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A Friend Like No Other I’m meditating alone at daybreak, tears running down my face. Sitting at 8000 feet in the Rock Mountains on the peak of our land my back rests against the lone pine tree. Opening my eyes I stare down in disbelief into my hands: Are these really the bones of my best friend’s skull? Did Paul really put a .357 magnum in his mouth and pull the trigger? How could this happen? ……. I break down sobbing as floods of memories stew in a sea of futility. I’m furiously mad at him. Recovering myself I reflect back on years of watching this tree I lean against live at the top of the mountain. A tree’s life is different when living on the top: winds blow stronger, rains wash soil downhill, lightening strikes at the highest point. All its neighbor trees are sheltered downhill where exposure is reduced, weather less intense, soil and water more abundant.
Long ago, before we arrived, a lightening strike slashed a deep gash down its center revealing a jagged, pitch-filled core. Following each day’s meditation I stick my face deep into this long crevice and inhale the sweet pine essence. Pulling it into me, I quietly ask that I might demonstrate a kindred leadership and hold my own high ground with similar grace, ownership and non-complaint. On this day after Paul’s death I realize I too have been struck by lightening. I too have a deep cut down the center of my core. Could I use this pain the way my tree-mentor had and allow the gash in my heart to somehow expose more essence, vitality, and Spirit? Instead of looking for healing, trying to patch it up and return to normal, perhaps I could use it to unmask more of myself. Like the deep fragrance of my friend the tree perhaps this hurt could somehow allow more essence to slip out. Without any shade of self-pity, I could wear my open wound in a way that allows both myself and others to feel more of life. I lay back thinking about our life in small town Colorado. When we first moved here it seemed just about everyone gave you a wave as we passed each other on the bumpy dirt roads. Now it seems few wave back. Newcomers with eyes glued to the road now populate our area. I guess they just don’t understand why you’d be saying hello, unless you wanted something from them. Maybe I do want something – connection. All great pretenders we, feigning we don’t live to love and be connected to others. Pretending that every breath we take in is not also the desire to take in a feeling of being seen, recognized, accepted. Isolation is the deepest of all pains and usually the most hidden. Despite more and more modes of communication these days many people seem to live in cocoons of deep isolation, penetrated only rarely by the gaze, care, or touch of another. Paul knew this perhaps better than anyone. His isolation was deep and palpable; always holding back a piece of himself you could feel, but never touch. Yet, it was always clear he never wanted anyone to save him from himself. Paul had seen the edge of death up close and personal on many different occasions. Once when knifed during a Chicago street fight. Another when parachute cords wrapped around his neck while skydiving. Another when his kidney was punctured. And all this built around far more than a normal amount of car crashes, bike accidents, and concussions. Topping the list were three brain surgeries for an AVM (arterial venal malformation) usually ninety-five percent fatal. Of the surviving five percent two-thirds are left permanently disabled from the surgery. Yet Paul was left not only unimpaired but extremely coordinated and physically able. He was a living testament to thriving, not just surviving. Living with himself proved not nearly as easy. Childhood We all exist inside a story. It is our sense of meaning about the way of life, a worldview putting it all together. It’s a story about our family, about our parents, about our country, our God, our friends, and our world. We are born into this story, this legend, and grow up inside it. True personal change at some point requires we confront our story. The story Paul grew up into was about being tough. His family was Irish Catholic working class, south side of Chicago. On his block alone – just the two streets facing each other - there were 109 kids. They were poor and it was tough. For Paul life didn’t get better by being more understanding. Rather it was all about fighting, struggling, and knowing where the next attack was coming from. Growing up in Paul’s world meant the good guy’s didn’t win. In fact they usually suffered more. Paul grew up surrounded by death. Two grammar school friends were burned to death in a fire they set while playing. More than one hundred wakes attended before the age of thirty. His only sister, newly married and eight months pregnant, killed in a car crash. His father dropped dead from a massive heart attack on a Monday morning when Paul was twenty-one – his younger brothers still in grammar school. Paul had few healthy models of living when he was young. One I heard about was an older brother who looked after him and mentored him on the tough streets. He exposed Paul to a world outside the neighborhood of music, books and culture. As time went on things went terribly wrong for this brother. Finally he could no longer cope and killed himself. Although Paul didn’t much talk about it, I could tell his brother’s suicide left yet another indelible mark about life’s deep injustice. It was here in the darkness, at the heart of his doubt, where Paul’s deepest wounds lay still very much alive. Letting go Hardly anyone was tougher than Paul. He knew how to fight and he knew how to struggle, but he did not know letting go. Letting go is not giving up; it’s staying engaged, but relaxed and more receptive, listening deeply. It’s the receptive side of fighting, the art of staying with the challenge in a state of openness. Men in our society may know how to fight, but most know little about how to listen in the midst of struggle. Letting go is coming to the end of your ability to effort at something, then - rather than stopping - continuing to engage taking on a deeper state of mind/body listening. Letting go is following the trail of your own learning.
