Death Be Not Proud

Today I received a call that one of my closest childhood friends, Mark H., had passed away at age 59, apparently of natural causes alone in his home.  He and I grew up together as teens and we lived next door to one another, along with his younger brother and (slightly) older sister.  I remember the day the family moved in, his younger brother screaming at their dog running around in the chaos of moving, and Mark and I making eye contact as he rolled his eyes at his brother’s behavior.  We all became fast friends and hung out often as we went through high school together, but it was Mark and I that shared many an adventure growing up.  We drove our bikes and later our cars way too fast, fished the streams and ponds within biking or walking distance, and searched for snakes everywhere.  We grew our hair long, listened to the hard rock of Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Black Sabbath, and pretty much lived the life described in the Movie “Dazed and Confused”. You figure that last part out.  In the picture, Mark is on the left, I am on the right.

Mark was an equestrian (they hailed from the great state of Texas) and the family had several horses.  He taught me to ride their monstrous quarter horse, “Old Blue”, who while seemingly gentle most of the time, found opportunities here and there to either rub my leg into fence posts, trees and other obstacles, or throw me over fences by inexplicably charging them, feigning the intent to jump them, and then coming to grinding halt.  Mark would howl with laughter, and eventually I join in and get back up on the beast.  Soon he had me barrel racing as well.  I, in turn, brought the world of herpetology into his life (I kept dozens of snakes in my bedroom growing up.  Mom loved it, Dad…not so much.). We looked for reptiles and amphibians everywhere and even took a road trip way down south to catch species not found living north of that state.  On the way back from that trip on some desolate south Carolina highway, we were pulled over by a trooper I swear was convinced he had two hippies with a car full of weed.  He was stunned (perhaps a little horrified) to find the bags in the back were filled with snakes we’d found, not Mary Jane.  He and another trooper who showed up for the show let us go with a warning.

Mark was a good friend, but like many friends, time and distance put a damper on the relationship as suddenly as it began.  I went off to college following high school graduation, and he back to Texas. Since the 70s I think we crossed paths only a few times at Christmas get togethers at his family home, where his mother still resides.  I often wondered why we corresponded so little, and never called, and never made it a point to get together and reminisce. Things change. Then again…

During my life, friends, family and acquaintances die.  Some were overdoses, heart attacks, car accidents, disease…it happens.  We live, we die.  The news hurts, and we feel grief.  There are condolences and the clichés such as “live each day like it’s your last”, “tell that special someone that you love them”.  Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.  Somehow though, I think many of us, while we attend the ceremonies around death that our Western culture bestows on us, we have this strange feeling we are different.  Invincible, immortal.  We won’t die.  Or we’ll live to a record old age and pass away silently into the night, oblivious.  I confess to feeling this way from time to time, having dodged major disease or serious accidents so far.  Good genes, good luck, sure.  Invincible?  Get real.  No "Unbreakable" here.

News of Mark’s death was different than any other.  I felt like I had been punched in the gut, and sat motionless as I listened to the news of his passing.  I immediately called Mark’s mom, and was surprised at her strength and resolve in the face of this tragedy.  Afterwards, I called his sister, and at that moment I realized that Mark and I had never really parted ways.  I could hear his voice in hers, his laughter in hers, the stories, all shared, poured out between us.  Mark was a good man, and made a difference in this world. He was fiercely loving and protective of his only child, a son, and was loved by many.

A good man.  As his sister and I talked of the past, strangely, it dawned on me that I actually may have old photo’s of Mark stored away, and following the call, ran to the basement and started moving boxes, and finally found one simply labeled “Photos”.  In minutes I had found several pictures of Mark and I on our North Carolina adventure.  Young, cocky, hard and fast friends.  The photo above was taken minutes before that trip! The story of a friendship in that photo, truly the 1000 words.  But more importantly, it also occurred to me that I also had a relic from the 70s we had shared.  My Epiphone FT-130 Cabellero acoustic guitar, purchased soon after I got an electric guitar and amplifier, had been strummed often by Mark.  Between us I was the musician and loved to play along to records as we sang at the top of our lungs, but I finally showed Mark a few chords and how to play them on the acoustic so the two of us could jam the days and nights away.  We made horrible, lovely music!  It was clear his DNA must still reside on that guitar.

I offered Mark’s sister to write down some anecdotes and make the pictures available to his son, but I think he’d appreciate having the guitar his Dad once played along to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and Paranoid.  For me it’s mostly memory and played little, but I think his son would appreciate it, and perhaps he’s a player himself, and could strum a few notes that would ring of his father's voice.  Regardless, the gift is not the guitar, but Mark reaching  out through the cosmos and telling me something very important.  I am NOT invincible, and I will die someday.  Any time, any day.  Steve Job’s once said “Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.”  Yeah, but you have no choice about the dying, and heaven is up to faith at this point.  I need to remember that.  Mark’s long waited “Hello old friend” wasn’t what I expected, but I heard him loud and clear.

Maybe I won’t live each day like it’s my last, or tell everyone on the street that I love them, but there are things I can do, must do, and some things I need to stop doing like right now.  It was a hell of a wake up call, this shout out from the Other Side.  Someday, we’ll be chasing snakes again.  John Donne had it right in his sonnet Death Be Not Proud: "...And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery...". You rest in peace, Brother.

Be well…