Life by the Drop

It was about 11:20 am last Tuesday when I got a call on my cellphone while at my desk.  It was an 'unknown' number, a long one, but it didn't bring anyone to mind.

I answered with my standard greeting: "Hello, this is Phillip."

There was a long pause on the other end.  "Phillip!"

I recognized the voice immediately.  It was M_______.

"M________!" I said cheerfully.

"This is M_______," he said, as if he hadn't heard me.

" M_______!" I repeated, not surprised that he hadn't heard me but curious to know why he was calling, "How are you?"

"Not well," he said with a heavy sigh.

"Really, I am sorry to hear that!" I was, but still, not surprised.  "What's the problem?"

"I'm not well.  It's my heart...I need to come to Austin."

"OK..."

"But I'm broke.  I need some money for the bus."

"How much?"  I cringed as I waited for the answer.  I hate to admit it, but we are cash poor these days,.  Money is tight.  The last time I heard this request from a friend, it cost me $1200.  That money I had a year ago, but we sure don't have it now.

"$300 would be great." M_______ said, with no hesitation to think about the number.  I raised an eyebrow, even though he couldn't see it. He was ostensibly asking for money for a bus trip, but it seemed to me that this was probably more than the cost of a bus ticket. However, I didn't question the number or his motive.

"Ok," I said, also thinking about how I was going to explain this to Valery.  "I can do that."

"Oh Phillip, you are a life saver!" M_______ said, obviously buoyed by my response.  "Thank you!"

We talked about the details a bit, about when, how and where to wire him the money.  He was most insistent that this was to be a loan, and assured me several times that he would pay me back.

"The operative word here," he said with some satisfaction, "is loan.  And, I will pay you back really quick!"

In spite of his assurances, I had no expectation that this was to be anything other than an outright gift.  This is because I know better than to attach myself to the outcome of a repayment especially from a friend.  It never works out.  Knowing, then, that such an attachment will only lead to disappointment and pain, when I said yes, I had already done the mental math.  I knew we could technically 'afford' to give him the $300.  I didn't want to, but I just couldn't say no.

I had also done the 'marital' math.  That is, calculating the cost of asking Valery to contribute to the welfare of someone who was not a member of our family.  Of course, I knew that it wasn't an unreasonable cost.  Valery would not object.  She would, I know, understand it's the right thing to do.  Besides, I knew she would support me no matter what her reservations might have been.

On the upside, M_______ was a particularly old friend of mine who has been to our house on more than one occasion.  But on the downside, he was also a difficult guest, having come over to the house already drunk on several of those occasions.

Adding to this was that the fact that we were not particularly close.  M_______ lived in Mexico for the past twenty years.  Although we were often invited to come visit him, we never did.  Our only contact with him came when he was 'home' to visit his Dad or to get his passport renewed.

As he thanked me, then, I wondered about M_______'s contact with Dad.  M_______ Sr. is now in his nineties.  Specifically I was curious to know if the reason he'd asked me for money was because he'd already been rebuffed by his father.  It sure sounded that way to me.

"So, are you going to stay with  M__?" I asked.  M_______ Sr. is known by most people simply as ' M__'.

"Ah, no," He said, drawing out the short answer after an impossibly long pause.  This was not a good sign.

"Well, then, where are you planning on staying?"

I was now wondering if the purpose of the call was not only to raise some money but to secure a place to stay as well.  My mind raced ahead.  Could he stay with us?

The answer was yes, technically, he could stay with us.  The spare bedroom had only just been vacated the week before.  Our previous 'tenant' had been stayed about a month, but only needed the room until he could move to San Antonio.  And he paid rent.

But as far as I could tell, M_______ was not able to pay rent.  Nor did it seem likely that, if allowed to move in, he would actually move out anytime soon.  Without an income and in poor health, he could end up staying indefinitely, which was simply not something I could contemplate.  That was up until I heard his response.

"I dunno.  I guess I was going to stay in my storage unit."

I sighed loudly, shaking my head as I spoke.  "M________, you can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, it's against the law.  And the storage place won't allow it, because it's against the law."

"They won't know."