As we age the battle for self truth rages stronger, yet subtler. The true act of faith is trusting you are guided while taking your medicine at the same time. During deep challenges learning comes through letting yourself be crushed in the best possible way, and in the process intimately differentiating ego from Spirit. In this way you uncover that part of you which is indestructibly alive. Paul quit before this learning came through. Transitions When Paul wanted to change something in his life it would just happen. No buildup, no getting ready, no big announcement. Often he would just abruptly take off in a different direction. The beauty was his will power and ability to just do it. The downside was not being included… or warned. It’s in the transitions of life where people lose it. Transitions like divorce, career change and health problems. Deep questioning of direction, of purpose, and of what really matters dominates. At these times surrender shows the way through. Giving up removes choice. Fighting is resistance. Blending the two in active balance trusts a middle ground that hones the consciousness and gracefully rides the wave in between fighting and giving up. If grace is mastering transitions under pressure, then Paul’s grace disappeared in one long moment of inability to face the darkness he thought was more powerful than him. Knowing Paul I’m sure he thought he was saving his loved ones from pain and embarrassment. Yet in that moment he turned way from the most essential of all trusts: that you are always taken care of. Yet you must do your job and keep learning from all that is given you. Facing the Darkness Paul and I talked about people we knew using drugs to get over “depression”. We laughed that it seemed nearly every symptom of depression could fit most every one alive. “Ever felt tired and like not getting up? Ever felt unmotivated and like life wasn’t worth it?” We would agree the real solution was not to take more medication but to release the energy. Depression is repressed anger. Get the anger out and you don’t need the pills. Maybe the solution to everything is not a new kind of pill. Right before his death when all the turmoil came down around his arrest on sexual charges, understandably, Paul went into a deep funk. I would say to him “ Come on, get the energy out! Don’t bend it in on yourself! Stop jamming down on yourself with woulda’s, shoulda’s and coulda’s. You know better than that – it’s not going to take you anywhere good.” Of course it’s all so easy to say until it’s your life, your issues, your darkness. When it came time for Paul to face into the most disturbed, or most separated, side of himself he could not do it. Somewhere over the course of his life, and this deep personal test, Paul became so tortured with losing to the force of his own darkness that he could no longer authentically face it. It was just too big, too daunting, and too powerful. I think there was no doubt in his mind that it would ultimately win and all his best friends would be trashed in the process. Paul’s only hope of finding relief was in death. No matter how hard or emphatically I talked it did not penetrate his shield of hopelessness that he ultimately would not win. Yet wining to me meant not beating the odds of conviction, but using the circumstances for critical learning. Deep beneath Paul’s humor, accomplishment and intelligence, a layer of resignation festered stagnant and simmering. Though not usually visible it would surface when his immense willpower somehow came up short. Such were these times. For all of us there comes at least one moment in life – perhaps many – where we are asked to face ourselves more nakedly, more raw, than ever before. Faith is easy when expressing our strengths in familiar territory. Yet inevitably our deepest challenges – and teachings - come in circumstances way outside our comfort zone of faith. For my father is was Alzheimer’s. For my mother it was life without him while he was still alive. For Paul it was the prospect of public humiliation about what he kept quite private. The Warning Paul was killed by the death of possibility. He succumbed to the overwhelming experience of feeling trapped and that no matter which way he turned it was never going to change. Bound on all sides regardless of what he did he constantly returned to the same confinement with seemingly no way out. During a long walk together on a cold winter morning a few days before his death he said to me “So what’s it going to be? Prison time? Registered sex offender? Move to another city? Dragging all my best friends through this? Already it’s cost thousands of dollars and ruined my profession. I don’t want that!” My emphatic response of “Paul, it doesn’t have to go that way!” fell uselessly into the cold moist air between us, so ineffectual at reaching any new possibility he might as well just have died right there before my eyes. Though not a man for crying, at the moment he looked at me, big tears running down his cheeks, and said, “I don’t know if I can make it through this.” I didn’t know it then, but his mind was probably made up at that point. Despair was about to win. I think about all the times we hugged, all the times we said I love you, all the times I looked deep into Paul’s eyes. I think of when we really held each other close for a long periods of time…and I realize none of those, nor all the countless other moments of deep laughter and kinship ever really touched this most essential pain. Can any of us ever really know each other? Definition Paul was very defined in many ways. His opinions were always stated loud and clear, usually with a wonderful