespect for her religion or coreligionists. Any way a person can find peace in this world, a way to their god, I think is wonderful. This is about Del’s sanctimony and hypocrisy. Throughout her divorce from Con she would quote scripture as justification for her conduct yet when it came to the major teachings of Christ, forgiveness, and compassion, she seemed ignorant. When it came to Duke, she forgot what the bible tells us about caring for the sick and infirm and she let him die.
I know I need to move beyond my anger. I need to learn the art of forgiveness. But, listening to her intone words of faith when she has proved that they are nothing more than a way to justify how she feels, is too much for me.
Instead, I try to focus on the miracle of now. I am in the middle of a golden ocean, off an island many describe as paradise, on a planet that has, against all odds, given birth to life. We are here to celebrate the lives of people we love, a miracle in itself considering the incalculable odds of loving two people in a world of billions, in a galaxy of four thousand solar systems and a universe of 100 trillion galaxies. That is my prayer. That is my miracle. My way to God.
A child is crying. One of the children who had been playing beneath the trees canopy fell while skipping along the path and scraped a knee. His mother, a woman with shoulder length brown hair tied in a small ponytail, was comforting the child telling him that it was just a scratch, and it would go away soon. Tears formed in my eyes. My mother had over time soothed a lot of my tears. For the millionth time in the thirteen months since her death I wish she was here to comfort me.
I turned to Conor and say, “Because I could have made a difference.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Mom died, there was nothing I could do. She had lung cancer and the cure had screwed up her lungs. It was just a matter of time before that time bomb went off. While I could beat myself up for not being home when it happened, in the end it would not have changed a thing.”
Wiping the tears away with the back of my hand I went on “With you, I couldn’t stop your cancer. I could be your friend. I could make sure you were loved and taken care of, but your fate had been sealed. It was up to the doctors to save your life. Nothing I could have done would have saved you.”
Conor had taken off his sunglasses and was looking at me. He didn’t have to say it for me to hear it. I said, “And …With Des there was nothing for me to do. He accepted his fate, put it over to a higher power, and lived as long and as well as he could with the support and love of the children and the wife he adored and loved him back. The only thing I could do was support him. Let him know he was not forgotten and would be remembered as the best of men.”
The child who had been crying was now giving his mother a hug. The mother smiled as the little boy dashed down the path after his brother who was hanging upside down from one of the Banyans horizontal trunks.
I said “Every night on television, every day when I opened the New York Times the number one story was how many people had died from Covid, were dying from Covid and how the nitwit in the White House was suggesting we drink ammonia, take cow dewormers, and develop a method to bathe our organs with ultraviolet light. Millions were dying around the world, mass grave building was a cottage industry, and I could do nothing but sit at home, wash my hands, and wear a mask.”
I paused and breaking eye contact with Conor and gazed at this embodiment of life that had gathered under her multitude of branches, trunks, and roots. The children at play, the newlyweds, the tourists gawking, the bench sitters looking for relief from the sun.”
I went on “But Duke was different. I could have helped him. I could have made a difference and didn’t.”
“But could you have?”
“I could have tried harder.”
“And the chances are the result would have been the same. Why do you think his disease was any less deadly that your Moms, Desmond’s or mine? Just because it was a disease of the brain did not make it any less deadly. Just because some could survive by taking medication does not change a thing. Some people survive cancer when they take drugs. Others don’t. It is just the same. Medication helped him cope with life a little better, but the disease never went away. He made the choice not to take his medicine just like your father did when he decided to end dialysis. He made the decision to drink a bottle of vodka a day. He made those decisions to end his life. And no matter what you said or did nothing could have changed that. He wanted to go, and he did.”
”Then why do I feel like I could have done more. Should have done more.”
“I am not saying that you couldn’t have done more. Sure you could have. You could have gotten on an airplane and found him and dragged him to rehab. You could have spent hours on the phone with him when he was drunk and off his meds having endless convoluted conversations about his vision of life and the universe. Liam did a lot of that. There are endless things you could have done but, in the end, it may not have changed the outcome at all. Maybe postponed it a bit. He had a terminal disease. He took the treatments for as long as he could and when the cure became worse than the disease, he stopped treatment and died.”
“Do you really think he thought it out like that?”
“I don’t know. Knowing my son, it is a distinct possibility. He was getting no joy out of life. And just like your old man he decided on a shorter life with more joy than a longer life that gave him no pleasure.”
I looked down at my feet and made little circles in the sand with the toe of my shoe. I wanted to believe what Conor was telling me but putting bi-polar disorder and cancer under the same umbrella of terminal diseases was difficult. I had been taught to think of them differently. Cancer killed you. Bipolar disorder was just a mental problem. It was going to take time for me to equate the two. I said, “There is only one problem with your theory.”
Conor looked at me inquisitively and replied, “What is that?”
“You are one of the great bullshit artists of all time.”
Laughing my friend said “Well, there is that.”
I said, “I miss this. I miss you.”
“I know you do.”
“We talked every day.”
“We did.”
“About everything. From life’s little foibles to the dramady going on around us. We would always talk.”
“Yep.”
“Talking to myself is not nearly as much fun.”
“Of course not.”
Laughing I add “But what are you going to do?”
“Exactly.”
From out in the harbor an airhorn blasts. I look down at my watch. 4:15. I turn to Conor and say. “Gotta catch a boat.”
He replies, “The Sea Goddess? What kind of a name is that for a boat. Let alone one that does what it does.”
“Hey, I didn’t pick the boat. Your ex-wife did. I am just a long for the ride.”
“Typical Del. What do you want to bet that within fifteen minutes of getting on board she has told the captain our entire life story up to and including how she divorced me for cheating on her and that now she is doing the Christian thing by granting me a last request.”
“It’s a sucker bet.”
“Yeah it is.”
Reluctantly, I get up to go. My friend looks content to sit on the bench and I say “Will I see you on board?”
He replies, “Do I have a choice?”
As I walk away from the bench, gravel crunching under my feet, I turn and look back at my friend and brother in all but blood. I do an about face and walk back to the bench. Conor looks up and smiles and says “And…”
We both laugh and I say “I forgot to tell you something.”
“Is it that your days are little darker without me?”
Smiling, I say “That goes without saying, doesn’t it? But no. That is not what I was going to say.”
“Go on.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way. But there is one thing that this whole mishigas with your death and dying taught me about our friendship, maybe all real friendships, that I don’t think I would have learned if you hadn’t died.”
“And…”
“Stop it. But then again, maybe that is the point. After you died, I decided to make a list of all the ways over the years you had been a total asshole to me. I thought it might mitigate the pain a little bit. Help me cope with things a little bit better…”
“And.”
“Okay, now you are just being annoying. Things like lying to me about how you were hiding your money from Del. Refusing to admit to stepping out on your marriage even though you knew I would understand because I had told you of my own affair. Or, how it took you months to call me when you were sick. All of it made me angry and sad. But then I realized something. Actually, a couple of things.”
“What was that?”