"But I will," I said. I was exasperated but already resigned to caring for my clueless friend.  "I can't let you sleep on the concrete floor of your storage unit.  Especially if you aren't well.  You'll stay with us."

"Oh Phillip, that's nice but you don't have to do that."

I bit my lip, thinking about how this was exactly what I would now have to do, because his lack of planning had given me no choice.  It's an ironic feeling, being upset with someone who needs help so desperately.  I want to help.  I have to help because he has no choice.  But I also don't want to help because I have no choice.  Selfishly I thought more of my own inconvenience than I did about my friend's desperate need.  Instead of wondering about his welfare, I wondered why he was doing this to me.

All these thoughts accompanied me that afternoon as I went to the Western Union station at the local HEB.  I withdrew $300 from our account (after Valery had generously agreed to transfer the money from our savings) and wired it to Guanajuato.  Shortly afterward I called M_______ to give him the 'magic' number he needed to retrieve his money.  I used the call as a excuse to pry.

"So, why aren't you going to stay with your Dad?"

Now, I knew that his father was elderly and in very poor health.  Having cared for Lynda and seen Valery care for Billie, it seemed inconceivable that M_______ had no interest in caring for his father.  But I knew better.  They were never close, and I had no real reason to think that M_______ would be able to care for his Dad, even if he had the will, which he definitely did not.

For example, he was in Austin late last year for a few weeks.  During that time I counseled him to return to Austin and stay here to help with his father's care.  He said yes, he would think about it, but before I knew it he returned to Mexico without warning.  I found out he was gone by calling his Dad,  M__ Sr.

At the time, I asked   M__ Sr. if he needed any help.  He told me that even though he was in poor health, he didn't need my help because he had a live-in helper.  While it was nice to know he had a caretaker, it sure made me sad to think that M_______ Jr. was essentially abandoning his father in his most urgent time of need.  And here he was, doing it again.

"Well," he said slowly, "His caretaker doesn't like me."

No wonder, I thought, without saying it.  After all, not only is M_______ an alcoholic, but he's a smoker as well.  He's unbelievably messy, unwilling to clean up after himself and particularly selfish about his space.  The thought of him staying with us repelled me, just as it had  M__'s caretaker.  Even if Valery said yes, I knew that we just couldn't allow him to move in.  And yet, I'd already offered the invitation.

"Alright," I said, resolved now to take him in, against my better judgement.  "I understand.  But you cannot stay in your storage unit.  Listen, just give me a call when you are getting close, and I'll come pick you up."

"You don't have to do that."

"I realize that.  But I will.  Now, when do you leave?"

"Well, if I get the money tonight, I can leave tomorrow."

"And how long does the bus trip take?"

"I dunno, about a day and a half."

"So you'll be here on Thursday afternoon?  What time does the bus from Laredo arrive?"  I was thinking there would be just one bus coming in every day.

"Yeah," he said, "Yeah I will be there on Thursday."

"Ok, then.  Call me when you get to the US.  Like from Laredo or something, just to let me know when you'll be here."

"Phillip you are a lifesaver," he said it again.  "Thank you."

"Of course," I said.  "Just call me when you are getting close.  We'll talk more when you get here, ok?"

"OK.  Thanks again."

As soon as I hung up, I began to question my decisions.  First of all, the money.  Now, while we have some money in savings, we certainly don't have it there to help out others.  That just sounds selfish, especially because we are planning a trip to Paris in the fall.  Surely, while it seems mean to even question the use of our savings to help a friend, it's also true that we are actually saving for for our goal, sacrificing other, current needs in order to plan for the future.

In many ways, this is the exact opposite of what M_______ had done.  And now, here he was, asking me to give up my savings because he had failed to plan for the future.  It's the Ant and the Grasshopper parable all over.

Then, there was the distinct and uncomfortable possibility that when he was comfortably ensconced in our spare bedroom, he would have no incentive to leave.  In fact, his health might even prevent it.  In the worst case scenario, he might even die in our house.  Nonetheless, I was committed to caring for him.  I resolved to make it work, even if that meant setting a limit on how long he could stay with us.

