Kenji - In Memoriam

What I remember most about you is how well you listened. How much you paid attention. You had a way of sitting so silently... When we first met, you seemed like you were in some other reality that I was never sure if you even heard me; but at unexpected moments, you’d ask a question that always threw me. It would be some detail about my story that you’d ask about to clarify a point. It was maddening but so endearing. Amazingly enough, every time I talked to you, I always felt that I was the center of your attention. You were very good at that.

You paid attention. That was something so unique about you. I came home after work one morning and was so wonderfully surprised with flowers and rose petals scattered around the apartment. Apparently, during one of my ranting days, I told you that I would love to go home after such a hard shift at the hospital and smell flowers. I didn’t remember saying that but you did and you made it happen.

I remember that day we sat at the top of Black Mountain waiting for the sun to set over the ocean. It was a beautiful day and Morro Rock solidly graced the bay. You were lying on the grass looking up at the sky. You said, “’the sky’s the limit’ really isn’t that hard to reach, you know. If you work hard enough and learn how to make a rocket, you can make it there.” That statement epitomized everything that is you. Motivated, driven, focused, unstoppable.

Yes, I remember. I remember the wonderful times we’ve had. They are memories that are both sweet and painful. The memories flood my whole being now like it was just yesterday and you are still there. I am waiting for someone to say that there has been a terrible mistake.

I am most blessed to have met you. You enhanced my life in countless ways. Our hearts were one once. My heart will always have you in it.

Diamond Rio Lyrics
I Believe Lyrics

It IS a mad world

I’ve led my life in a way that I should not regret. At least, I’ve tried to. I’m just like everyone else, in a way. Most of the time, I feel like I would live forever. It is only with my job that I realize that, in one instant, my loved ones may have to find a way to cope with the loss of not having me around anymore. I have thought about my death a few times, though not in the manner in which I would meet it, but the consequences of its aftermath. Though I am glad that I am loved by so many, it is difficult to imagine the amount of sadness and pain that I would leave behind.

We do not often think of our mortality or the fragility of our lives. Most people expect to wake up again the next day and the day after that. Most people do not ponder their deaths. Death – the end of life. It is too scary and unimaginable – the pain of the end of things, the end of accomplishments begun, the unthinkable horror of things undone, of things that would never be.

The young, the strong, the healthy, the determined, the motivated – life continues and unceasingly. This is the way it should be. Rephrasing Gibran, we should seek hours to live, not to kill and so we go on.

Even as we hear of other people dying, the news itself is so distant. It is something that happens, but not to us. When death touches other people, we sympathize in the way a distant, disconnected spectator looks on.

A few days before Christmas, one of the most awesome people I have ever met lost his life. He had the mellowest temperament. Kenji competed professionally in Muay Thai. Even when he was in the ring, he always looked so calm and relaxed like it wasn’t really a fight. His mellow temperament was a paradox to his competitive nature. He laughed easily as well. We matched wit for wit. He was a peacock, but he had every right to be. He took care of himself almost to obsession. He believed in giving back to the world and contributing something positive and helpful to humanity. He gave up professional kickboxing and went to medical school. He was a year shy from graduation.

Having some time off from school for the holidays, he went home to visit with family and friends. At a party, someone challenged him to a fight because he overheard his girlfriend say Kenji was “cute.” So, on to the backyard they go. Kenji would never have hurt him and he didn’t. The guy tried his best to land a hit and he never did. When Kenji noticed the other guy was tired, he took him down. Fight over. All in good fun, so everyone thought. So, back to the party all of them went. Unknown to anyone, the guy seethed underneath. He went home, fetched his gun, returned to the party, walked up casually to Kenji and shot his head from behind.

In the flash of that muzzle, lives have forever changed. What is the sense in that? To attempt to find some rational explanation for what happened is a futile exercise. The same unanswerable question always comes: “why?” It IS a mad world out there. Who knows why people do the things they do.

Gary Jules Lyrics

Lost in the Forest

Lost in the forest...

Lost in the forest,

I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell,

or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me,

hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there,

the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue,

its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me,

the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped,

wounded by the wandering scent.

Pablo Neruda

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I’ve worked on this video for a couple of hours, then spent hours more trying to figure out how to format it so I can upload it directly here. I never got it to work but it works on Photodex.

Watch it here: http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow.html?fl=3056589&alb=0

I’ve been reading Pablo Neruda’s poems today and this one caught me. I spent a couple of days in the mountains . . . hiking . . . reminiscing . . . soul-searching . . .

The land of my fathers, the land and the mountains where I spent my youth – they call out to me. Perhaps I would never see them again. Perhaps I would. The days I’ve spent in North Lake Tahoe have partially calmed my soul . . . I crave for more, though.

In the middle of the forest, the smell of the pine trees has transported me back to a time in my childhood when I used to play hide-and-seek in the trees with my friends. I remember the crude tree house we made . . . it wasn’t even a house, really. It was discarded cardboard set atop some branches with a makeshift rope ladder. I remember it being fun, though. We could take up the ladder and quietly watch people as they passed by without them knowing that we were there.

I’d like to be lost in the forest again, to be enmeshed in its sounds, its smell. . .

Ex-lovers, old memories

An email from a friend today has awakened a distant memory, stirred an unexplainable longing, teased thoughts about love and romance. It made me wonder about the wonderful things and experiences I’ve had that I didn’t fully appreciate. My carefree personality sometimes predisposes me to superficial grasps to life experiences.

Many moons ago, I quietly slipped out of someone’s life. I didn’t think I had made such an impact in his life that it would matter too much if I just left. A few months later, I received a hand-written letter with a poem by Neruda. I thought then how sweet it was and thought I understood how he felt about me. Maybe not.

Today, I received a link from a friend. Andy Garcia reads the poem and it was so hauntingly beautiful. It’s a foggy day out and it’s so quiet here. The perfect conditions for nostalgia. So, here I am – listening to Andy read and having random thoughts of ex-lovers and old memories.

Reading this poem again gives me an appreciation of the love I’ve received from so many people and it is a reminder of how fragile hearts can be and hope I never break anyone else’s.

Tonight I Can Write - Andy Garcia

Puedo Iscribir by Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,’The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me and sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Thank God for long underwear

Woke up energetic and refreshed this morning. Not sure what happened but the day started out well.

I went out to the aircraft for our daily checks with my partner. That went fast as usual. Then as I am securing our equipment, I feel a searing pain in my hand. I looked down and I see blood seeping out of it. What the?!@!? Oh well. I’ll survive that. At least, blood isn’t gushing.

As I exit the aircraft and close the door, I slam it on my fingers. Now, I have two fingers the size of golf balls! Very sexy!!! It’s par for the course this morning, apparently.

I’m at work ready for some flying but I don’t think it’s going to happen today. It’s cold and foggy out. Ugh! Thank God for long underwear; otherwise, I’ll be cold, hungry, cranky, and bored.