Jake

My friend Jake is coming off life support tonight. His injuries were too severe, he could not recover, and was getting worse and worse. He is an organ donor and 40 people will receive his gift and benefit from his generousity. I spent a long time today at the hospital with his family and friends while they spoke with doctors and made the decisions on what to do. I went in to see him one last time as they were doing the final tests for his donation.

Every other time I went in to see him, they had his ICU stall dark and it was grey and he was laying there still. Today they had the lights on, there was color, and a bussel of activity as they drew blood, did other tests, and tended to him. It was strangely comforting to have my final glimpse of him colored by this.

There is a huge amount of guestbook entries that people have left for Jake and his family at his CaringBridge site. I've left a few and struggled with them all. Last night when I found out that he was not going to survive, I wrote an entry about Jake and how I felt. After I had sent it, I realized that I should have just written it to Jake and not about him. So I rewrote it and sent it to his gmail account. I may just keep sending him email there for a while.

Here's what I wrote last night to him:

From: Charles Murphy
Date: July 31, 2008 12:21:11 AM CDT
To: Jake Betz
Subject: My Friend

Jake,

You are a good friend to me. It is comforting to know now what a good friend, husband, son, brother, and even in-law you are to such a multitude of others in your life. I feel blessed to know them a better now, and through them to know you better as well.

Jake, you are someone I trust absolutely. I can count people like that on one hand. I always feel safe around you, and not safe from others or safe from the world as you might think, but safe with you. You face your fear, you never turn away, and are truely fearless in this way. It rubs off.

You also always demand the truth from me, rare in my experience, and you demand it from everyone else too, and won't settle for less without a fight. When I haven't given it to you straight, I felt I lost your respect, and your respect is valued over most others. I stopped making that mistake quickly. Thank you.

I admire your for all these reasons and many others, but most of all for the courage and strength you have shown in the last week. Jake, you are a good friend to me, an inspiration, a positive light in my life and I miss you very much right now.

Jake, I'm wishing you and Heather peace in this most difficult place. And both of you along with Don, Joanie, Chris, Dan, and all your families are in my thoughts and prayers.

Your Friend,

Charles

My Friend Jake

Here's my friend Jake (in the blue shorts). He's a boxer and trains at the Rumbleboy Gym in Golden Valley with a great bunch of people. I use to work with Jake a few years ago at advertising agency in their IT department.

Instead of greeting me each day with Good Morning (or any other words for that matter), Jake would flip me the bird. It was off-putting. But he also nearly kicked someone's ass when he saw them trying to push a beer on me after I had quit drinking. He nicknamed me "the Squirrel" at work for some reason (a devious one most likely), and had a nerf gun at his desk labeled "Squirrel Gun." He actually hunted squirrels for real on the weekend, which made it all the more disturbing. But when I talked with Jake, he always listened, and if he was talking he wanted me to listen. I always feel like I'm important to him when we're together and he certainly is to me.

Right now Jake's a pretty banged up and in the hospital. I went to go see him tonight. I showed up during a shift change and so couldn't go in right away but got to meet his mom, embrace and talk with his wife, and catch up with a friend. The crowd of friends and family assembled there for him caught me off-guard.

Later I had a chance to go in and talk to him a bit. A good friend walked me down to his ICU 

and held my hand. He was unconscious and on a respirator, tubes, bandages, and eyes closed. After my friend spoke with him, I went over and held his hand and talked with him for a while-"...you're a good friend, I'd do anything for you as I know you would for me, your wife and family are all here for you, they are being extremely strong and you should be honored by their devotion, I'm sending you every ounce of my strength, take the time you need and help your body heal itself, you mean so much to me, to everyone, I don't want to see the world without you." Even though he was unconcious, I believe saying the words was important.

Some of it felt selfish, it's hard not to feel totally selfish at times like these I think, feeling so overwhelmed with emotion, so in need of comfort yourself, and so uncomfortable and awkward. But being there with everyone, without judgement, just talking and listening, it all made it seem tolerable for the moment. I talked with a friend later about seeing Jake, and then after that wrote her a note and thanked her for just letting me be such a mess without interference and without judgement. That is a gift.

I had been terrified to go visit Jake for the last few days but also torn up inside not being there. Another friend gave me some advice the night before that got me there today. In response to my question of what I should do even though he was unconscious, she replied "You go and talk to them." And to counter my whining about how selfish I felt, and how could I make it about him and not myself, she simply wrote "Be strong for him." I took the advice, showed up, saw my friend. I'm all the better for it. It is my hope that somehow he will also be the better for it too.

Feist

I can't stop listening to Feist's The Reminder, it just doesn't get old. And her videos, 1 2 3 4 most famously, refresh the songs, bringing even more life to them.

And now I go and find there is a "Making Of" video for the 1 2 3 4 video. This one has made me love the song, the original video, and of course Feist, all the more, all over again. When will this end? It's like when you love something, but you don't want to enjoy loving it to much, or you're afraid you'll use it up and you won't be able to love it anymore, and you just can't imagine a world without this thing that you currently love.

I guess if that day comes I'll deal with it then.

Right now I'm going to go curl up in bed with my iPod and headphones and listen to the album again. But for the uninitiated, here's the 1 2 3 4 video and the Making Of video in that order. These aren't the official videos (embedding is disabled on them), go directly to http://www.listentofeist.com/video to see more "official" content.

Oh, and I love this one too... again one shot, again makes me jump around just watching it.

I Feel It All

5 Years

So 5 years ago today I had my first day of sobriety in 20 some years. I actually had my last drink on the 9th, was still drunk on the 10th, so I settled on calling the 11th my anniversary. That and 7/11 is easier to remember and an unusually lucky combination.

And this morning I had another thought: I totaled my car on the 9th hitting bottom, spent the 10th in a very bad place, and then was reborn into my new self on the 11th. There's a certain biblical pattern to that... hmmm.

Despite the fact that it was my "Easter" today, I didn't really do much to celebrate. I spent some time reflecting and even went back and read some of the emails from concerned friends 5 years ago. I got a few emails from friends congratulating me and send them emails back. I think that was enough.

I'd like to get a 5 year AA medallion  and thought about going to a meeting today but since I haven't gone for over a year I feel a little sheepish in showing up now (I'll still go, don't think that'll stop me). It's something I've been meaning to get back to for a while now. It has always felt a little awkward attending meetings, even those I went to regularly, but maybe things will be different, I think I've changed a more than a little over the last year.

So this is the first day of my sixth year of sobriety! Life is much different now than it was then and that is a blessing. Yeah me!

Dilbert is Funny

And it's about particle physics too...

Woody Allen is Funny

I don't care what anyone thinks, I love Woody Allen. I stumbled upon these one day when I was looking for YouTube content. They are from his album Stand Up Comic, which I've been listening to since High School. The first clip starts with Mechanical Objects, best punch line ever. Don't think, don't watch, just listen...