“Thank you for that. “And “would have been so easy. First, I realized that despite all of those things. I still loved you. And would miss you for the rest of my life. I didn’t care. The people we love are full of flaws. It is the nature of being human. And you have only two choices. You can embrace those faults as part of the uniqueness of that person, what makes them special, and why you love them. Or, not. And, if you chose the latter then you are going to spend all your time trying to change what you loved from the beginning. If your successful in changing the person more than likely they won’t be the person you loved anymore. Or they won’t have changed and you will be frustrated. Either way, you are going to have a miserable time of it.”
“So never ask people to change?”
“Didn’t say that. People change not because you ask them to but because they want to. Giving those you love the space they need to be them and the encouragement to be who they aspire to be is all you can do. The rest is up to them. Which is what led me to my second realization.”
“Which was?”
“You were always the person I wanted to be. You had this unbelievable confidence and faith in yourself. You could walk into any room and absolutely own it. You were convinced, no matter what, that you would walk away with the biggest piece of pie, the prettiest girl, and someone else would pay the tab. Damn I wanted to be you but it also made me feel that their was something lacking in me as well., How come I couldn’t be like that? Why couldn’t I be more like Con? Am I making any sense?”
“Go on…”
“Well between your divorce from Del, the whole thing with Lil and your diagnosis and your adventures with brain cancer, you leaned on me. Inadvertently, you showed me how much you valued what I had to say, what value I brought to you and why you had been my friend for forty years. I may not have been able to do the things that you could do but I could always do things you could not. While I thought differently than you did, acted differently than you, that was okay. You valued that difference.”
Chuckling Con replies “And why should that surprise you? We have been friends a long time.”
“What surprised me is that all this time, when I wanted to be more like you, you wanted to be more like me. I, without trying, made you want to be a better version of yourself. It is why we are friends. We both saw things in each other that we wanted in the other’s life that we wanted in our own.”
“For example…”
“Nadine.”
“How is that?”
“I believe that my love affair with Nadine made you reconsider your own marriage. You saw what we had and realized what you didn’t have with Del. It made you question what you wanted and probably inspired you to look for something else. I will never forget your reaction to meeting my wife for the first time. You saw how in love we were and most importantly how gentle she was with me when she disagreed with me. How we treated each other with love and respect. You told me you wished you had that with Del. She was all saccharine and no sugar.”
“I remember that.”
“But it went further. I think that when you met Lil, you thought she would be your Nadine. They were both Latina, smart and willing to speak their mind in a way that would not put you back on your heels.”
“So you are responsible for that shit show.”
“You can’t foist that one on me. I am just saying that is what you thought you were getting. The vetting process was all you. You saw what you wanted to see. But all this helped me look at our buddyhood in a way I never had before. I never took the time to think “Why does Con want to be my friend.” You just were. But the last few years have been rough. I had to think why am I doing all this? You were a handful and dominated everything in my life. You took time away from Nadine. You were a constant source of dialog with Mom. I had to defend you to your children and others and clean up your messes with Lil and Del. You could have relied on George or your boys anyone but me. Why me? I knew why I was there. Friends show up. But why did you want me to show up? And here is the real shit. I know. I know. That if I were in the position you were in you wouldn’t have done nearly as much.”
“Okay…”
“But it didn’t matter. Because that is who I am and that is who you are. You valued me and it made me value myself more. “
“Isn’t that what friendship is all about?”
“Sure. I guess. But if Covid has done nothing else it has given us far more time to think. Long walks and time alone helped me think through this. So thank you.”
“For what, dying?”
“Nice. You know that is not what I mean. I mean thank you for believing me for all those years. For taking from me the parts of who and what I am and incorporating them into who and what you wanted to be. It made me feel seen and valued. I never got the chance to thank you for that and I should have. But I also want to thank you for all the things I stole from you. No one had a better sense of fun than you did.”
“Hows that?”
“Hmm. Do you remember when we were in High School and we skipped school to go and spend the day at Six Flags?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t remember much about that day but I do remember you on the Kingdom Kai Roller Coaster. It was an enormous coaster with twists, turns, loopdy loops and, barrel rolls. I was scared shitless and could barely breathe but not you. No doubt it scared you too but you screamed your lungs on the entire time as if this was the greatest moment in your life. The minute we got off of that ride I wanted to go and find some nice shady place to lie down. You would have none of that. You wanted to get back in that hour long line and do it all over again. You “Coned” me into doing again.”
Puzzled Con says “Okay?”
“Don’t you see that is your legacy to me. That when you find joy in life seize it and scream with delight until you cannot scream any more. Enjoy the ride while you can because you don’t know how many more runs you are going to get. “
Con looks at his watch and says “Don’t you have some place to be.”
Looking at my own watch I say “Oh shit” and head off at a half trot towards the Marina.
As I leave the shade of the tree, I hear Conor yelling to me. I can’t hear what is saying but I yell back “I love you man!” but I don’t think he hears me over the sounds of life under the Banyan Tree.
I am sitting on one the many park benches located around the tree. In preparation for what is to come, I am wearing a pair of Maui Jim blue mirrored sunglasses, a well-loved Red Sox cap and a black t-shirt that has written on its front “Hunter S. Thompson, authors of Hell’s Angel’s, Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas, A Savage Journey To The Heart of the American Dream” below which is an iconic Ralph Steadman illustration in black and white of the driving in desert with his faithful companion Dr. Gonzo.
This tree is one of my favorite places in the world. I first encountered it nearly twenty years ago on my first trip to Hawaii. On the eve of going to Maui for the first time, Conor, who had been there many times, told me that I should go out of my way to visit the tree in Lahaina. This was completely out of character for him. Telling me a great restaurant to eat at, a good bar for a Martini, the right beach for watching girls were all part of his repertoire. Visit a tree? Not so much. He was not a tree hugger. It was so out of character that I had to see what had inspired him.
The day my girlfriend and I went to Lahaina was a particularly hot day with temperatures in the low 90’s, a cloudless sky and little wind to cool one down. Katherine had been eager to melt a few credit cards shopping the stores along Front Street. Knowing she got a lot of joy out of this type of activity and I so little that it would likely ruin her experience, I volunteered to go in search of the Banyan tree and wait for her there while she finished her retail therapy.
The tree was not hard to find, it was just a few blocks down Front Street and was immense. It took up a full city block and looked as if it had been designed by Rube Goldberg with an able assist by Dr. Seuss and a final edit by Escher. It’s sprawling canopy supported, multiple trunks, aerial roots that descended from the branches into the ground and a network of branches so interwoven it was impossible to follow their path. It was an amazing sight to see but that is not what struck me the most. It had a presence. It was an entity and like the tree in Shel Silverstein’s classic adult children’s book it seemed as if it wanted to give joy to those who saw it. Its shade was filled with the laughter of children playing under it and not a frown in sight for the adults who lingered underneath.
I called my father from a bench under the tree that day and described it to him and the joy I felt sitting under its branches. Eighteen months later on a trip to Maui with my parents I took him to visit the tree. My father, whose happiest moments of childhood were spent playing in the forest near his grandmother’s home in Fahrafeld, Austria, and still thought of trees as friends, said, after circumnavigating the Banyan, in his typical understated fashion“You weren’t wrong about this tree.”
