Dear Gary,
As I sit at my computer here in Apfeldorfhausen, an idyllic point on the planet that Freddy aptly dubbed Middle-of-Nowhere, Bavaria, I’m aware that today is your fifty-seventh birthday…mid-day here, very early in the morning there in Seattle. On my morning bike ride through the verdant cow pastures and nascent fields of corn, I mused about the meaning of this day for you…a day that last year at this same time, if I were to be completely honest with you, I would have wagered you’d never see. But, much like that silly pink Energizer Bunny on T.V., you’ve exhibited an amazingly resilient constitution, an impressive will to continue on your life journey, despite the rather cruel vagaries of ill-health that have plagued you for years now.
Today I am filled with fond memories that span the length and breadth of our long and meandering friendship – what was it? Thirty-eight years ago this summer when I first laid eyes on you coming out of that side door at the South Center Mall? Thirty-eight years…nowhere near as impressive as your and David’s fifty-two, but still a respectable number in most people’s book. Having been regaled with stories about your shared childhood from my then high school boyfriend, David McLaughlin, I was most curious to meet this “metal-fire engine-owning,” “disgruntled big brother to twin sisters,” “camp fire trodding” friend of David’s! My first impression was immediate and lasting: what an amazing head of bright orange hair!! You seemed a bit shy – not quick to make eye contact…and that impression remained for some time to come.
You were always David’s good friend, and thus our relationship remained a tangential one…we shared the same place and space over the years, but we never quite took the time, or perhaps more rightly, we rarely had the opportunity to sit down and craft a rapport we could rightly call our own. Your progressive illness over the past five years has afforded us that opportunity, Gary…and thus, strange as it may sound, I guess I’m grateful to your cancer for that.
As I shared with you when we parted on June 22nd, I was also always grateful for your easy and constant relationship with David, for it has invariably afforded me psychic “free time” over the years…time when you would readily keep David busy, thus allowing me space to attend to those matters that called to me and monopolized my attention: a master’s degree in Comparative Literature, the raising of three rambunctious kids…that kind of thing. Before you and David discovered Backgammon, you’d regularly arrive at our Bainbridge Island “farm” and the two of you would concoct a series of seemingly silly, yet surprisingly engaging pastimes – your swinging, leaping challenge from the old apple tree comes to mind. While you didn’t seem to remember it when I mentioned it to you a while back, it’s vivid in my memory. The previous tenants in the farmhouse had left a plank swing attached to the gnarled old apple tree in front of the “summer kitchen”…one day I came out to find you and David engrossed in a fierce competition. You were taking turns swinging as vigorously as you and your youthful legs could muster; then when you felt you’d reached an optimum height and velocity, you’d launch yourself from the swing, reaching for a piece of black electrical tape adhered to a sturdy branch out in front of you. I’m not sure who regularly triumphed at this singular sport, but I did thoroughly appreciate the hours you both spent engaged in the challenge, hours I was able to spend studying or writing a paper guilt-free, knowing that David was gainfully employed, playing with you! (I say “gainfully” for I can’t imagine that there wasn’t money wagered on this venture!)
And then there’s the Backgammon! How many years has that extended game been going on? Many were the Sunday mornings I’d awaken to the…not nearly as muffled as I would have preferred…sound of dice hitting table corners, punctuated by rude, vociferous disparagements – mainly instigated by David, but occasionally uttered by you as well…insults so shocking to the uninitiated that our poor neighbors, Jane and Alex, wondered if David and I might be involved in a verbally abusive relationship! Though I cannot fathom what you two find so very absorbing about that game, I am, again, grateful for the hours of delight you seem to have taken in it. To hear tell, you’ve both become impressively proficient Backgammon aficionados, and I’ll affirm now that David does, in reality, respect your ability Gary –no matter what he might claim in the heat of the moment! (Apparently uncouth taunting is all part of some strategy.)
