My friend - John Wunder

This post is about me although it is entitled John Wunder. I say that because it is the living who are reserved the privilege to write about the dead. I cannot even really say that John was a friend since I only knew him for a few years and then . . . only at a distance. So to be fair, to be completely accurate . . . he was my neighbor.

We were the type of neighbors that talk over the fence or as we met over work that took us out into the world of fences that need mending or grass, with its unique sweet smell, needs cutting. There was that occasional cup of coffee on a cool Sonoma morning.

So I write this in memory of my memory of John because I am unsure as to how many friends that he has or if anyone will write of him. In this unforeseen way, I will remember him and selfishly, I hope that someone someday may remember me or the deeds that I have done or of some contribution I have made. Is this not what we all want? To be remembered? Loved? Thought well of?

So about my neighbor John, some words that come to mind - gruff - loyal - stubborn - dismissive - hard worker - practical - smoker - dead from smoking - friendly - unassuming - but these are not the sum total of a man's life are they? Of course not . . . and with John there was much unsaid.

Look, we all live our lives with so much unsaid. Some live their lives as caricatures of what might be or what they think they are or hope to be. I am not sure if he did but paramount to me was that John seemed stubborn in his pursuit of some type of honesty - with himself and others. It was far too complicated of a thing to try and unravel - especially now that he is dead.

It was the simplicity of sharing time together that had meaning for us. In growing up I did not understand what being a neighbor, a good neighbor could be. But that sharing of your time can be a sacred moment, a fun time, a time rife and hidden with meaning that only becomes clear when more wisdom, however hard won, comes our way.

When he was dying, the last time I saw him was in this hovel of a nursing home. Staffed with probably good staff, undergoing renovation, it was not a place I would like to die. I guess it does not matter for at the end it is irrelevant in some fashion, where the dying will take place for soon, you become unaware. Let me interject here that I spend a year and a half working in Palliative Care working with people who were actively dying and working with their families. I have hard experience and know how death looks, smells and feels - to the living mind you, to the living.

So I sat there in his room as he signed his will so hastily drawn up on my computer a few months ago. I held his hand, that strong hand of his that had built the fence going down the driveway, where we had cleared it of pestiferous ivy and had our conversations and late night hellos around. This fence did not separate but brought two very different people together for conversations. Surface as they could sometimes be, I enjoyed them and his company.

Holding his hand, looking in his eyes, his eyes met mine and he shook his head and I mine, in unspoken acknowledgment that this was indeed the time of his death. We had talked about it before but this time . . . there was no need. He had done his best, I had done what I could with whatever demands I had in my own life, to assist him.

I was not there when he died but I said my goodbyes that day when I held his hand for the longest time. I did him no favors. I only did what I could, it was nothing special. Although I could not have done more, I will always wish that I could have. But he had made his choices in his life and I think in the end, he looked at his life and finally accepted it, his death, his life, his mistakes, everything. That is it you see, we can either make peace or we will not.

There is such a thing as a good death. These words I write are my own, they belong to no one and only to my creation of them, they are not a reflection of anyone except my experience of this man, this neighbor, this casual friend who died. John’s death was his own, it was not a bad one; he had love and support from others around him that stuck with him through life and now, at last, through death. If there is some reward for this type of faith, let it come upon those who take upon themselves this sacred duty. Sometimes there is no choice.

So John and I shook hands, shook our heads in silent agreement, grinned at each other grimly and smiled. As drugged up as he was . . . he knew the score and so did I. I told him I'd see him again and I walked out of that room and he died two days later.

I'll miss him.