It is the memory of that first visit and the visit with the old man that brought me to the tree today. The last eighteen months of pandemic had been a journey of loss, and sorrow. My trip so far had been anything but relaxing and comforting. Confronting your ghosts rarely is. What was to come later that day promised no respite. I needed an oasis of comfort and peace. I hoped by sitting underneath this miracle of endurance and survival would give me the resolve to complete the task that brought us to this island in the first place.
My bench is near the original trunk of the Banyan. I watch a group of small children play hide and go seek among the multitude of trunks. Parents, their faces reflecting the joy of their children, look on in amusement with iPhones poised to catch every moment for their feeds and personal archive. A newlywed couple sits close to each other on a nearby bench holding hands, kissing, and cuddling. Do they see the tree as a metaphor for their new life together and the legacy they hope to create. A single tree branching out over time becoming many and immortal. Like the tree my parents created with my brother, sister, and me. Only my offshoot would have no branches and would not grow. I am eternally grateful for the love I found with Nadine, but it had come too late for children. A fact that has weighed heavily on me over the course of the pandemic.
These dark thoughts will not do. I do not need them today. I pull my baseball cap down, lean back on the bench and close my eyes. It has been a long day already. I napped when I returned from Haleakala, but it did little to relieve my weariness. I need to meditate and let my darker thoughts drift away. Back in college, when I learned Transcendental Meditation, I had been taught to repeat my mantra in the rhythm that called to you until a thought carried you away. When you became aware that you were losing your refrain you return to the rhythm of the mantra until another thought or idea brought you somewhere new. I am not an ardent follower of TM it is useful when my thoughts are gripped in a whirlpool of despair, sadness or hurt. It doesn’t provide answers or solve problems but allows moments of peace to reduce the problems I think of as mountains to hills.
The first thought that drifts into my mind after I began repeating my mantra is Nadine. It is my first trip to Brazil after meeting her on an eighteen-day cruise up the coast of Brazil and crossing to Morocco, Portugal and Italy. We had both been on the cruise to find a little peace after being prime care givers to our fathers. It was a small break in our battle to make our dad’s final days easier. That peace would end the minute we left the ship. We were both returning to goodbyes and heartache. It made our romance torrid and intense. Its afterglow left us wondering whether this was just a shipboard dalliance destined to fade and crumble like a rose placed in a book from a forgotten paramour or a true love affair that would fill the emptiness in our lives. Just weeks after goodbyes on the docks of Savona, Italy I flew to Rio to find out. I was nervous as I left customs. What would I find when I walked through those swinging doors where loved ones anxiously awaited the arriving passengers. At first, I could not see her among the throng and then she stepped forward looking radiantly beautiful with an incandescent smile that immediately erased my anxiety and answered every question I had about our relationship. It is an indelible memory. The one I tapped when our Covid enforced separation seemed insufferable.
“Buddy Boy!”
I opened my eyes. Not entirely to my surprise, sitting next to me is Conor. He is wearing a very loud Hawaiian shirt patterned with amply endowed topless hula dancers, floral board shorts, reflective aviator sunglasses and a trucker hat with an image of Hunter Thompson smoking a cigarette in a long holder with the motto “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
I said, “I figured you would show up here.”
Grinning from ear to ear he said “I did tell you about the place.”
“You did. But that isn’t the biggest reason I thought you might show up here this afternoon.”
“Was it because I told you I would see you yesterday morning when I was swimming?”
“Partially…” my voice dropping off at the end.
Smiling he said “And…”
I start to laugh. “You know, every time you say that it makes me laugh.”
Laughing himself he says, “The night in Venice.”
“Of course, the night in Venice! Del, Phoebe, you and I were completely blitzed and you got it your mind that we had to find this disco and dance. The rest of us were too drunk to argue and you led us on this forced march through the labyrinth of old city streets, map firmly in hand over one canal and then another, down dark and creepy streets until we were completely lost. Del finally insisted you ask someone for directions, and we watched from a distance as you stood on the top of one of these arched stone bridges over a canal and asked a stranger for directions. All we could hear was your voice booming “And?” repeatedly. Maybe a dozen times. When you finally finished talking to the good Samaritan who had given you directions and came walking back to us we asked you what he had told you and you said “I have no idea I don’t speak Italian.”
“We never did find that disco did we.”
“No, we didn’t but we managed to have a good time anyway. I seem to remember us drinking a little bit more and then leading a conga line through a flooded Piazza San Marco.”
“We created a lot of memories together didn’t we budrow.”
With the sadness that nostalgia often brings I say, “Yeah we did.”
Conor smiles and replies “You didn’t answer the question why did you think I would put in an appearance here?”
“Two reasons. First, there is not much time left.”
With a twisted smile he nods his head and says, “Well there is that.” Chuckling he adds “And.”
I smile too and reply “I talked to Duke this morning.”
“Oh? What did he have to say for himself.”
“I did most of the talking.”
“Well, there is a surprise.”
“Nice. Eat me!”
Conor laughs and says “Seriously, what did you talk about?”
I looked down at my feet for a second before answering him and said “I told him that I was pissed off at him. He had so much to offer and he just gave up. And while I can not grasp what was going on in his bipolar effected brain he didn’t understand the hurt and destruction his suicide created.”
“And…”
“Don’t start that again.”
“Well?”
“I told him. I was sorry.”
“For what?”
“Remember, after you first told me about Duke’s diagnosis you told me that Delilah had wanted to turn him out until he got his act together. And you wouldn’t let her. You said you know your son. That the traditional way of treating his alcoholism would not work for him. Turning your back on him, would just makes him more determined than ever to continue the path he was on if for no other reason than to prove everyone wrong. You knew that because that is the way you would react and Duke, at least in that regard, was exactly like you. With Duke you needed a more bespoke approach. One that helped him exorcise his demons and put-up guardrails that kept him on the right path.”
“I remember.”
“Instead of listening to your advice about your son I took my lead from Liam and Del. They asked me to practice “tough love.” It was a mistake. Liam loved his brother and wanted to do his best but didn’t have the life experience or tool set to deal with his problems. Del who as much as she loved Duke never understood him. They asked me not to speak with Duke unless he was sober and getting treatment. Instead of fighting them, which would have been the right thing to do, I went along with them.”
Conor took off his sunglasses so he could look at me eye to eye and said, “Why did you do do that.”
I looked down, avoiding his glare and said “You mean why did I do the easy thing, the nice thing, instead of taking on the challenge of doing the right thing, the kind thing?”
“Your words.”
“Oh, I have great excuses. My mother and two of my best friends had just died. There was a global pandemic killing millions. Nadine was thousands of miles away. I was alone and didn’t have the strength to take on another emotional challenge.”
“But?”
“Cold comfort. At least to me. They are just obstacles. Little fairy tales that one tells oneself, so you don’t feel bad. They don’t absolve me from not doing more. I should have found the strength…”
“And…”
“Always with the ands…And I thought I was better than that. Stronger than that. But I was not. And my lack of will may be understandable to others. It isn’t for me.”
