Missing a Misanthropic Humanist

"O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again" by Thomas Wolfe was one of his favorite quotes. I slipped it into an email once and he was elated.

This has been the most confusing grief I've ever felt. I don't know what happened, so please don't ask, and I don't think that matters anyway. I find myself getting irrationally annoyed and upset when someone asks, and with many other things recently.

When I first heard the news I was completely and entirely numb for a matter of seconds. Time stopped in that moment and it was meaningless, pointless, no big deal.

Zohar didn't buy it, which was smart, and then five seconds passed and I felt sad and lonely and grateful and confused down to my core. She later told me when she heard the news the night before her heart broke for me. "To have loved someone, that's such a particular experience."

It was a very particular experience. I stayed up that night and calmly read through all the emails I had. I was away from home, so I didn't have the letters, the pictures, the notes, but I had the emails. I read them until 3 in the morning, then I crawled under the covers and bawled for what felt like hours. I was staying in my sister's old room, and I thought about the time Jesse visited me in D.C. when the Blythes were there over Christmas. He and I took a nap together in that very room. He went upstairs first and lay down. I felt exhausted and almost all the family was gone so I gave in and went up to the trundle bed rolled up against the window. He had his headphones in and was listening to music. I asked if I could crawl in and lay down with him, and he was pleasantly surprised by my tenderness and scooted over while encouraging me to slide in next to him. I felt the presence of that moment so strongly.

There were so few precious moments like that, because we were long distance the whole time we were together, which makes all the tangible moments stand out in such a special way. But most of our relationship was the emails, and the phone calls, and the letters. The 14 page letter about philosophy and existentialism and the way the world works and how we all have a scared bunny inside of us. I'm so grateful for all those words and thoughts now, but I remember throwing that specific letter on the floor of Lizzy and Rachel's room. Jesse later admitted he realized how frustrating it must have been to get that letter instead of one about...feelings. We both would get so scared, and would say anything but how we really felt about one another. I was talking a big talk about vulnerability and the power of it at the time, but I wasn't practicing it with Jesse, at least not about him.

These feelings are so complex and painful. I can't imagine what his family is going through. One of the feelings I have is that I'm not supposed to feel anything, that it's unfair to carry this grief compared to what others who have been closer to him in recent years must be carrying. But then I look through the pictures, and I see the tattoo on his ankle, MH with arrows at the ends of the letters. And I know that he was very special to me and I was very special to him, and there's plenty of feelings for Jesse to go around.

We had one year together, when we went sledding and then drank hot chocolate in the kitchen, talking until very late. We would sneak into the graveyard or an older building on campus at night to write poetry. We would go for road trips, always daring one another to try new and exciting things. Jay But's love for life and adventure was infectious. I couldn't help but get swept up in the moment when I was with him.

But that year flew by, and then there were long distance phone calls with my calling card from my dorm room. One conversation in particular jumps to mind. We'd just seen each other and had a lovely time, and then got into pointless fights on the phone afterward because we missed one another and didn't know how to face that, and then I was struggling with a completely separate demon from our relationship. I remember Jesse's calm voice through that conversation as I admitted how hard things had gotten for me, and how negative I felt. He told me to find a mantra that grounded me, and to repeat it and breathe. The atheist say all things shall pass he informed me. "But don't use that as your mantra!" he quickly added. It was funny, but also so touching, how quickly he disregarded the worldview's advice which he so fiercely defended in every other conversation, because he wanted me to find something more comforting in that moment.

It was through those conversations on theology and philosophy with Jesse that eventually pushed me to want to go back to church. I stopped believing in the need for a church as an adolescent, when most of us reject the traditions and myths we're raised in. But suddenly in discussions and debates with Jesse I felt myself defending churches and organized religion, and wondering why I thought it so important that they not be misrepresented. His intellectual search for the universe's meaning pushed me to wrestle with my own.

The summer I first ran Fraser and was in way over my head, I remember calling him every weekend and processing everything that had happened throughout the week. I was completely overwhelmed and he would just listen and remark on how impressed he was with what I was doing, so supportive and so attentive.

