the loss of a would-be friend
a friend posted today about the very recent death of someone who i can honestly only describe as an acquaintance.
reading the on-line account of the tragedy, i was shocked. stunned. abruptly thrown into some form of grief, and reminded what grief really, truly, actually is: the loss of what might have been yet to come, rather than what was.
i never knew ed very well, even though i'd "known" him for going on about 14 years. i met him at around the same time that i met a lot of other people who i don't know very well, at the life-transforming contra dance in cambridge at the VFW hall (pause for a brief moment of silence...). at the time that i met ed, he was a tall, slender, man of around my age. he was quite good-looking, with sandy-ish curly hair a bit long for the conventional standard even in cambridge. he was the kind of guy that i always wanted to be attracted to -- in a relationshipy way -- like so many friends in college about whom i would say, "nah... i like him too much to date him." (that must sound perfectly awful, i know. i have theories on what i meant when i said that, some of which probably -are- awful, and others of which have been explained better than ever i could by the book, "mating in captivity" by ester perel (btw, the book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!).)
okay, i got a bit off-track.
anyway, ed was that kind of guy: happy, cheerful, always seeming to be in the right place in his life, well-adjusted... and *nice*. ed was nice.
at one point, ed left cambridge. i remember talking with him about that ever-so-briefly, about his upcoming trip to the far corners of the world (india and tibet). in that moment, i suddenly got to know much more about ed than i had ever realized during the few moments of conversation possible during most contra dances. i learned that he was a buddhist, and was going to asia to study the tibetan language and learn more deeply about buddhism. i remember being joyful for him to see him go, and yet a part of me mourned the loss of a would-be-friend.
and one day, a few years ago, he reappeared (at least, in my consciousness). i'm not sure where i was, or where he was, but it was undoubtedly at a dance or a festival. ed was there, like so many others who was there. ed was always there.
i last saw him by chance in greenfield, on the last evening of my summer vacation this year. my sweetheart and i had been all over the place for about 2 weeks, about 1700 miles of driving worth, through new york and parts of canada, and finally down through vermont. we timed things so that we could hit the greenfield dance "on the way home". (okay, so it wasn't actually on the way home, but we made it work!) the dance was awesome, and we stayed until the last, sweaty moments... and at that point i sat and chatted with ed for a few moments at the end of the dance as he sat with a group of kids there, talking about his travels and his plans to attend the upcoming youth dance weekend.
and then we drove home. and i went on living my life, subconsciously assuming that i would again run into ed, maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a few years.
and then today i read LJ.
...
the feeling right now is eerily similar to the feeling i had when my friend derek died, in july 1996, from a fast-acting form of cancer. i was never *close* friends with derek -- only close enough that we'd hung out some, exchanged jokes and dances and music, and even traded crushes at different times in our knowing each other; but never close enough to have been deep heart-friends or dated. (EDIT: i also just figured out the other feeling -- it's more like when David Avison, another dancer who i knew-but-did-not-know, died very suddenly and mysteriously in his bed, at home. derek's death was at least predictable, even if awful and tragic; david's was sudden, and awful; and ed's is all of that and *senseless*, to boot.)
and yet, when he died, i felt this hollow feeling. the feeling was partly very much self-motivated as though a potential friend had slipped away, never to be seen again.
even more so, it was then, and is now, a hollow feeling of unfairness for the world: an awareness that out of all of the people who are in it, one person who I KNEW was wonderful, amazing, and truly good for the world died before his time.
i'm having that feeling now, and it makes me just incredibly sad.
my friend posted three references which i thought would be useful for others, and so i am re-posting them here (thank you, friend).
an article, and another article, both from the brattleboro reformer (from the first of these comes this quote: "Although this tragedy took the life of his friend, Keiser said Softky was a very forgiving individual who would have realized this was just a horrible accident and would not have been upset or angry about the incident. `It wouldn't have even been on his radar screen," said Keiser. "That's the kind of person he was.' ")
and, a the memorial page from Thosum Gephelling Institute, an organization with which ed was affiliated in vermont that is devoted to spiritual teachings. this page has his picture. before i opened up this one, i was only thinking that i -might- know this person, based on the description my friend had given and some vague recollection of the name sounding familiar. as soon as i saw the picture, it was all too clear to me who this person was, and that i did know him.
go in peace, my would-be friend...