Con nods and puts a hand on my shoulder and says “Sure you could have done more. Everyone can always do a little more. Even in situations where you feel like you have done everything that you possibly can at some point you realize that you weren’t creative enough. You lacked imagination or followed the wrong path. You were not strong enough to try one more thing. There will always be something more you can have done. Those are the should haves, could haves and would haves everyone faces when the shit hits the fan. My question to you is why are you flagellating yourself over being imperfect? Aren’t we all. Lord, knows I certainly was. Sure, you made a promise to me to look out for him. And you did. Could you have done more? I guess. But would the outcome have been different? I don’t know. You don’t know. But the truth is Danny, you were not the only one who should have been looking out for my boy. Del was there. Duke is her son. I told her the same thing I told you. She should have done more than hoping he would suddenly discover the path to sobriety and his mental health would spring spontaneously from prayer and tough love. She should have gotten on an airplane, found Duke and dragged him by his hair to rehab. She didn’t. She failed as a mother. This is not just about accepting your own responsibility. You are really good at that. You fuck up. You learn. You move on. That is you. There is more here. What is it?”
The sky had turned crystalline blue with cirrus clouds painted in peachy orange, crimson, and deep violet. On the horizon a bright yellow disk emerged above a roiling sea of cumulus clouds that obscured the ocean below. The caldera was now bathed in the glow of the new day and its peaks and valleys accented in pastel shades. It had happened every day for the last million years but was brand new to me. It was by far the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen.
I turned to Duke who was still standing in the shadows of the Visitor’s Center’s eve and said “Well, it’s no green flash but it’s pretty all right.”
He laughed and said “Amazing, right?”
“Amazing. Remarkable. The most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. As ancient as this mountain. Yet brand new. It makes you feel so connected to the here and now but somehow it makes you feel intimate with the universe at the same time. Does that make any sense to you or am I just being an old guy speechifying.”
“No. You got it right.”
“But it begs a question.”
“What’s that?”
I took a beat and asked, “Why did you give it up?”
It was a Thursday evening, and I was sitting on the couch in my home office, a glasss with three fingers of Tullamore Dew in one hand, and the television remote in the other. All I wanted to do was veg out on the couch and do as little thinking and feeling as possible.
It had been another rough day clearing out my parents’ home. Not physically, my goal for today had been to pack up Mom’s study. The challenging part at least initially had been that office was her. It was as she left it. Every item in its place. Her favorite tchotchkes and nicknacks arranged just so. Pictures of her children and grandchildren strategically placed for optimal viewing. Her office chair still carried her scent. Every item was a reminder she was gone and not coming back.
Which is why I was on the couch with a glass full of three ounces of Ireland’s amnesia juice and very reluctant to pick up the phone when it rang. But the screen said it was from Duke and if he wanted to talk, I needed to listen.
I said, “Hey Duke, what’s up?”
He replied slurring his words “Not much Uncle Danny. I just wanted to call and tell you I love you. You are the best Uncle in the world.”
I put down my drink and I said “Thanks buddy. I appreciate it. But how come you have been drinking?”
“What makes you think I have been drinking” he said with a touch of belligerence.
“Come on. We are not going to play this game. We love each other too much to bullshit. What is going on?”
Duke replied “Morgan’s parents threw us out of their home. Well, they threw me out and she came with me. Same diff.”
I asked, “Why did they throw you out of the house Duke?”
He paused. The same type of pause Conor used to have when he was trying to figure out how much of the truth he wanted to tell me. “Well, he said, I wasn’t following house rules and I disagreed with him about that and then he invited me to leave.”
He and Morgan had been invited into her parents’ home under two conditions: 1) They needed to take their meds. 2) They could not drink. Conor’s death had created an emotional crisis and Duke then Morgan had found their way to the bottle and shortly thereafter due to their altered state had made the decision to stop their meds. It did not take long for her parents to discover the rules had been broken. A confrontation ensued in which Duke became belligerent and argumentative. There was a physical altercation. The police were called. Duke was arrested and spent the night in jail. When he was released, he, Morgan, and Pete the cat returned to Pasadena where they could do what they wanted.
But, I knew none of that then. I said “Duke, okay you are at home now. How are you two taking care of each other? Do you have enough money? Food? What can I do to help?”
“It’s all good. The University is still paying me my stipend and I am doing tutoring over Zoom. Morgan has money too. So, we are fine money wise.”
“Okay. “
“I just needed to know that you were around. That I could call if I felt like I needed a hug.”
“Always.” And after a momentary hesitation I added “You know Duke, I am here if you want to talk about your Dad.”
“Yeah. I am not ready to do that yet.”
“It might help.”
“I know. I am just not there yet but I promise when I am, we will talk.”
I told him I loved him. He said, “Right back at you.” and we ended the call. I called Liam and I said, “I just got off the phone with your brother.”
“Yeah.”
“You know what is going on with him?”
“I do. He called yesterday. He told me what had happened.”
“Was he drunk when he called you.”
“I don’t know if he was drunk or not, but he had certainly been drinking.”
“You know what I mean, and it doesn’t matter whether he was drunk or not. He shouldn’t be drinking.”
“Sorry. Yeah. You are right.”
A little exasperated I said “Well, have you talked to your mom about this? Have you come up with a plan of action or anything?”
” We talked. She said that she told him that she loved him but wouldn’t talk to him while he was drunk. That when he sobered up, she would happily speak with him.”
“Tough love. I get it. Do you think that is the right approach? Your old man never thought that approach would work with Duke. He said he was too stubborn for tough love. It would just make him dig in his heels harder.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I kinda of see both sides.”
“This really isn’t my place to say but don’t you think it would be a good idea for your mom to get on an airplane and see him face to face. Perhaps convince him to go to rehab.”
“Duke won’t go. I talked to him about it. He is scared shitless of being locked in a place with a bunch of people he doesn’t know who have been living on the streets. He believes the only thing rehab would do for him is give him Covid.”
“That sounds like him. Your Mom has money now. Maybe she could help foot the bill for one of those smaller rehab facilities where they send celebrities…”
“She won’t do it. She calls it “throwing good money after bad.”
“I don’t Liam. Making sure that your son stays alive is probably the best use for money. Whatever, something has to be done. And I am willing to do whatever you and your mom decide. If that is tough love, so be it but in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that will work. I don’t know. Maybe it is just because I have lost my mom so recently, but I think that a mother’s hug will go a lot further in getting Duke back on track than tough love. In person will always work better than Facetime. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I could go either way, but I just don’t know.”
I understood my nephew’s confusion. There was no right answer. There were no assurances whatever course of action he and Delilah chose would be the right one. There may be no answer at all because at the end of the day the only person who could make the decision to stay sober and take their meds was Duke. I said “Liam, remember what Yogi Berra said.”
“He said a lot of things.”