That was on Tuesday afternoon, June 12.  The next day, after a day of wondering if he'd actually gotten the money, I did some checking and discovered that he had picked it up. I did some quick calculations and figured he'd be calling me the next day, once he was in Laredo, or perhaps even from San Antonio.

The next day was Wednesday and I didn't hear from him.  No worries, I thought, he must have gotten on the bus but hadn't gotten here yet.  It was a long bus trip, after all.

On Thursday, Valery and I made plans for me to take the truck so I could pick him up, but we still hadn't heard anything.  I told a few friends that I was a little concerned, but this was such typical 'M________' behavior that it wasn't unexpected.  Many many times he had simply showed up on arrival, and many many times he had simply failed to show up when and where expected.  It was odd, because I really thought I'd made it clear that he was to call me the minute he got here, if not before.

On Friday I was starting to get concerned.  Not so much for his well being, but I was now thinking that he had not gotten on a bus at all, but had used the money to pay bills or worse, go on a drinking binge.

I decided to call his landlady in Guanajuato to see if he was still there.

I reached her, but don't speak Spanish and she didn't speak English, so our conversation was not only brief, it was also fairly disconnected.  She was able to let me know he wasn't there, but I didn't know if that meant he'd left for the US or was just out at a bar.  At one point, I asked in a leading tone, "Estados Unidos?" When she replied, "Si!" I assumed he was still on his way.

On Saturday, I was getting annoyed.  Knowing that he'd boarded the bus, I was now upset that he hadn't called yet.  It seemed like such a simple thing, going to a phone booth during a rest stop and calling me, yet he hadn't done it.  But why?

I went through a dozen scenarios with each passing hour.  Probably, I thought at first, it's because he just didn't want to bother me. Perhaps, I thought next, he'd gone over to his Dad's house after all.  Then the dark side set in.  Perhaps, I grumbled, he'd come to town and was actually staying in his storage unit.   Now I had convinced myself that he deliberately hadn't bothered to contact me.  Now I was annoyed.  By the end of the day on Saturday I was angry, certain he was here but was just being typically inconsiderate.

Sunday found me in a different frame of mind.  This was the 17th, now five days after he first called me and I hadn't heard a thing.  It was also Father's Day.  It occurred to me that he might have gone to visit  M__, so even if he wasn't staying with him, he might know where he was.  I decided to give M_______ Sr. a call.

One of  M__'s caretaker answered the phone.  She wanted to know who I was, naturally.  I explained that I was on old friend of M_______ Jr. and that I was calling to check on   M__ Sr. and wish a happy Father's Day.  I heard her tell him the former but not the latter.  For this I was most grateful just a moment later.

"Phillip!," he said in a weak but fairly bright voice when he came on the line., "How are you?"

"I'm fine  M__," I said.  "I'm calling to check on M_______.  Have you heard from him?"

"Oh, it's a horrible day,"   M__ Sr. said. "A horrible day."

I knew what he was talking about in an instant, but I still had to ask.

"What's happened?"

"He died.  M_______ has died."

I was in shock.  All I could say, over and over again were the very words that had so failed to soothe or help me when Pierre died: "I am so sorry".  The truth of it was just that.  I was terribly sorry.  For  M__, for me and of course, for M_______.  "I am so sorry." I said.

My thoughts tumbled about aimlessly in my brain.  For a few minutes, coherence was unreachable.  Nothing seemed to make sense.  "I am so sorry." I said again, wishing I could stop saying it, wishing I could think of something, anything else to say.  But all that emerged was "I am so sorry."

I forced myself to stop saying this and tried to concentrate to what to say next.  Nothing came.  After a moment or two I broke the silence to ask where it had happened.

"In Mexico.  He died in Mexico."

I don't know why I needed to know this.  It didn't really matter.  Morbid curiosity, I guess, was at the root of that question, and the answer didn't help one bit.  I suddenly had a vision of him collapsing in the bus station, being rushed to a tiny hospital and dying on the way there.  Of course I have no idea if that's what happened.  I was silent.  I simply couldn't think of anything else to say or ask of  M__.

With another "I'm sorry," I told him I would call back.  Before I knew it, I had hung up the phone and was alone with my thoughts.