I didn't tell him for a long time after, but I remember when I first fell in love with him. He wrote in an email to me, "My phone is always on for you, my door is always unlocked, and there's always a space and pillow for you in my bed." It was such a poetic, and vulnerable while protected at the same time, way to tell me his feelings, and I suddenly felt so grateful for how he was in my life. Even though we were so physically far apart and couldn't have a traditional relationship with dinners and movies and hanging out together, I loved who he was and I loved how he was a part of my life.

One of the longest emails he ever wrote me was a two page rant after he finished the 6th Harry Potter book and found out Dumbledore died. He confessed he wanted to write me an email longer than Jeana's but have it be about absolutely nothing but Harry Potter.

I feel it's really important not to romanticize how things were between us. We had a bad phone conversation in 2011. He texted me the next day and apologized and I asked him to not contact me for a while. Looking back through the email chain, there are memories of other arguments, miscommunications that became fights, and times when we flat out hurt each other. I wouldn't take any of it back. I grew so much through those formative experiences, even the ones that stung or weren't the nicest sides of me.

I also don't want to demonize things. When we were together, he was such a thoughtful person. The Christmas he visited me, he played his guitar and came to church for Grandfather. He tried so hard to befriend the cousins, although some of them were not impressed with an older cousin's boyfriend crashing the family party, but he didn't let it phase him. His gifts to me were always so thought out. He gave me a pocket journal before I left for New Zealand, so I could carry it on any adventure and record my happenings. He didn't know I'd bought a journal, to make for him. Those five months eventually helped us realize we would only hurt each other the longer we tried to pretend long distance was working for us. But I spent the five months with him gentle on my mind, and put every experience, every adventure, every thought and feeling into my journal for him. When I sent it to him, he promised me he'd give it back to me in five years. He said there was no way he could keep it forever. I told him I'd love to see it again someday, but I made it specifically with him in mind, every single page.

He respected my wish and we didn't talk much since 2011. Then, last spring, I wrote him an email:

• One of the volunteers in my classroom was looking through the etymological dictionary she got for my students.  She was talking with the students about the "mis" words.  Misogyny, misandry, misanthropy. "What would be the opposite of a misanthrope?"  Lisbet asked.
• 
  
• "A humanist," I explained. I couldn't help but smile.  Hope you are well.

Jesse replied:

Wow.... I wish reading that message didn't have this visceral response I'm prone to where my eyes kind of light up, my smile slowly creeps up, with one side higher than the other (this is my signature after all)  and I wish I there wasn't a warm feeling that was slowly and radiating from my heart outward in a manner so graceful and sage it acts more like water. 

Susan, right now I am in a place where my mind is allowing clarity, sanity, happiness, optimism and even this fossilized sentiment of hope and excitement for what's to come.  So am I doing well? In the past five years I have lived, mentally and physically in places so horrible, demonic and just dark that where I am now is something akin to enlightenment. 

Long story short, I am good.  

I hope you are well also, you know, even with the physical distance and the dispassionate temporal march which carries us on our own separate trajectories, creating further distance - nature's inevitability I suppose, I digress.  Even with all that, when I reflect upon you, our friendship and the MH times nothing but happiness and contentment for the times we had together were indeed incredible, amazing and just as magical in our hearts and minds now as they were when we set out as four innocent freshmen.  

Shit... Closing words. I would wish you well but I have not an iota of doubt in my being that you are anything but.  Life's never perfect, but my faith is that you are well. Take care Sweet Susan, One day there will be a one in a million recess which will inevitably bring us to the same swing set, until then - au revoir.

This was a hard winter break. When we got on the plane to Dayton and I realized we'd have to drive straight through Richmond, Indiana, I wondered if subconsciously I hadn't realized that and was pushing for it. I bought a six pack of Guinness at the Meijers off the highway and drank most of it over several nights in Kansas. My body has changed a lot in the ten years since Jesse and I downed Guinness' together while trying to figure out what exciting thing we could do in Athens (Sarah took us to the cherry trees on OU's campus so we could climb them). The beer was delicious and heavy and slow to go down.

We played Mafia as we have for the last 6 years, and all I could think about was getting back to my parents' house from Shabbat at Zohar's with Jesse and Josh. We didn't hear anything, and we walked around the main floor and it was completely empty. How could none of the 16 of them be here? They obviously weren't hanging out upstairs, so we went to the basement and found all of them chanting about who to eliminate.

"We need an anthropologist to help us figure this out!" my dad yelled and looked at Jesse.