Laughing I said “Yeah, he did. The one I was thinking about though was “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I could you tell the back story on that but I have always taken it to mean that when you are faced with a decision make one. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. But at least you are moving forward and if you end up making the wrong decision then with any luck you can backtrack and make the right one. “
“Okay.”
“What I am saying is whatever decision you and your mom make just let me know and I will take your lead.”
Two days later I got a text from Liam. They had discussed Duke’s situation and decided on tough love. They asked me to respect their wishes and feeling like I had no other choice and much to my later regret, I agreed.
Duke called me a week later. He was monumentally drunk spouting a theory about how people would not be able to take the isolation much longer and food riots were likely to start and that he hoped that I was prepared. I said “Duke, you know that I love you like a son. And everything you are saying to me could be completely true. But I cannot believe a word of it because you are drunk off your ass and clearly off your meds. “
He replied with anger “What the fuck does that have to do with believing what I am saying.”
I said as calmly as I could manage. “Credibility is based on a sober assertation of the facts. You are not sober so how can I believe you?”
“Touche Uncle Dan.”
I said “You know I love you more than life itself. I will do anything I can to help you get sober. Tell me what you need, and I will get it for you. Tell me that you want to go to rehab but you want me to take you, I am on the next plane regardless of the pandemic. But I can’t make you want to stop drinking or take your meds. That is up to you. And I know it sucks but that burden is one only you can lift. You understand.”
“Yup. I know.”
“But Duke the one thing I won’t do anymore is talk to you while you are drunk. It empowers your drinking, and I can’t be a party to you destroying yourself. You understand.”
“Sure.”
“If you want to talk. I am here. 24/7. The only thing is the price of our conversation is you being sober.”
“Okay.”
I said, “I love you Duke” and ended the call.
We never spoke on the phone again. He would call and I would let it go to voice mail. He began texting me. Wild tomes like:
“Music makes sense and doesn’t sound like noise or nonsense to us because our ears are capable of processing the mathematical ratios of frequencies, in tons and tons of independent sources at once. For example, a simple pentatonic scale of five notes for one octave breaks down into ratios of 1/5 … btw all human cultures came up with that scale first as far as we know. Observational. All of this calculation happens before it hits the speech centers of our brain, or we would hear only noise. So… like it or not, by the virtue of just hearing alone… you’re making a zillion calculations a second. It puts any human language so far to shame it isn’t even funny. We currently have the ability to be supercomputers. Seriously. We just use it for artistic pleasure not normal data transfer. It blows vision away even for the most tone deaf person. “
or
“Danny, I think you might be needed. In WW2, the UK started drafting 50–60-year-old men to fight on the front line before the US stepped in. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. These are extraordinary times. You may or may not see coincidences soon. They are not accidental. They don’t advertise. Your location, life, loyalty, and linguistics kind of make you ideal for many things. So… sorry. Tag you are it. Dream team time. You won’t be any good front line in a war. But your brain… I mean come on dude. Your beautiful brain and true as gold soul. “
I didn’t respond to his texts. I had made a promise and was determined to keep it. Sadly, his texts became more erratic.
“Breathe buddy. I love you. All gonna be ok. How’s credibility going now? If lacking, I WILL send the aliens. But I do need a phone hug. The wonderful things about Conors is that Conors are wonderful things. So are Dannys. Dad ALSO always said he hated games because life was more than enough of a game. Tried to tell Liam. No dice. Really wish I could make him see it. He is needed. And especially Hadley. Maybe that’s your job. Liam isn’t a reader. Especially not sci fi.
I seriously don’t know how or why, but Dad is in my devices and the airwaves. 100% sure. When I told him, briefly before death on Skype, that I was going to be ok, we locked eyes. Steely. He was back. And he smiled an amazing smile. More to tell on that one but it makes me cry.
Later, Liam texted me and told me that dad had raised his arms to heaven and let out an incredible, deep sigh, as if a great weight had been lifted from him, and he suddenly became more coherent. Oddly so. And Liam told me it made him believe in something out there. For sure. It MEANT that all those years of deception. His dad. And so on. Would be passed on to me. I’m sorry you couldn’t know while he was corporeal. I’ll work on letting you chill with Robot dad but absolutely no promises. Even if successful it’ll be decades. But we have eternity to try. Lol. Call.”
His comment about needing a hug broke me. It was all too easy for me to imagine what it was like to be alone and mourning the death of his Dad. It broke me. I needed a hug too. I texted him.
“Duke, I love you and cherish you. Nothing would make me happier than giving you a hug or talking to you on the phone. But it would be like putting a band aid on an arterial wound. It might make me feel like I was doing something positive when in fact I was getting in the way of a treatment that could be useful. It is clear to me that you are having challenges with your meds and perhaps other things. These are your burdens only you can carry them. I encourage you to take hold and carry them. When you do, I will be happy to hug you and talk to you but doing so now will not help you. I beg you to find your way to treatment.”
At the time, it seemed the right response for his text. I thought it was the kind thing to say. His response was to send me a selfie. He was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt, sporting a full blonde beard, dark Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, smoking a Pall Mall cigarette and giving me the peace sign. It was a coded message. One he knew I would understand. The cigarettes were a reference to my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote “Even though I have been chain smoking Pall Malls since I was fifteen, I still think I have enough wind to run and catch happiness.” The rest was a tribute to his father and his favorite author Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It meant, when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.”
That was the last text I received from Duke.
Three weeks later I was walking in the woods with Fenway. It was a beautiful sunlit early afternoon in the middle of peak leave season. The trees were conducting their annual gaudy display, and I was in as good spirits as I had been in months. Donald Trump was down in the polls, a Covid vaccine was undergoing emergency trials and looked like it might help bring an end to all this madness. I was savoring “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copeland on my earbuds, music that always brought me calm joy and peace. Fennie was expressing her inner puppy by dashing in and out of a particularly large pile of leaves. It was a beautiful day. The type you remembered for a lifetime and one I would never forget for other reasons.
My phone buzzed. Its haptics letting me know I had a call. I had no intention of answering it but but when I saw it was Liam, I answered, “What’s up Shrimpy?”
It took months for us to get the full picture of Dukes final days.
In the weeks leading up to his death he and Morgan had been drinking very heavily, a bottle to a bottle and half of vodka every day. Duke developed a theory “the military” was up to something nefarious. He tweeted “Nothing to see here. I am just a man and a patriot doing my duty. No valor. I’m nobody. We deployed a small star over the Pacific last night to demonstrate.” It was followed by a clip from “Inglorious Bastards” where Brad Pitt is looking for volunteers and says “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.”
Off their meds and the wildly drunk couple drove to Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine bases in the world. They tried to breach the gates with their car. The attempt failed and when the MP’s tried to pry them from the car they turned tail and fled at high speed. About a mile from the base, they lost control of the car, and it flipped several times before ending up in a culvert next to the road. When the MP’s reached them Duke, completely naked, was trying to crawl away. Morgan, also naked, was unconscious in the passenger seat covered in her own urine and feces.
