Zeke

“I know now that when you get to a grandfather’s age, life takes on the qualities of comedy, with aches.” -Niall Williams

Along time, dear friend died two days before Christmas this year and the mixture of happy, comic memories and the ache of loss rolled over me like a violent weather system. I sat looking at the snow, feeling the weight of memory that descended upon me like a thick fog. This friendship lasted for 25 years and anything that lasts for a quarter of a century in one’s life will bear scrutiny when reality shifts and creates a blank space in your narrative.

Our friendship began in Little League baseball where we teamed up to coach our sons. We agreed to avoid favoritism and harsh criticisms by coaching each others sons…a plan that worked well. In our early baseball days, we did many things together, from long trips to baseball camps and batting cages, coaching in nail biters and bringing a boom box to the field when we were umpiring so we could dance to the Temptations and The Four Tops between innings. Baseball was the foundation of our partnership but it soon grew to activities off the field including building rockeries and decks and a long trip with our wives to the Amazon jungle, Machu Pichu and the Galapagos. Our friendship had serious mileage and duration.

As a young man my friend was tagged with the Zeke sobriquet when he played multiple sports at a prestigious D3 school. Zeke was a warrior who, like an Irish Gallowglass, tied tourniquets on his arms and legs prior to the fight in anticipation of the cuts and wounds he would surely get in the fray. His intensity was legendary…and deadly. It may have played a part in his destruction.

So it is now my job to grieve. I checked in with Kubler-Ross about the stages of grief in an effort to plot my position in the reality storm created by his death. I breezed past the first two stages -shock/denial and pain/guilt – because Zeke’s death was a process of decline over many months and I knew in my heart that our friendship was conducted without guilt or remorse in the mix. I don’t feel that any of our regard for each other was unsaid or un-expressed.

Anger and bargaining supposedly come next and anger was not present because our mix of comedy – with aches – was unique and sustained by both of us. There is no depression.

I am imbedded in the last four ages: the upward turn, reconstruction and hope. These stages are encompassed in one single question…what did Zeke teach me ?

I know he taught me to show up and stand for something …with ferocity. He walked his walk diligently and was deeply committed to the welfare of hundreds of kids. He taught me to take on problems with energy and focus. He taught me that comedy should always come before the aches. Zeke was an athlete, a scientist, a husband, a father, a coach and a friend and that’s enough for any man in one short lifetime.

My friends are rallying around me and I am grateful. My grief will not be a matter of performance art with wailing and gnashing of teeth, I will not rend garments or pull at my hair. Zeke deserves better that that. Rather, I will honor his memory and be grateful for his life and all the lessons he gave me. That seems fit.

As a scientist, Zeke once told me he considered himself an atheist. He will now get to test that hypothesis.

God speed dear friend.