I don’t understand death.
It’s not the nanosecond discontinuity between here and gone, being now and never again, on and off; it’s the shearing of the connections: not the connection you and the deceased had during your joint lives, but the connection between you and your idea of him, image of him, feeling of & about him; it’s the shearing of your own mind, your understanding of the world and how it works, the severing in your sense of the composition of daytime, the image-presences in your soul, the chambers of your mind’s heart.
The death of a friend is also a death for you, sometimes such a cleaving you can barely stand. The gap between the knowledge of loss and the sense of pain can take an enormity to cross. But the loss of balance is instant, the cause is invisible, and there’s no physical or mental understanding to be had.
RV & I met Rick at Clarion in ’81. Coming from Portland he put the idea of Portland in our heads, and when we went looking for air quality better than L.A.’s, knowing him gave us a point of focus. We came to both a city and a friend.
Rick was a gentleman as well as a loyal friend. He had a pixie-ish sense of humour and no truck with interpersonal chicanery; he was stoic about his health issues and generous with himself. When I was laid off in early ’98 and he was recovering from his first major surgery, we’d go for gentle walks in his neighbourhood, looking at the warehouses nearby, their gear and tackle and trim, talking of this and that and nothing in particular, enjoying our ability to be mobile and our lack of significance. He ran a little market in remnant sales on Saturday mornings in addition to the family business, just on his own initiative, and the competent and unassuming way he did it and spoke of it left me admiring him immensely. He took his obligations seriously. He was the sort of gentle man you forget exists when the news is what it is. He was very private; even though his sense of humour had a very wide perspective he was pained at conflict. He was the kind of man who keeps the world going and adds to its store of goodness.
Rick was one of the co-founders of Gobshite Quarterly. We sit daily and nightly at the old tasting room table from the family’s wine business; we sit on some of those chairs. Occasionally he’d come to visit them, but not often enough. We last met him in spring this year in a small bar on N. Mississippi. Every time we pass it we say, “That’s where we saw Rick,” and, “We should call him and get together.”
We will remember him when we open our wine, ordinaire and otherwise. Because goodness and good friends should be remembered.
It’s not the nanosecond discontinuity between here and gone, being now and never again, on and off; it’s the shearing of the connections: not the connection you and the deceased had during your joint lives, but the connection between you and your idea of him, image of him, feeling of & about him; it’s the shearing of your own mind, your understanding of the world and how it works, the severing in your sense of the composition of daytime, the image-presences in your soul, the chambers of your mind’s heart.
The death of a friend is also a death for you, sometimes such a cleaving you can barely stand. The gap between the knowledge of loss and the sense of pain can take an enormity to cross. But the loss of balance is instant, the cause is invisible, and there’s no physical or mental understanding to be had.
RV & I met Rick at Clarion in ’81. Coming from Portland he put the idea of Portland in our heads, and when we went looking for air quality better than L.A.’s, knowing him gave us a point of focus. We came to both a city and a friend.
Rick was a gentleman as well as a loyal friend. He had a pixie-ish sense of humour and no truck with interpersonal chicanery; he was stoic about his health issues and generous with himself. When I was laid off in early ’98 and he was recovering from his first major surgery, we’d go for gentle walks in his neighbourhood, looking at the warehouses nearby, their gear and tackle and trim, talking of this and that and nothing in particular, enjoying our ability to be mobile and our lack of significance. He ran a little market in remnant sales on Saturday mornings in addition to the family business, just on his own initiative, and the competent and unassuming way he did it and spoke of it left me admiring him immensely. He took his obligations seriously. He was the sort of gentle man you forget exists when the news is what it is. He was very private; even though his sense of humour had a very wide perspective he was pained at conflict. He was the kind of man who keeps the world going and adds to its store of goodness.
Rick was one of the co-founders of Gobshite Quarterly. We sit daily and nightly at the old tasting room table from the family’s wine business; we sit on some of those chairs. Occasionally he’d come to visit them, but not often enough. We last met him in spring this year in a small bar on N. Mississippi. Every time we pass it we say, “That’s where we saw Rick,” and, “We should call him and get together.”
We will remember him when we open our wine, ordinaire and otherwise. Because goodness and good friends should be remembered.
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