They were not arrested. Whether that was because the MP’s lacked authority to do so off base or another reason is unclear. What it meant was when they were taken to the hospital they were treated as normal patients and not handcuffed to their beds. Duke escaped. Why he did this unclear. Perhaps he was frightened of being placed in a 5150 psychiatric hold or some other reason we will never know. Somehow, without clothes or money he made it back to the motel room in which he and Morgan had been staying. There he showered, dressed, and was crossing the parking lot when he paused for a moment before falling face first onto the pavement. Paramedics were called. They tried to save him but their efforts failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Duke’s autopsy concluded that he died of liver failure caused by chronic alcoholism. He was thirty years old. It also showed that at the time of his death there were no alcohol or drugs in his system. It meant that his attempt to breach Camp Pendleton was done while he was sober. You don’t attempt to breach a heavily secure military installation without understanding the consequences. The guards will open fire on you. It was suicide by cop but on a grand scale.
The yellow orb of the sun sat on the lip of the horizon bathing the world with the light of a new day. I turned to Duke barely visible in the deep shadows of the visitor hut’s eaves and shaking my head said “I don’t understand. You had everything. You were smart, good looking, charming, funny. The whole fucking package. Why give up? Why?”
“We have had this conversation before. Many times.”
He was right. In the year since his death I had often found him lurking nearby and I always had the same question for him. But nothing he said made any sense to me. I said “I know. I know. I know. But tell me again. Isn’t that why I am here.”
“I am sure. But nothing I will ever say to you will make you appreciate the pain I felt. Before Dad’s death I had been on the edge more than once. You know that. Life was equal parts overwhelming pain and rapturous joy. When he died, it tipped me over the edge. There was just the pain. Ending the pain and moving on to what was next seemed far more appealing than living the life I was living. And you know I thought I discovered that after this life ends, we join the universe. That I was ready for the bigger adventure because no one was seeing what I was seeing.”
I said, “And is that what happened?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. Besides Uncle Danny that isn’t what you really want to know.”
“Oh?”
“What you really want to know is whether you could have changed things. If you had done something differently would there have been an outcome that you could have lived with more easily? Right?”
“You wrote to me. You asked me for a hug. A simple fucking hug. It would have been so simple to give it to you. Something that would have given us both joy. But I didn’t give it to you. Instead, I went along with the flow and did what was easy. The nice thing. A plan that your dad told me would never work with you. If I flown to California and given you that hug and demanded you go to rehab would we be here now?”
“You want absolution. You know that is not mine to give.”
Angrily I replied “Then whose is it? “
Duke, pointing at me, replied “You know the answer to that.”
We stare at each other in silence for a moment when he says “Gotta go. Marisol is on her way over here. But Uncle Danny you need to follow your own advice.”
“And what’s that?”
“Be kind to yourself “and then proceeded to walk down the trail into the caldera and towards the rising sun.
I yelled to him “Will I see you later?”
Without turning around, he waved and shouted back “Of course!”
When Marisol reaches me, I am looking across a sea of golden clouds at the snow-covered peak of Mauna Loa. She stands there with me in silence for a few moments before asking, “Worth the trip?”
On the eastern horizon, light grey had been replaced with bands of bronze, orange and yellow. The barren landscape of Haleakala’s caldera absorbed the colors. Its boulders, crags and craters looked as if they had been painted by Peter Max or any of the psychedelic painters. Far off in the distance on the island of Hawaii the grey shadow of Mauna Loa emerged from the darkness. Below us was a sea of tied dyed puffy white clouds that obscured the ocean but gave a sense that you were standing in heaven or the very least Olympus. A place for the gods.
“It’s amazing Duke.”
From the shadows of the visitor’s center’s entrance my nephew replied, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
I turn to look at him. He was barely visible from where he stood. I said, “Thank you for this but I am still angry with you.”
“Why shouldn’t you be. I didn’t listen.”
I was not fine.
It seems so obvious now. Within three weeks of each other both your mother and best friend die. Two of the three people who formed the tripod of your support were gone. The people you turned to most for advice, comfort were dead and while Nadine, the tent pole that held kept you upright remained, she was also six thousand miles away.
In normal times I would have distracted myself from my loss. But where could I hide? Newspapers, television and the internet were an endless flow of the death and despair of the Covid pandemic. The bulldozing of mass graves in Sao Paolo. The massive death of the elderly in institutions meant to care for them. Children trying to learn without school rooms and play with their friends while alone in their rooms. The blithe denial of science and fact from Donald Trump and his acolytes. Normal human contact has stopped. No office, no gym, no trips to the grocery. My only social engagement, if it happened at all, was walking Fennie, and waving at the other mask wearing members of the poop bag posse.
It had started, as had so many days since my mother’s death, at my parent’s house. I would go there every day to work on the process of organizing the home in preparation for getting it sold. Most of the simple work had been done. Mom’s first edition book collection had been catalogued, boxed, and transported to my basement until we could decide on how to divide them among the three of us. Her clothes were gathered and delivered to the local Good Will organization. Items that had no value and were not desired by us were placed in a skiff we had placed in the driveway. That day, I had begun the process of going through the boxes, steamer trunks, and suitcases that contained thousands of family photographs.
My goal had been to identify what it is that we had before turning them over to Legacybox.com for digitization so we all could own our family’s pictorial heritage. I thought this would be a simple task. How hard is it to look at photographs, note what you have found, and repackage them? I had not factored in how emotionally raw I was from the death of mom, Con, and the disintegration of the world I knew and the lack of human contact. Every box I opened wore on my brittle psychological state whether they were pictures of my dad as a child in Vienna before the war, or my siblings and I in scenes common from any childhood like birthday parties, holidays, and life events such as bar mitzvahs, graduations, and weddings. All reminders of a simpler, better more humane world when the ones I loved were still here and hugs were only an ask away.
What finally had stopped me and put me into an emotional tailspin, was finding a scrapbook my then nineteen-year-old mother had put together about her and dad’s courtship. There was a picture of my twenty-three-year-old father smiling and looking like he belonged in GQ taken on the day they met. Playbills from shows they had seen together. Even a silly picture booth strip with each making silly faces at each other for the camera. But it was not a photograph that tripped my emotional circuit breaker. It was a Western Union telegram my Dad had sent Mom on the anniversary of their first meeting. It read “Hopelessly, ineluctable modality of the visible, auditory, tactile, and proprioceptive on September 5, 1948, plus one year. I miss you very very much. Hope we have many many more Love Zach.” It evoked my parents’ sixty-four-year journey together perfectly and left me desperate for just one more moment with them. It also sent me scurrying for the door as I could take no more.
Our townhome development was built on the site of a former farm directly adjacent to the Passaic River Park, a thousand acres of untouched woodland and river in the heart of suburbia. Trails meandered through the park and close to the river. It is where, as a boy, I would go on canoeing expeditions with the day camp I attended or go on short hikes with my father when he needed exercise or Mom ordered us out of the house. It is where Fenway and I would often ramble when the confines of the house became unbearable, or the day was too pretty to stay inside.