balance of both bluntness and humor. No matter what was happening you always knew where Paul stood on any particular matter. The same was true physically. He was very defined in his body - cut and conditioned, rock hard in his abs and carrying a subtle power you knew better than to test. While Paul set the standard in terms of helping others with their needs, he had a difficulty defining his own. Supporting someone else’s life was natural and easy, but it was far more challenging to invite the rest of us to get behind his needs, his hopes, his dreams. Demise Bogged down for months in self-questioning regarding his professional and life direction, Paul fell face down in a perfect storm of circumstances. On a Tuesday while snowboarding on the mountain three skiers rocketing out of a blind spot in the woods ran him down from behind. With his hit and run offenders disappearing in the down hill distance Paul was left alone, cold and injured. Limping, crawling and sliding down the mountain for over an hour he finally made it to his car. Paul’s version of the story about his clients was of course different. Healing old trauma in this way involves a high degree of trust and communication between client and therapist. This trust was violated, the communication ineffectual, and boundaries crossed that should have been much more thoroughly respected. However impossible it is to know exactly what happened, I think I know what did not. I believe what my friend told me: that he did not force himself on anyone and he did not intentionally cause physical pain. No doubt poor judgment was involved, but whatever occurred it certainly should not have cost Paul his life. With apparently all the other lesser options to correct the injustice not occurring, the women went to the police calling it “molestation”. The police called it “criminal conduct”, “a sexual felony” and “third degree rape”. They set up a wiretap, one of the women confronted Paul on the phone, the detective listened and that was all that was needed for the arrest. A big article in the local paper followed asking other “victims” to come forward, essentially convicting him in the public eye. After it all came out Paul told us a couple months earlier he had heard from a hairdresser friend that the arresting officer had told her she planned to “put him away for life”. True to form, Paul kept that to himself. Suicide What is it to bear a pain so deep and unrelenting that you mortally wound yourself to get away from it? And in Paul’s case: What is it to carry that pain at such a depth your best friends don’t suspect? Yet you feel loved, but never in a way that reaches into the feeling. Like old telegraph lines following a track across the Nevada dessert, Paul disappeared on his own terms – never to be mistaken for someone acquiescing to society’s pressure. And like those lines he often occurred as isolated, solitary, marginalized by the rest of the world. Paul protected himself with a well-honed ability to show himself on his terms not yours. Behind humor and a tough exterior was a heart beating very private about his deepest cares and concerns. Attempting to enter his inner world without a clear invitation invariably met with an abrupt dismissal. The specter of public display of his deeds behind closed doors was an exposure he did not wish to face. Suicide, the most fundamental of all choices and outlawed in our country, occurs at the frightening rate of something like 2800 souls a day. Choosing a slow, deliberate, premature death from cigarettes, alcohol and pizza is fine however. So fine that we all help pay for it through higher insurance rates. Those needing less medical care pay for those who self-inflict this kind of slow torture. I guess we need to draw the line somewhere. Paul drew his own line right at the point where he thought someone else might control his life and decide his fate. No way was he going to turn his future over to an “impartial” judge, a cop out to get him, and a prosecutor intent on making his mark in the world with solid conviction rates. Faith In Life For twenty-five years now my model of good relationship has been that honesty creates closeness. Growing a sense of connection to another means growing your willingness to be honest together. Revealing yourself in this way can easily be uncomfortable as it may involve both hearing and speaking unsettling levels of truth. Yet Paul and I constantly practiced this…. or so I thought. However the most core of all feelings – the basic desire to live – went unexplored between us. I assumed we had a similar desire to live; a kindred understanding that working all the way through life’s issues was the only way to go; and that facing into the heart of our internal and external tormentors would bring us through in the end. It never occurred to me that Paul and I did not share this cornerstone perspective. I never thought if things got tough he would bail. Yet perhaps I need to ask myself the same question: at what point could struggle and suffering in life become so much that I too would choose that option? Pretending I don’t also have that potential is denial. Those of us so horrified by suicide would do well to look at our own edge in the matter. At what point could our own suffering and burden on others become too much to bear? Just because Paul reached that point much, much earlier than I could imagine does not mean I too don’t possess that same capacity if all hope were gone, any prospect of winning removed, and only increased suffering laying before me. Through these eyes of ownership I would have had a much better chance to connect with Paul in his fear and need as I more