And such awful thoughts came!  Thoughts of guilt, for even questioning M_______ in his moment of need.  I had thoughts of remorse, for not following up sooner, and thoughts of regret, for not taking care of my friend long before it came to this.

I had angry thoughts too.  Why should M_______ cause such pain for his father?  I know this pain all too well.  I know how difficult it to receive this news.  Even though his son was 55 and not 20, the effect is the same.

 M__'s word was apt: "Horrible."  It's certainly how I felt, especially receiving the news from him on, of all days, Father's Day.

I admit I am still having trouble with M_______'s death.  It isn't something I can talk about.  Perhaps it's especially because I can't talk about it that it's giving me such trouble.  I feel the need to write about him, but so far this little account is all I've been able to muster.  I imagine a much fuller picture of my friend, including all the stories of our time together.

 M_______ was a remarkable person, but he had a rather unremarkable life.  In some sense, this is why I am having trouble reconciling my feelings.  On one hand, I feel sad that he died so young, so lonely and having done so little with the enormous talent I know he was given.

On the other hand, this is exactly why we were no longer close, because he simply wasn't keeping up.  I don't mean that in a social sense, or even in terms of a career.  I had no unrealistic expectations for my friend.  I knew from my first days as M_______'s friend that he was not like other people.  I knew that wasn't going to be the kind of person who would have a lot of friends or follow a straight-arrow career.  But to be honest, that's what I liked about my friend.

In spite of my love for him as a friend, he also managed to frustrate me over the years.  It was difficult, watching him waste his talent with inactivity and booze.  He was a trust fund baby, which meant that he really never had to work, and never did.  Although his income was modest, it was steady, and coupled with his natural inclination to sit around, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and booze, he managed to live on it without working for most of his life.

He moved to Mexico a few years ago because he could live more cheaply there, although his stated reason was to learn Spanish, the only Spanish he used was in the Guanajuato bars, where he became known as 'Max'.

I knew M_______ to be a very eccentric and brilliant individual.  He alone of anyone I'd ever met was capable of holding in his head enormously complicated and interesting thoughts.  But he was very slow.  Slow to speak.  Slow to walk.  Slow to act.  It was if he lived in another dimension of time, somewhere between rocks and trees.  I lived (and still do) at the pace of a hummingbird, so we were almost polar opposites and personalities go.  But somehow, our friendship worked.

Part of it had to do with my deep respect for M_______ as a thinker.  The fact that he thought so deeply about things amazed me, for this was something I was simply not capable of. And, while he spoke so slowly and took so long to come to a conclusion when he was making a point drove most people to shake their heads and give up before he was finished, but it only added to my impression of him as a deep-thinking genius.

Certainly, he was a talented artist.  He was an amazing draftsman.  He was certain and fluid with his pencil, lifting human form out of a blank page with and effortlessness that I have only seen one other person (my brother Steve) do.  I have three of his paintings hanging in our home.  One is above our bed and I look at it every day.

However, I don't think of him every day.  At least, I didn't, till his death.  Although it's been a while since we've been close, our friendship was of the kind and duration that doesn't simply fade from view.  I was, however, hearing from him in late-night drunken phone calls from Mexico, vaguely aware that he was living on the edge.  Oftentimes I would check out news reports of strange deaths here in Austin, (men crossing the highway, for example) thinking it might just be him, having returned without telling me and then getting himself killed.  It would, I thought, be such a M_______ way to go.

In the end, though, he did die in a M_______ way: alone, of a heart-attack in a bus station in a foreign country.  Sadly, he died before his father.  Of this feeling I know something, but the feelings of grief I have for my friend are more complex than I imagined.

This account you've just finished, Dear Reader, is, of necessity, an incomplete memoir.  I will, in the coming days and weeks, include in this journal as many of the stories about our friendship as I can recall and have the time to write.  Just this, this lengthy and far too self-centered account of his death is grossly insufficient.  But it necessary, for both of us.

For you, you now know something of how he died.  For me, I have unburdened myself at your expense.  In turn, though, I will add to this drab account some of his life and color, for the stories of our friendship is filled with delight, humor and above all, genuine love.