When I got home from my parents’ house, I decided what Fennie and I needed was a walk in the woods that still held the shadows of my childhood. It was a beautiful sun filled late summer day. The type of day mom would have described as positively Swiss as the oppressive heat and humidity of July and August had been replaced with an early glimpse of the fall. I thought exercise and the beauty of nature to help dim the sadness and sense of loss the photographs had created.
When we arrived at the park, I let Fenway off her lead so she could romp, play, and explore the woods at her own pace and interests. Strictly speaking, this was forbidden. But one of the few benefits of the pandemic was there were not a lot of people about to tsk tsk about these flagrant violations of the rules. When I heard other people, I called Fennie, she was never far away, and put on her lead so the folks I encountered were none the wiser. The trail we followed was one that shadowed the river’s bank. I found the flow of water soothing and relaxing and Fenway loved splashing in the shallows her joint heritage of Labrador and Poodle fully expressing itself.
Fifteen minutes into our walk just after Fenway had been for her third splash in the river I saw through the trees and the brush that lined the river bank a tall young man making his way on the trail in front of us. He was dressed oddly wearing a pair of khaki-colored shorts that resembled those worn by British forces during the second world war, a dark blue polo shirt and brown ankle high hiking boots. He had a branch in his hands that he was using as a staff to help navigate the rougher parts of the trail. There was a familiarity to him I could not place. None the less I called to Fenway to “come” so I could put her back on lead.
Fennie is a good dog. She is smart and when you talk to her, which I do often, she looks at you with her dark brown eyes intent on understanding every word that you said. On occasion she would pause before obeying one of my “commands” as if processing whether my request was valid, but she always complied. This time she did not. Instead, she went bounding down the trail in hot pursuit of the man with the walking stick. I took off after her. After about a quarter mile the trail emptied into a small field with shoulder high grass which made it impossible for me to see my dog. In near panic, I picked up the pace.
Five minutes later, and in a state of near panic, I found her and the man sitting on a small concrete bench in a small grove of trees that overlooked a small rapids in the river. My bad dog was laying at the feet of the man, raspberry colored tongue hanging out looking incredibly pleased with herself. I was about to scold her when the man looked up at me and smiled. It was my father. Not the familiar dad of my childhood or even the one I had grown to know as a man during our journeys together. It was the twenty-two-year-old whose picture I had seen in my mother’s scrap book a few hours before.
I was comfortable in our silence. Over the years he and I had gone on adventures to Israel, Alaska, and Austria where we spent weeks alone with each other. When he got sick there were endless hours of sitting together often in silence. We knew each enough well enough that quiet did not bother us. I did not feel the world crushing me. The constant threat of Covid, ever present, was a shadow. Mom’s and Conor’s deaths, as devastating as they were, lay easier with me. For the first time in months, I was at peace with the universe.
A male mallard duck with its gaudy yellow, blue, and green markings gently drifted by on the river and I turned to Dad and said “I never thought you would come back for a visit. When you died, I thought that there would be so much new to discover that you would set out to explore it all and never look back. I thought you would forget all about us.”
He turned his head and smiled and said, “Not possible.”
Trying in vain not to tear up I said “Thank-you.”
He remained smiling and impassive. I knew this expression. He was saying I did not need to thank him. That is what you do for the ones you love. You show up. If you do that, everything else takes care of itself.
In the distance, I heard a dog barking. Fenway sat up in an alert pose, head pointed in the direction of the sound, ready to challenge any dog who came her way. I quickly bent over and snapped on her lead. When I looked up, Pops was gone.
The sky is now grey. A foreshadow of the dawn to come. You can see things more sharply now. On my immediate right is the Haleakala Observatory. Seeing it makes me geek out a bit. It is the fifth highest observatory in the world and sits in the middle of the ocean far from any human-caused contaminants. That, and its location near the equator allows it to “see” parts of the universe not visible anywhere else on earth. It was this observatory that first observed a spot a cigar shaped object over a thousand meters long and a third as wide and moving at an incredible 197,000 miles moving through our solar system. They named it Oumuamua or scout in Hawaiian and researchers around the globe theorize it could be a probe sent from another star to examine our solar system.
This is exactly the type of thing Duke and I would love to discuss, argue, or just kick around. One of us would take the position that Ourmaumua was an alien spacecraft and the other would argue the opposite. It was just a piece of cosmic junk which happened to be in the neighborhood. We would argue back in forth. Not to see who was right but for the fun of the intellectual argument it produced. So nerdy. So, missed.
I hear “You know what Douglas Adams said?” I do not bother to turn to see who is speaking. I know. I reply “What is that?
“In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely considered a very bad move.”
I laugh and say “You know more about the universe than I do these days. What do you think? Was it a bad move?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The universe isn’t that bad a place once you get to know it. I mean it has its rough spots. You can’t please everyone. But then again that is not the point. Overall, I would give it a solid B plus.”
I turn and face Duke and say, “I was wondering when you would show up.”
“I did tell you about this place.”
Laughing I say, “You did. You said, that experiencing the dawn of a new day here rivals any place on the planet.” Smiling I add “But I have not seen the sunrise yet, so it is hard to make a fair evaluation.”
“The sheep might be black on the other side?”
“Exactly that.”
I turn and look at my nephew. He has a big toothy grin on his face, clearly delighting in the fact that he thinks he has surprised me. He, at, 6’4”, is one inch taller than his brother one something he rarely lets Liam forget. Blonde, he has the familial eye twinkle of his father and grandfather in his eye. The one that always makes you think that a bit of mischief is in the offing, a joke is about to be told, or the “fact” they have just provided you with may or may not be one they made up on the spot. I am incredibly happy to see him. Overjoyed really. I do not tell him this. Instead, I say “I am so fucking angry with you.”
I was a mess, and I knew it. I did not want to add to my nephew’s hurts by dumping my emotions on them. Sharing our grief would have to wait until I had enough time to process my own feelings. I wanted to give them a hand up not pull them down. I spent most of the first day friends know Con had died. Some through back-and-forth emails. Others through Facetime and Zoom. There were tears, snot bubbles, sympathy and even a few laughs over recollections of mutual misadventures. It helped despite the lack of human touch and the aloneness I felt.
I called Liam first thing the next morning. This was not because I was overly concerned about him. Just the opposite. He had a great support system. His wife Hadley was not only a nurse, a hugely compassionate soul but a fierce protector of Liam. She had also been right by his side through Conor’s time at Horizon’s. She had shared his journey, understood his pain, and would do all that she could to help him grieve and heal. Delilah also lived nearby. As despicable as she had been to Con, she worshipped her youngest son. She would provide the succor that only a mother’s hug brings.
I called Liam first because it was easier. Duke would not be. I asked how things had gone since our call yesterday. He had replied “Uncle Danny, I had no idea how much paperwork is involved when somebody dies let alone all the decisions one has to make.”
I replied “Yeah, I know. I should have warned you. I just went through it with Mom. The paperwork for the deceased can kill you.” Liam had the good grace to chuckle at my pathetic joke and I said “Have you decided what you are going to do with him. Is he going to be buried? Are you going to have a service or haven’t you figured that stuff out just yet.”