this post was not friends-locked in case any non-friended readers would benefit somehow from seeing this.
reading the on-line account of the tragedy, i was shocked. stunned. abruptly thrown into some form of grief, and reminded what grief really, truly, actually is: the loss of what might have been yet to come, rather than what was.
i never knew ed very well, even though i'd "known" him for going on about 14 years. i met him at around the same time that i met a lot of other people who i don't know very well, at the life-transforming contra dance in cambridge at the VFW hall (pause for a brief moment of silence...). at the time that i met ed, he was a tall, slender, man of around my age. he was quite good-looking, with sandy-ish curly hair a bit long for the conventional standard even in cambridge. he was the kind of guy that i always wanted to be attracted to -- in a relationshipy way -- like so many friends in college about whom i would say, "nah... i like him too much to date him." (that must sound perfectly awful, i know. i have theories on what i meant when i said that, some of which probably -are- awful, and others of which have been explained better than ever i could by the book, "mating in captivity" by ester perel (btw, the book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!).)
okay, i got a bit off-track.
anyway, ed was that kind of guy: happy, cheerful, always seeming to be in the right place in his life, well-adjusted... and *nice*. ed was nice.
at one point, ed left cambridge. i remember talking with him about that ever-so-briefly, about his upcoming trip to the far corners of the world (india and tibet). in that moment, i suddenly got to know much more about ed than i had ever realized during the few moments of conversation possible during most contra dances. i learned that he was a buddhist, and was going to asia to study the tibetan language and learn more deeply about buddhism. i remember being joyful for him to see him go, and yet a part of me mourned the loss of a would-be-friend.
and one day, a few years ago, he reappeared (at least, in my consciousness). i'm not sure where i was, or where he was, but it was undoubtedly at a dance or a festival. ed was there, like so many others who was there. ed was always there.
i last saw him by chance in greenfield, on the last evening of my summer vacation this year. my sweetheart and i had been all over the place for about 2 weeks, about 1700 miles of driving worth, through new york and parts of canada, and finally down through vermont. we timed things so that we could hit the greenfield dance "on the way home". (okay, so it wasn't actually on the way home, but we made it work!) the dance was awesome, and we stayed until the last, sweaty moments... and at that point i sat and chatted with ed for a few moments at the end of the dance as he sat with a group of kids there, talking about his travels and his plans to attend the upcoming youth dance weekend.
and then we drove home. and i went on living my life, subconsciously assuming that i would again run into ed, maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a few years.
and then today i read LJ.
...
the feeling right now is eerily similar to the feeling i had when my friend derek died, in july 1996, from a fast-acting form of cancer. i was never *close* friends with derek -- only close enough that we'd hung out some, exchanged jokes and dances and music, and even traded crushes at different times in our knowing each other; but never close enough to have been deep heart-friends or dated. (EDIT: i also just figured out the other feeling -- it's more like when David Avison, another dancer who i knew-but-did-not-know, died very suddenly and mysteriously in his bed, at home. derek's death was at least predictable, even if awful and tragic; david's was sudden, and awful; and ed's is all of that and *senseless*, to boot.)
and yet, when he died, i felt this hollow feeling. the feeling was partly very much self-motivated as though a potential friend had slipped away, never to be seen again.
even more so, it was then, and is now, a hollow feeling of unfairness for the world: an awareness that out of all of the people who are in it, one person who I KNEW was wonderful, amazing, and truly good for the world died before his time.
i'm having that feeling now, and it makes me just incredibly sad.
my friend posted three references which i thought would be useful for others, and so i am re-posting them here (thank you, friend).
an article, and another article, both from the brattleboro reformer (from the first of these comes this quote: "Although this tragedy took the life of his friend, Keiser said Softky was a very forgiving individual who would have realized this was just a horrible accident and would not have been upset or angry about the incident. `It wouldn't have even been on his radar screen," said Keiser. "That's the kind of person he was.' ")
and, a the memorial page from Thosum Gephelling Institute, an organization with which ed was affiliated in vermont that is devoted to spiritual teachings. this page has his picture. before i opened up this one, i was only thinking that i -might- know this person, based on the description my friend had given and some vague recollection of the name sounding familiar. as soon as i saw the picture, it was all too clear to me who this person was, and that i did know him.
go in peace, my would-be friend...
this post was not friends-locked in case any non-friended readers would benefit somehow from seeing this.