The Do's of Life

The other day I started working on a Do's & Don't's of Life post as a way of keeping track of some of the more basic things I've learned in my fifty plus years of thinking about it.

Alas, so far I haven't got past the Do's.  I don't want this post to languish in draft, so even though this list seems truncated, treat it as a work-in-progress, Dear Reader:

Work - Every day everyone has some work to do.  Even if it's no more than getting up, getting dressed and making your bed.  You don't have to have a job to do your work.

Be Humble - You may be good but you are not the best.  If you think you are the best, that is proof of the contrary.  Everyone can improve.

Act - If it needs doing, do it.  Act on what you know needs doing, not on what you've been told to do.

Show Restraint - Not everything needs to be done or said.  Sometimes the best action is the absence of action.  Know when to be restrained.

Volunteer - Some things we do just because we know it's the right thing to do.  Volunteering is more than helping an old lady across the street, it's an attitude.  There's profit in helping others, but it's not monetary.

Allow - No one will do it your way but you.  If you don't want to do everything, you have to allow others to do things their way.  Allowing others to have opinions counter to yours will allow them to remain your friend and ally.

Forgive - Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone forgives.  If we don't forgive, we can't get past our own mistakes.  Small slights and grave injustices must all be forgiven in time.

Look - Keep your eyes off the ground and on the horizon.  Look at people.  Establish a sense of self awareness that includes others.

Listen - Words take time to process, so it may take a moment to understand what someone is saying.  Listening means doing more than planning what you will say next.

Read - Words are just one small set of signs and symbols we must decode daily in order to cope.  Reading facial expressions and body language is as important as listening to words.

Wait - Some things you must go get; most things you must wait to come to you.  Impatience destroys inspiration and deflects action by preventing it from unfolding in due time.

Be Quiet - Silence is not the same as quiet.  You need not suppress your voice to keep it down.  Important things may still be said while speaking in turn and without raising your voice.

Empathize - You don't have to agree with others to understand that they feel differently about life than you do.  Knowing this, try to feel what others do as a way of measuring and moderating your actions.

Improvise - There is no script to life.  Constant improvisation is required just to keep up.  Making plans is good for the mind, but be prepared to throw them away the very instant action is required.

Smile -  It never hurts to smile.  Sometimes we feel that way, as though smiling is a betrayal of our inner angst and anger, but that is just the angst talking.  In fact, smiling drives the anger from your face and consequently, from your mind.  Others will appreciate it and so will you.

Life Itself - Matter over Mind

As I struggle to come to terms with yet another impending death, I must apologize for returning to a theme that I have only recently declared too trite to write about.  Furthermore, I have so far chosen to avoid writing about this particular death, involving, as it does, the other Reader of this babbling brook of a journal, my dear and beloved mother-in-law, Billie. So much for the good intentions.

Billie is dying of cancer.  There is no easy way to put it.  Moreover, she is entering what can only euphemistically be called the final stage of her life.  It's not easy to die, and it's even harder to talk about it rationally.  Valery is leaving this Sunday to care for Billie in what surely seems like her last few months and perhaps even weeks.  Valery is true to her name: strong and willing, without guile or mission other than to comfort and care for her mother.

On the other hand, while facing this death, I find myself thinking about life in general and specifically the notion that we should somehow find a way to end it when it gets too bad.

The 'Quality of Life' is a quite naturally considered to be a big end-of-life issue.  But if you really think about it, it's essentially a false one. This is because after receiving one's death sentence, the quality of life seems very much diminished if not completely and forever destroyed.  It doesn't matter how good your attitude was before receiving the news or even how good it seems to be after.  It's simple:  Contemplating the beauty of a flower is easier--possible even--if you know you'll live to see more flowers.  Otherwise it can be but another morbid reminder of the inevitable: Death.

Given that death is inevitable, why not do the reasonable thing and end one's own life oneself?  Why doesn't this happen more often?  I don't mean suicide, generally, but euthanasia specifically.  Suicide is rightly considered irrational, but all the unnecessary and cruel end-of-life suffering that is endured in the name of Life is not.  The question is, why not?

