This time last year my Facebook feed was lighting up with a very tragic anniversary, and many people remembering a friend who left us far too young. It was one that really shook me up at the time it happened, and remembering it in the middle of a LISPA workshop led to some interesting places. At one point I remember sitting on a railing somewhere in Köpenick shouting incoherently about it to an amazing group of men who stood there in the winter and listened.
Being back here, possibly having to pass that railing in Köpenick again, has me thinking about whether that memory would come up again in my facebook feed soon. Because I didn’t know her well, but I do remember her, popping up in small strange ways. On third down when the Vikings linebackers are jumping around to Fallout Boy’s “Uma Thurman” a little part of me remembers how it made me laugh how excited she got about that band, and wonders if she’d approve of using their music to rile up a crowd of 65,000. I grieve a little. But more than grief, it also got me thinking about how I remember people.
I’ve been thinking recently about my friend Andrew, who I hadn’t seen in quite a few years before he passed away unexpectedly a few years ago. I had a lot of grief and regret ove missed opportunities to reconnect, which sadly doesn’t do a lot of good. It’s diving into a hypothetical future that never happened where I picked up the phone, or went to an event he was hosting, and it’s not real. The past was real. And I keep remembering something very clearly about my friend as a young man.
I still smile when I remember his aloof wit, the way he lived in a slightly different world from the rest of us, like a man out of time, interested in warships, the rise and fall of empires, and songs from another century’s wars. A Scottish time traveler, who probably should have been the basis of a romance novel. But I also remember the times I saw him with someone who was hurting, and that demeanor of a delightful Dickensian villain, cursing the urchins in his path, dropped away. He was really listening, you really had his full attention.
I remember talking to him about a class, about a teacher I couldn’t stand, and an uncomfortable experience where once again, it was clear certain religions were welcome in that classroom and certain were not. To me it was just two kids venting in the hallway, with the only real conclusion being a poignant, “Yeah that sucks,” before we moved on. Instead I had his full attention, more than I expected or I think even wanted in that moment. This guy who was only a couple years older than me, but a couple of years makes a huge difference in high school years, and he spoke to me in this voice that was gentle but full, with a real note of pain in it, an empathic link directly to his own heart. He leaned in and looked me in the eye as I looked away, and told me I had the right to speak up if I felt the way I did, and for the first time really made me feel like somebody else saw what I was feeling.
Those people are special. It makes grieve to remember it knowing he’s gone. And it makes me remember somebody else who’s gone, a significant person from my job. At his memorial, one of the students he’d brought in talked beautifully about the presence of the man, even down to the way he said your name. And he really did say your name, pausing to look right at you, and draw breath to really say your name with the weight both it and you deserved. Nobody was a “Hey you” to that man, and I didn’t recognize it until he was gone and H. brought it to all our attention.
Now I will never tell Ken how much I appreciate that. And I’ll never talk to Andrew about Star Wars and the second Punic War. And let’s be honest, Lauren probably never cared if I liked the intersection of Fallout Boy and the Vikings. But that’s actually okay. I’ve been thinking a lot this past year about how time is out of joint for me, with the future dark with depression, and the past vibrant with regret, and the present somehow lost from moment to moment, and this may be another example. The better way to remember these people is not with sorrow for what might have been, but with the joy that they spread. Which should continue to spread.
I want to really listen to somebody, like Andrew did for me and others, many times. I want to acknowledge people the way Ken did, recognize these humans who move through my life. And I also do want to remember to get infectiously excited about something, and share joy with a community. These friends are no longer alive, but the special spirit of being around them, the part that really makes me grieve, is what I should honor about them by trying to manifest it in my own life.
On Monday when my program begins again and I’m tempted to get lost in my own journey, I’m going to ask questions and listen, because that’s what I remember Andrew would do. I’m going to pause, and actually take the time, to greet people, because that’s what I remember Ken would do. And when I try to rev up fifteen people to come out in the cold and watch Union Berlin (I’ll be ecstatic if I get two) I’ll be remembering this is how excited Lauren would have been to share something that mattered to her (probably about something else besides East German football).
I remember you all, and many more. I remember you all best by honoring what you show us of your best selves.
Coq au Vin 