Liam replied “Yes and no. Dad told me he didn’t want to be buried. He wanted to be cremated and then I should find some nice beach somewhere and spread his ashes there. You know how much he loved the beach. I just have not figured out where or when yet. But Hadley and I talked about it, and we think we are going to wait to do whatever we decide to do until Covid eases up a bit. Then we can do a service where people can attend. There is no rush like there would be with a body.”
“Smart! Where are you thinking.”
“Hadley thinks Kiawah Island. She knows Dad loved it there and her parents have a house there, so it is convenient. But I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Well, that was a mom and dad place. They used to go there on vacation all the time and I am not sure that is a place that would give Dad any peace considering everything. You know what I mean?”
“Sure. I think you are spot on. So, what are you thinking?”
“Hawaii. He loved it there. In the last few months” Liam said choking up “he would talk about when he got better that is where he wanted to go.”
“Then that is where we should take him. Count me in. Just give me a couple of weeks’ notice and I will be there.” We were quiet for a second and then I asked, “Other than the paperwork how are you really doing?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird. For the last nine months or so my whole life has been about taking care of Dad and suddenly I have nothing to do.”
“I get it. It is like you were leaning up against a wall and suddenly somebody removes it, and you can’t quite keep your balance.”
“Totally.” And then after a pause said, “When did you suddenly get so smart.”
“I didn’t. I have just been through this before. Recently. It’s a feeling you don’t forget. Piece of advice I have trouble keeping myself.”
“Sure.”
“Take the time to practice self-care. You know when you are on an airplane, and they tell you that in case of emergency you should put your oxygen mask on before your child. Same principal. To be present for those around you, you have to take care of yourself. Try therapy, go to the gym, take a pottery class, anything that makes you feel better about yourself that allows you the time to grieve and come to terms with what you have lost. Breathe!”
“Pottery classes?”
Laughing I reply, “You never know.” Then, getting serious I add “How is your brother doing?”
“We talked a couple of times. He seems fine but you know with him sometimes you don’t get the whole story and he is in such an odd place. You know.”
I did know. The odd place that Liam was referring to had less to do with his addiction and brain disease than with his current living situation. When the world shut down in mid-March due to Covid, Duke had abandoned his apartment in Pasadena and moved with his girlfriend to her parent’s massive home overlooking the Pacific in Laguna Nigel. I understood. Spending lockdown in a small one-bedroom apartment with two people and a cat would not have been much fun, especially when you have the option of living in the pool house of a nine thousand square foot mansion overlooking the Pacific. I also saw the dangers. His girlfriend, Morgan, and he had met in a support group for people who suffered from bi-polar disorder and alcoholism. It made for an understanding, mutually supportive relationship. It also gave room for the failure of one to lead to the failure of the other. Misery, loves company.
There was also another problem with this situation. Duke. My nephew was brilliant, kind, and generous but like his father he did not respond well to authority. He walked the trail he wanted to hike, and you could either join him or be damned. Living under someone else’s roof, especially someone who was successful enough to live in a ten-million-dollar home was a challenge for him. It was a time bomb waiting to go off.
“What did he say when you called him?”
“He seemed unphased. Or at least that is how it sounded. He knew it was coming. We had Facetimed him the day before just like we had with you.”
“I hate to ask this question but was he sober? Was he on his meds?”
“He wasn’t slurring his words, or talking nonstop, or had any of other signs he has when things are not going well. He just seemed…I don’t know…sad.”
“Okay. I just wanted to know because I am calling him next, and wanted to know what I was walking into. “
There was another pause in the conversation. We were both still so much in our own heads about Con’s death that the humor and small talk that often powered our conversation was absent. Finally, I say “I love you” and we end our conversation.
I had to summon the courage to call Duke. I was not scared to speak with him but conversations with Duke are challenging. He had a scientific mind. He questioned everything if it was not supported by empirical evidence and even then, he might question how you obtained your data. When Duke picked up my Facetime call, he was sitting outside in the warm California sunshine and smoking a cigarette. I said, “When did you pick up that habit?”
He blew out a plume of smoke and smiled. “I used to smoke when I drank. When I decided to get sober, I kept smoking because it helped me not to drink.”
Duke was nonplussed by the lack of greeting hello. Our conversations often began somewhere in the middle. Like two old friends who had not seen each other in a while, it was our way. I said “How you doing buddy? Seen any green flashes.”
He took a large drag from his cigarette, blew out a large cloud of smoke, flicked his cigarette away and said “No green flashes yet but I keep looking. And I am, surviving, one day at a time. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. Probably better than most. You want to talk about it?”
“No. Not right now. I am still trying to process it all. Figure it out.”
“Fair enough. But let me be a mother hen for a second. Are you talking to anyone about this? Your therapist? Your girlfriend?”
“I am scheduled to talk to my therapist day after tomorrow and Morgan and I haven’t really talked but she and her parents have been really kind to me.”
“Kind or nice?” I said smiling. He and I had this conversation a lot as he was growing up and he knew that for me the difference was clear. He thought for a second and said “Nice. They have said all the right things and done their best to let me know they know what I am going through.”
“I get it. People don’t know what to say or do when someone they know loses somebody close to them. Most of the time it’s just platitudes and catch phrases they say to acknowledge the fact they know you are going through something. It’s nice. It is what it is, but it really doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yep.”
“Then let me do something a little different.”
“Okay.”
“I think it is human nature to idolize those we love when they die. We miss them so much and our hurt is so deep, it is easy to turn them into caricatures where the good is over emphasized and the faults ignored. I think this is a huge mistake. It disrespects who they were as a person, it diminishes the actual love you felt for them and most importantly it turns your mourning into a miasma of self-pity instead of honoring their life. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
“I am not sure.”
“You idolized your dad. You thought he was the sun, and the moon and rainbows came out of his ass when he farted. And that is how it should be. I felt the same way about my dad. But both of our fathers had flaws. One of my old man’s shortcomings was he had to be forced into talking about his past. What it was like to grow up under Nazi rule, the fear he experienced and the hurt he felt at having so many of his relatives murdered. Until I pushed him on the subject, I could not see what lay beneath and he would have left no testimony to what happened to him, so his children and grandchildren had something to lean into when we said “Never forget.” It left me with questions I never thought to ask and now can’t. “
Duke looks confused so I add “I know. It doesn’t sound like much of a flaw. And he had other faults too that I won’t go into. But this one bothered me. There were questions that I needed to answer. So, I went looking. In fact, since he died, I have spent much of my spare time researching what he did during the war, a question I never thought to ask because he never gave me reason to, and now I am writing a book about what he did.”
“Okay.”
“The point is in mourning for my father I appreciated all of him. Understanding who he was and why he was that way gave me a purpose that allowed me to navigate my grief better. It was his final gift to me and like so many things he gave me I can’t thank him. My point to you nephew is your father had his faults. Embrace them and let them humanize him. There is no question it will help with the pain but maybe you will get lucky, like me, and it will provide you with a bigger purpose.”
Blame it on Rio 