directly faced my own. While not in touch with my own edge in the matter I could not be sensitive to Paul’s. The true depth of his suffering simply did not come across to me. At times I think it did, but I never imagined suicide to be an honest response for him. Looking deep into Paul’s eyes during those last few days I could feel his personal torture. What I could not feel was the depth of his desperation to escape it. Clean-up We humans are meaning makers. We make meaning of everything that happens – all the time. But we often forget that meaning is an interior experience that does not occur outside ourselves. We bring meaning to whatever happens, assigning it to external events. Often we are forced to realize over and over again that “out there” holds no inherent meaning at all. It is rather like a screen on which we project significance. The more intense the circumstances the easier it is to forget who creates the meaning. This was particularly true when I went to claim Paul’s truck at the police station. As I approached I could smell the stench of death 20 feet away as we approached. As soon as the odor hit us the escorting officer immediately stopped and pulled up short. I was on my own now. The windows were closed and it had been sitting in the sun for some days now. Paul killed himself in his truck wearing his favorite jeans and leather jacket. Somehow I just figured it was my job to clean up the mess and get the truck ready to sell. Paul would do it for me. Nothing quite prepares you for the site of your best friend’s blood and bones scattered and splattered about. I started very slowly, first inspecting and then carefully moving one object at a time. Shortly after beginning to face into the mess and starting to clean in earnest I noticed it wasn’t so bad. Somehow the cleansing was beginning to happen inside me as well. I began realizing that all the repulsion I had felt in the beginning was something I brought to the scene. It wasn’t there inherently and it wasn’t even necessary to feel that at all. I was actually enjoying myself and feeling good about it. I was seeing my relationship with Paul through to the end. The truck would look beautiful and it could be sold with pride. Life happened here. Babies are born in vehicles, what’s wrong with someone dying in one? More and more there was not anything to be repulsed by, or sad about, or hidden. It was life, and I was into it with my best friend. After hours of cleaning and with every last detail taken care of I drove the truck proudly around town and then slowly to a spot where it could be seen for sale. As far as I was concerned who ever bought it was blessed to have something so well worn with the reality of life. Mucho Kapuri “Mucho”, our cat, died today, almost exactly one year from Paul’s death. Those two were so intricately linked. Unlike any other living person, when Paul walked in the house Mucho would come right to him and the two would immediately engage in a “conversation” of rubbing and petting. Our joke, and what we also imagine as truth, is that in Mucho’s reality Paul deeply understood and sympathized with why he would be afraid of people. With Paul gone Mucho found life in the world far less safe. Mixed in my sadness are mental pictures of Mucho, the most skittery cat I have ever seen, lying flat on his back, legs spread wide, asleep in the most vulnerable of all positions on the chest of Paul the most humorously and consciously protected person I’ve ever known. Out at the tree today we say a prayer for Mucho and lay his ashes in the ground next to Paul’s. We imagine Paul being the first to greet him on the other side, once again making it all safe. Presence In the year since Paul’s death The Great Presence has not changed a wink when I meditate each morning out at the tree. In a certain way neither has Paul’s presence in my life. They are both very tangibly alive, vibrating in the invisible stillness. Yet later, when I stand up, fold my blankets, shake out the stiffness, and step back into the rest of my life, it is not at all the same. Paul and I drew out a particular quality in each other. What we talked about I do not talk about with others. Those conversations were not replaced by anyone else. In the process of adjusting to his death I have become somehow more quiet and holding to myself. I go to the same coffee house, read the same paper, walk the same land, snowboard the same mountain, yet no one shares the same perspective. The world is different without Paul. I miss him. Perhaps more truthfully, I miss that part of myself that came alive with him. No friend can be replaced by anyone else. That portion of ourselves unique to them dies also… perhaps to be awakened later, but never in the same way. I imagine it would be the same with other close friends. With either of us gone so would be gone that particular quality drawn out in each other’s presence. Understanding this now I stand with new awareness of the unique privilege of each new moment with an old friend, and how that can never be replaced, ever again. The highest and purest knowledge occurs in stillness. When you can be still then you can know. I am still with Paul all the time now.
Gently bouncing in currents of air,
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Everyday this tree earns its living from the land, standing firm and straight, gnarled roots digging deeply into the rock and minimal soil. Birds, insects and other animals land on it, pick at it, claw on it, for food, shelter and any other need they have. For years now it has served as my inspiration for staking out the high ground and standing tall in the face of what comes.