response to the one that got away upon being pressed Part 1

"You didn't need to write more unless you needed to get it out," she wrote with a poor emoji gritting its teeth. "I can take it," she encouraged with the endearing LOL

Well

I guess I could let it out in fits and starts if you really want the criticism

It didn't last long enough to be considered a 'relationship'--there

    I hated that

But was that anyone's fault? Hm?

(I do consider you an "ex" in my mind when relationships come up in conversation

    with friends and people I date.

    What do you think about that, huh?)

Oh, and I really miss your cat!

I really don't miss your dog

    (I was just a sex object to him)

I'm a dog person, so that was a big deal for me!

But I was very sad to lose your cat's friendship

Yeah, I suppose it's possible there's a lot to take out on you

But

It's also possible that maybe you weren't as bad an experience for me as you're afraid you were?

You

I imagine a parallel universe where we’re still together—

We’d get out of the shower, naked, intoxicated with each other, completely intertwined.

What would be different is that I would wipe the fogged mirror and point to your reflection and say

I love that girl.

Because I did.

No doubt you would have responded in that coo-ey, sexy way you have

“And she loves you.”

But I would have said, trying to guide your eyes to your own reflection

No babe, that’s not what I’m going for.

How do you feel about that girl? Do you love her too?

I realize now that I have no idea what you would have said.

I know that if you could have said ‘yes’

And I could have believed you

It would have made my job so much easier.

eulogy 4/10/2019

The basic problem with all of this, of course, is that Jim Richardson never liked to draw attention to himself.  The challenge of eulogizing a man who never liked to draw attention to himself, or be in anyone’s way, inconvenience anyone in any manner, are hard enough. But then there’s the next complicating basic problem: I’m just like him. [It’s not that I don’t have plenty of Jim Richardson stories to share to illustrate all that low-key, self-effacing humility, the kindness…but when you have two guys who cultivated a life of going under the radar so we could just be free to be ourselves, how do you talk about it?

I loved that guy. He loved me. He loved Jesus. He was never big on insisting that I do the same, he just showed me a lot of ways to do it. I was a curious and questioning kid growing up. And he was the smartest guy I knew.

I went into psychology and I went into Biblical Studies. And he loved reading The Bible, but I never talked to him about the academic study of The Bible. When I started really reading it when I was 18, I’d decided I was just going to read it from front to back, and if I had any questions I was just going to write them down and ask him because he was one of the smartest guys I knew.  And I knew he could take it. I felt safe asking him these things. I felt safe questioning. I felt safe doubting. And when I started asking all of these questions about the random things that come up early on in The Bible, and he could see that list of questions I’d made, I could see that he was a little overwhelmed and he just looked at me and said, “What have you gotten yourself into?” But I’d ask ‘how do you make sense of this and of that?…If this thing is true, how can that thing be true? And finally he held up his two thick forefingers and said to me “1) We’ll never really know and 2) It doesn’t really matter.” Which might leave you with the question of ‘What really matters?’ But I never had to ask him what really matters. He always just showed me. He loved his neighbors. He loved his God. He loved Melanie. He loved Susan. He loved Marilyn.

And that was his way. That was his preference. The last thing I said to him in person before I left two weeks ago as I leaned down to hug him was “I love you. Thank you for being my dad.” He couldn’t stand, but he squeezed me back and said “I was glad to do it.”

morbid

3/2

Not trying to be morbid here

But

Really hoping the actual bereavement will go better than the anticipatory grief.

verbatim

My dad was groggy from pain meds

I guess the cannabis isn’t helping enough

This was first time he’s ever refused to talk to me

I asked my mom to put the phone to his ear.

“I just want you to know I’m thinking of you, Dad

I love you.”

I love you too

He managed

“Just…

Just be at peace”

I said to him.

My mom took the phone away before he heard that part

She apologized

“I’m not saying I want him to…

let go entirely just yet.”

And of course that made my mom cry again for the forever-eth time in the last year

My father still has a long way to go with this

And we not long enough

either way

10/7/17

I wonder if

Someday

I will be able to look back at this friendship

or whatever it was

as able to be defined by something other than 

our power to absolutely and utterly destroy one another

though maybe I flatter myself

and even that wasn’t

something you’d call

mutual

In which case

Either Way

I’d still have to call it

sad

maybe Bryan wakes up

“Not good news…” says Satch

Bryan may have had his last seizure

collapsed in the shower this morning

he’s in ICU

no brain activity

his family has been advised and is advising

the plug may be pulled tomorrow

Bryan, of course

brought me into the fold

and set into motion for me

the change upon which all others rest in high school

There was Satch, the skateboarding irritant of the suburb elite,who would be my hetero-lifemate into adulthood

There was Jason, the contrarian, who would be my begrudged mentor in the ways of punk rock,with whom Bryan had been elementary school best friends

There was the other John, the papist Civil War re-enactor and all-around caster of doubts and mirth

And then Stefanie, hot pedestrian and great friend, whom both Bryan and I brought in

There were other allies and confederates

But those were the players no other circle would claim

Also the ones that can all agree

Though we all became great friends with one another in our respective rights

We would likely not know each other

But not for that guy who
   took me along with him that one day with no embarrassment

And Bryan’s family

took us in each weekend

(his undeniably attractive step-sisters making the worthwhile of it every other weekend)

Bryan walked the railroad out of old central with me every Friday afternoon

Where we took the grandeur of a defunct Flour Mill for granted

like we took most things

And Bryan sold me my first guitar

was the first to suggest to me that I should practice the arpeggio figure of Hotel California one measure at a time

even though he didn’t know to call it that

(still working on it, friend)

And Bryan got me my first job

with him

cleaning the goddamned middle school everyday

And Bryan convinced me that AMT model cars were an education in the waiting

I taught Bryan not to be careless with his verbal challenges in front of me

I had no compunction of smashing the finished '36 Ford Coupe he “didn’t care about” into his bedroom wall if only to impress Satch sitting idly by

And

I think

I saved his ass that time

our canoe broadsided into a rapid in the Illinois

And I had forgotten most of this until just now.

———-

Satch texts

“Jason is not taking it well.”

And again

“I may see him in a bit.”

But I am at a loss here in Colorado

With our base and roots in Oklahoma 

While Bryan hangs on in Arizona

Do I call his ex-girlfriend in Michigan

Who was as much sister to me long after?

Am I the one to break that to her?

OR had she the thoughtfulness to keep with him all these years

And not take him for granted as I have?

But until I hear from Satch

Maybe Bryan wakes up

“He’s not coming back…Is that what I’m to understand?”

I ask Satch before we ended that first call

Correct

But until I get the second call

Maybe Bryan wakes up

He won’t

But from where I sit right now

The ravages of only 20 years post-high school

Still have yet to crack the shallow privileged veneer

-no net loss heretofore-

  that I’ve so far

of random mofo chance

been able to encase myself

But it is cracking

and even if it weren’t

 it will not last

But maybe Bryan wakes up

He won’t

But until the phone call comes, and it will

But until

Maybe