"All I can say is, that no matter how this game goes, I hope we can all agree that we're going to play this again!" Jesse responded.

When the round came up where he became Mafia, he killed me off first, knowing I would read him better than anyone else. It was the second game when I was killed off the first round, so he got a lot of trouble from everyone for that. Aunt Julie was watching the next game and saw he was the Angel and saved me. "I've got a message for the angel," Aunt Julie said while the narrator tried to move us along. "It's too little too late!" Jesse got a kick out of that.

I look through the emails and I see some darkness and guilt and heaviness that he was carrying. I also see some beauty and inspiration. I remember the phone conversation when he told me he had gotten on a plane and was looking down at the earth, and knew his purpose was to create. I didn't say anything in response, which must have sounded weird on his end, but I felt chills, and I thought about that anytime he'd play me some music or share a piece of writing with me, how he was living out exactly what he knew he wanted and was supposed to be doing, and how beautiful that was.

I'm taking his advice to pick a mantra to keep me grounded. When I think about him and feel sad and lonely and confused, I frantically repeat "Beatpeacebeatpeacebeatpeace be at peace be at peace...be at peace.........be at peace..................be at peace" until I can begin to believe that he is.

Lullabies

My family helped me craft the Children's Sermon about Lullabies I gave during Advent, so I promised to post what I said.

I started with one I assumed they would all know:

Picnic time for Teddy Bears

The little Teddy Bears are having

A lovely time today.

Watch them, catch them unawares,

And see them picnic on their holiday.

As I recited the words, I looked at blank faces. I glanced up at Pastor Ned, but he shrugged and shook his head, and seemed to indicate with his face that only a crazy family would make up a song about Teddy Bears' picnics. We used to read a book that had this song in it, how could they not know it? (After the service, one set of parents said they not only sang this song to their daughter, but had played it for her on guitar, and were surprised she didn't say anything!) Things weren't looking good, since I thought I would start with the one they were most likely to recognize.

Little Ducky Duddle

went wading in a puddle

went wading in a puddle quite small (quack quack)

said he it doesn’t matter

how much I splash and splatter

I’m only a ducky after all (quack quack)

Crickets chirping and more blank stares. Again, after the service, one of the children's dad's acknowledged this one. He said it'd been a long time since he'd heard it, but he definitely remembered it. Back in the children's sermon, and we have zero recollection and a slightly panicky Susan. I decide to skip Camels and Bears altogether and move on to Waltzing with Bears.

Waltzing with Bears

My Uncle Walter goes waltzing at night!

Chorus

He goes wa-wa-wa-wa, wa-waltzing with bears,

Raggy bears, shaggy bears, baggy bears too.

There's nothing on earth Uncle Walter won't do,

So he can go waltzing, wa-wa-wa-waltzing,

So he can go waltzing, waltzing with bears!

One of the kids threw me a bone and said he recognized it, but his dads told me afterward he was just being polite, they'd never heard of that one either.

So for the grand finale I went with one they most definitely wouldn't know, since it was by the Beach Boys and altered by my dad.

Sloop John B by the Beach Boys

We come on the Sloop John B

My grandfather and me

Around Nassau town we did roam

Shopping all night

Looked at the sights!

Well I feel so broke up

I want to go home

I remember that one sounding the saddest and darkest as a child. Let that poor sailor go home!

I told the kids what my mom said about why we sang lullabies: "The lullabies we sang to you were the ones Grandmother & Grandfather sang to us. It was nice as an adult singing it to my kids and remembering my mom & dad singing it to me. . . and to have a quiet time together as day slips into night and we’re surrounded by love."

Then I told them what my Aunt Gretchen said, that lullabies were a good way to calm down a fussy niece or nephew, and in turn it calms the adult down who's singing to the child, which then calms the child down.

So, I said, we don't just sing lullabies when things are good. We could sing them when we're scared and things aren't so good. I told them about Mary's Magnificat. How Mary was pretty freaked out when she found out what was happening to her and probably pretty scared. So she sang herself a song to calm herself down and comfort herself. She wasn't expecting this to happen to her, but she had faith and hope that this would bring someone into the world who would tear down the mighty and bring justice for the poor. She sang it until she could believe it. And we can sing ourselves through our crises and into a state of peace. I didn't put it quite so eloquently or succinctly, but they got the idea, maybe.