Issues of mess and insurance aside, it seems perfectly logical (or reasonable anyway) to plan the end to one's life.  In theory, at least, ending one's life on one's own terms at a time of one's own choosing seems to be ideal.  Why then, is killing oneself so hard to pull off?  Why do perfectly reasonable and rational people fail to make adequate provisions for their death or worse, fail to execute those plans?  Moreover, why do so many people, good and smart people all, choose to ignore the obvious, choose to wither away and choose to die in misery and in pain?  Why do we choose to wind it down instead of blow it out?

I think it has to do with biology (the body), not psychology (the mind), alas.  For example, I know that Billie would do her best to die quickly and with grace, but in spite of her best wishes and intents, she cannot control the final force of life--her life even--itself.  She cannot just go to bed and fall asleep. I think, that's a good thing, even it it doesn't appear to be the case.  But why?

My feeling is that it's because, as we all know at some level or another, Life is really much more than mere thought.  Life is more than the body, the heart or the nerves or the blood.  Life has its own agenda, largely independent of thought and emotion if not the body itself.  Simply put, Life simply ends with death, and it doesn't make plans for a soft landing.

This is not a cruel joke, even if it appears that way to those who must watch their loved ones perish slowly and painfully.  It's really just the reverse.  The will to Live is an affirmation of what makes us more than mere matter and gives us meaning that transcends death.

Life is so powerful and so relentless that, could it speak (and when it does, of course, it is through us) it would tell us, it would plead with us, it would reason, argue, cajole and finally demand of us that we simply leave it be, let it rot and rust and run down until it breaks and stops altogether.  The force of life, manifest though it may be in thought, lives in the cells.  And Life at the cellular level holds not to the high ideals of the electric impulses coursing around through the brain.  At it's lowest level, Life is determined--it is only determined--to resist its own termination, the very definition of inertia.  And really, is not all Life defined by this common denominator?

Yes it is.  In the contest between the inertia of Nature and the will of Man, the force of Nature trumps the force of Mind every time. It's a simple equation but perhaps only obvious when finally faced with one's own death.  Sadly, being resigned to the inevitability of death is not the same--not even close--as having the will (to say nothing of the ability) to kill oneself.

This force of Life, this desire to beat and pulse and march and move until there is nowhere left to move, until there is nothing left to march to and no reason to beat or pulse on is neither good nor bad in and of itself.  Life is not a moral force, nor is it an invention of the mind, but an actual physical force.

Yes, I know, of course that this is not a new idea.  Knowing this and in spite of Star Wars' decades-long shameless exploitation of this notion, I still think it bears repeating. Life is so powerful and pervasive that it has literally transformed this planet and, I suspect, the whole of the Universe itself. Small though this little sandbox be--as a function of the cosmos--the Earth is also large enough and potentially inhospitable enough to have represented a significant obstacle to the advancement of life.   Yet it did not.

This planet is not suffering from Life.  This planet is Life.

Life is the unmeasured, the unstoppable force in the Universe. Life is an imperative, inevitable and ubiquitous.  Just as the spread of life on of the Earth was inevitable, so is the expansion of life throughout the Universe.

But it is a mistake--a myth, really--to think that Life started here, and that it will spread out from here.  It is natural to imagine that our collective Life--our Earth--will continue to expand, from this planet into the farthest reaches of space, but that is just because the notion of expansion conforms to our own creation myths.  Of course it does.   What else might we conclude?

I think we can conclude that Life has already expanded.  Life is already everywhere it can be, and perhaps even in all the forms that it will be.

The fact that we feel alone, that we feel like Life is here and only here on Earth is evidence only of our own limited and self centered thinking, and that is a frequently forgotten historical lesson.  After all, it felt right--natural even--to think that the Earth was flat, that Sun revolved around the Earth, or that the Four Humors governed our health.

But as we've learned time and again, feeling right is an insufficient test of reality.  So, we return to test reason again.  We throw out some knowledge as false and begin again, knowing, as we do, that reason is a flawed process.  It's all we have, however, and I think it works quite well.  Even if reason will not give us the satisfaction of always knowing everything, the consolation is always knowing that everything is knowable.