I know that as you’ve languished there in your air bed these past weeks, you’ve
relived many of the memories that return to me now…Thanksgiving meals, Halloween parties, inner-tubing trips, countless visits to Thetis over the years, projects with houses and cars and boats and planes, picnics with friends and family, myriad meals involving “plenty of meat”…the list is long and indelible. Our children consider you a cherished member of our immediate family, Gary. Each of them has lifelong memories of you “being there,” in that comfortable, present way that you have – never imposing yourself, but always ready and willing to help by any means and in any manner asked of you. Thank you for that.And so now here you are on your fifty-seventh birthday, squarely facing the most amazing of life’s adventures – second only to the somewhat rude shock of being born. While I inherently understand it, I sometimes marvel at the fear and trepidation that we humans seem to share when it comes to facing (not to mention even talking about) our inevitable demise. How ironic it seems that the one thing we all fear the most is the one thing that each and every one of us will face – some sooner than others, yet each of us does, in the end, have that proverbial rendezvous with destiny. I can’t begin to know how it must feel to be you at this moment Gary – but I do know that I admire your perseverance, I empathize with your fears, and yes, I marvel at the lessons you are learning as you face death. One need not be religious to stand in awe of the power and majesty of the experience.
I think we tend to separate death from life – even vilifying it as the antithesis to life – and yet I somehow suspect we’re off base when we do that. When you think about it, isn’t death actually an intimate part of life…the earthly end to the journey we began at our birth – a journey you began fifty-seven years ago today? The metaphor of a journey is an apt one. What then is death but a destination on life’s journey? And just as arriving at a destination is, at once, the end of a passage but also the beginning of a new chapter in an ongoing, perhaps even never-ending, life story, so must death be a beginning. I’m convinced of it.
As I told you when we saw each other last, Gary, I am also convinced that we – all of us who are so very connected here in this lifetime - will see one another again – in some form or fashion. This is a belief that you said you share with me. It may not come in a manner that we would readily recognize today, but it will, nonetheless, be real and enduring. I also told you that it gives me great comfort to know that you will have experienced death when my turn comes…I will look to you for strength and encouragement at that hour. Death does not seem so strange and unforgiving when we consider those whom we have known and loved who have gone there before us. And so I would encourage you to think about your mother, your father, Papa Fred and all of those whose spirits are poised to aid and ultimately welcome you as you proceed. Again, one need not be particularly religious to believe in such things. You must only look to nature to recognize the cyclical character of existence…we, like all of nature, are born, we thrive, we decline, we die…and so why not would we, like nature, be reborn? This is a fundamental question you will have an answer to soon enough. As German poet Rainer Maria Rilke observed, we have been living the question…your turn has come to experience the answer. I have faith it that will be a meaningful, even joyous experience.
While I will not try to tell you that your life has been a long one, Gary – I do maintain that it has been a good one. You have lived fully and well. You have pursued many interests, you have always met your many responsibilities, you have continuously and steadfastly been willing to take on challenges and most importantly, you have shared your life and yourself with others who care about you. You have known disappointment, but you have also known success. As I told you when we shared the contents of our hearts, you are a good man – to which you responded, “I guess I can’t ask for more than that!” I would add, what more is there really?
So thank you Gary…thank you for the years of unwavering friendship and staunch loyalty you’ve offered to David, to me and to our family. Thank you for your trustworthiness, your ability to know and keep confidences. Thank you for the quiet understanding you’ve offered us when we shared our fears and concerns with you – thank you for listening and truly hearing rather than commenting or advising. Thank you for your willingness to lend a hand, to go the distance even when the project wasn’t one of your own making. Thank you for just being there…for always being you…a comfortable and comforting presence in the day-in, day-out nature of life and the living of it.
I join with everyone who gathers and celebrates your life with you today on your fifty-seventh birthday. We are all so grateful that you were born – just as we are grateful for the time we’ve been able to spend with you. Know that you will always be an integral part of our best memories and that we – for the time that we have remaining – will cherish and honor those memories and you along with them…always.
I love you Gary. Happy Birthday,
Sally
POSTSCRIPT: Gary Lindsay Young died at 5:55 pm on Wednesday, August 12, 2009
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