I see him at practice and I'm joking with him as we bake in our helmets…
September 2009
A man named Jeff passed away a month ago. We played football in high school nearly 40 years ago. I didn't know him well, at least I don't remember knowing him,and I never saw him after high school. But what I know is our windows crossed briefly and that makes me feel some distant, but very distant feeling for him and for his passing.
We're 55 years old and that's too young, that hits too close to home. Most of us at 55 accept the notion that we have more yesterdays than tomorrows but we certainly aren't ready to die; most of us have pretty much figured everything out and have made peace with the world and have just about now really figured out what the good stuff is and how to avoid stepping in shit and what to do if you do.
My brain says I remember him and keeps sending me signals of a guy, number 21, a running back. I see him at practice and I'm joking with him as we bake in our helmets, waiting for the next drill or a live scrimmage to end practice. He was big or at least bigger than Jon Funk and taller than Robert Mendoza. He looks bigger than his uniform, like he got everything a size too small. I'm looking at him thinking he's big enough to be a lineman but he's a back, so he must have some speed, I mean after all, who would be a lineman if you had the speed of a back? My mind tells me he was easy going, approachable, no chip on his shoulder, didn't look down on linemen, the grunts, the pushers and shovers. That's all I know and I don't even know if any of it is true. I assume some of it is but my brain is also, for instance, telling me he had a mustache but I don't think Coach Dunivant would have let us have mustaches. It's a very small window and a very long time ago.
The email I got contained an unidentified copied and pasted email from what I guessed was Connie, a girl I know only because she does the contacting for reunion announcements, updates and reminders. The girl who copied and pasted it is named Elaine who I don't remember either; I don't even remember how we got in contact but she sends me benign, have-a-nice-day forwards on an irregular and rare basis. Connie, the reunion girl, relates in the letter that she had a crush on Jeff in the 8th grade and years later she discovered he had a crush on her in the 9th. When I saw that I wondered why we carry stuff like it around in our heads for so long. Why do I still remember the two Donnas from my junior high days? Why does my friend Lenny still remember Nancy? Everything seemed so important then, every yes, no, maybe, later, right, wrong, good and bad seemed to carry the weight of the entire world, the universe and other unknown, larger universes as well.
Almost anything we do after say 25 years of age is more meaningful and carries more import than anything we did as teens. But our brain doesn't record it that way. As for Jeff, well, in high school he liked McDonalds or maybe A&W hamburgers, he thought Paul Simon was making better music as a solo act or maybe he thought that of Paul McCartney. He liked Fords better than Chevies or vice-versa. His passing touches me because passed though the same place in the same time, got through it, got a life, had kids. I know that he had kids because that was also in the letter. He had kids, he took over his dad's business, he had debilitating chronic back pain that surgery could not correct.
It was a very well written and moving letter that Connie wrote, but the part that got to me was he had his heart attack at his mother's house, where he had been living recently. That does not bode well at all. Two heartbreaking things were possible there: his move back to his mother's house may have been due to the bad economy or his disabling, ever worsening back pain, or both; and as hard as it would be to believe something could be worse, it's possible that he had his heart attack in the presence of his mother. We're 55, we know that no matter how well we put something together it can all unravel in a moment, and we know what it means when someone says there are no guarantees. At 30 we were roaring lions, strong, cunning, fearless and confident. Now we're still in the pride but we pick and choose, we rely on experience and we play the percentages. We try to pass on what we know to young cubs but the life force is strong in them, they're in their 20's; energy, ideals and assertiveness charges through their system.
I don't know if it's possible to mourn the loss of someone I knew only tangentially, but if I don't feel sorrow personally I mourn for the loss that his kids and family and friends feel. Connie described his smile and how proud he was of his kids and how hard he worked. I mourn the loss of a man with those good qualities. All we can do is to remind ourselves that life is fleet and transitory; each day really could be our last and if we truly understand that we should cherish each day, each loved one and each and every good moment while at same time learn to release, dismiss and otherwise shake free from the hurts, frustrations and disappointments.
Jeff and I wandered the same halls, negotiated the same apple machine in front of the cafeteria, and climbed the same set of stairs at 3 o'clock to put on the pads and go test our love for football.
I wish I had more to say about Jeff. I wish I had taken the time back then. Now Jeff goes off on a new adventure in another dimension that is held together here where we are by faith alone, while I am fortunate enough to stay and explore, discover and appreciate new things, other stages and phases. May God comfort and keep the friends and family of Jeff and may God bless his memory.
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Beautiful my new/old friend! You captured the essence of my sorrow and held him up for remembrance. Thank you...I will pass this on to our classmates.
ReplyDeleteConnie
Thought I'd share the thoughts of my sister-in-law who's blog posted right while I was reading yours...strands of similar thoughts. She has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I've been encouraging her to write.
ReplyDeleteRecently posted on Connie’s FB notes is a piece entitled “A Heavy Heart” where Connie recounts a history with Jeff Burg whom she first met in elementary school. Connie recently learned of his passing in a most unexpected way. While she and Jeff did not maintain regular contact with one another, suffice to say, it was still a very important and perhaps even a pivotal relationship that continued sporadically into adulthood. The loss of a childhood friend is particularly difficult because these kind of friendships that transcend time are some of the most complex in nature. They are generally relationships that came from a childlike place based on childlike needs and desires. Those earliest memories are probably the most enduring. The scent of “Three Roses” hair tonic from the cute boy in the front row with the laughing brown eyes; the little girl with golden curls and sprinkling of freckles across her nose; the kid that could smack a baseball across the chain link fence or the one who sat on the bench, nose buried in a book, continuously pushing up the oversize black rimmed glasses over his nose. Then there is that one special someone who for whatever reason, made our heart beat a little faster and who we would write secret love notes to or scrawl their initials on our notebook and crane our necks to see the back of their head at school assembly.
Adults would call this phenomena “puppy love.” Yet, this sort of feeling held all the depth and passion and yes, even pain that any adult relationship might experience. Those memories of someone special to us said as much about who we were and who we would become as anything else we may encounter along the pathway to adulthood. As long as they survived, our childhood memories remained intact, unchanged and untouched by the passage of time. It wasn’t only the experience of first love but often times it was finding your “bestest” friend—that person who knew you and liked you unconditionally. That person whom you could share secrets and never experience betrayal; that one someone who would remain your friend, no matter what, and you would know “loyalty” without even knowing that there was such a word to describe that feeling.
When that someone who has remained in your heart and mind suddenly dies, a part of us dies as well. One cannot help but sense his/her own mortality and know without a doubt that life is fragile and meant to be lived with gusto and total abandon. You cannot help wonder if they knew what they meant to you in your youth and how much the friendship would mold you, in part, to become the person you are today.
To read Connie’s beautifully written tale of the friendship with Jeff Burg is to remember our own friendships—those earliest ones that shaped us in some way and more recent ones which we all too often take for granted though in our hearts we treasure them deeply.
R.I.P. Jeff Burg August , 2009-Billie Barron