I apologize in advance for this very long posting, but a really special person has died so please indulge me. High school was a time that I was really glad to put behind me. I felt that I just didn’t fit in anywhere, that I had somehow been defined by someone somewhere as a certain kind of person, and there was no breaking free of that definition until I got the hell out of there. I couldn’t wait to shake the dust of high school off my shoes, head off to college and find out what they knew, and then move on to work, a family of my own, and whatever else I could claim for myself in life. Of course, I had my own circle of close friends in high school, and some of those are among the people in my life that I still hold most dear. Back then we shared some half-formed world view and since then we have been in and out of each others lives enough to know that we’re like family, always there for each other in ways that really can’t even be adequately expressed, let alone explained. That was a group that I never wanted to lose touch with and, of course, I worked to maintain those connections until no more work was necessary. But, for me at least, there was another group of people in high school that I knew I would miss when that part of my life was over. These were people that I was not especially close to, who had their own priorities and their own close friends, but who I was pretty sure saw past all the clique definitions and saw everyone around them as individuals with their own worth. They were the ones that made the otherwise miserable experience of high school so much more tolerable. They didn’t do anything all that special. They just threw you a smile every so often that made you think you were just fine in their eyes and that there was fun to be had, joy to be experienced. One of those people for me was Dave Hartung, and he died yesterday. There was a picture in our yearbook of Dave on stage, appearing to prance along its edge with a flower in his teeth. Dave was a big guy, but very graceful, and in that picture he had a glint in his eye that was seemingly always there. When I first saw that picture way back when, I thought, Yes!, that’s Dave! Over the years I would occasionally hear someone say that Dave was a chef, that he was on television now and then, that he was the Governor’s chef, that he was married and had a couple of kids, and so on, and it made me happy to hear all that. He was a nice guy, the kind that you wanted good things for. And then, sometime after I first got on Facebook, I had a “friend request” from him and eagerly accepted it. He soon posted a message that read something like, “Hey, for those who don’t know, I was in a car accident and am now paralyzed. I’m not telling you this to find any sympathy; it is what it is and I’m making the best I can out of life.” I really can’t remember the exact context of that post, but I was knocked back by it. But then Dave started posting other comments, and they were just like the guy I had known in high school, full of joy, and that glint in his eye somehow came through in the words he posted here. I got to see him at a reunion or two and he came rolling up to me in his motorized wheel chair, looking at me with that same look he always had, and as he flashed me a smile behind his sunglasses he made me feel like getting a few minutes to talk to me was one of the reasons it had been important for him to be there. I don’t flatter myself by thinking that Dave really came to any reunion specifically to see me. Instead, I think he had that rare ability to be completely in the moment so that, for a minute or two, you *became* the reason he was there. You were his focus, and he was damned glad to be there with you at that moment, and he made sure you knew that spending time with you had made his day better. I got the feeling that he felt that each and every person he knew somehow made his LIFE better, and I was envious of him for that. What a gift. In our last conversation we promised each other we would get together for dinner sometime. And just yesterday I was describing Dave to some friends of mine and saying that I planned to surprise him with a visit today, hoping maybe I could make him feel a little better as he recovered from a broken femur that had landed him in the rehab facility once again. My plan was to set a date for that dinner, and to offer to smuggle some good food into the rehab center if he would just tell me what he wanted and where to get it. I feel so empty knowing that will never happen, and if I can feel this bereft, I can only imagine how Cindy, Tom, Joe, Ani, and so many others who were his real friends must be feeling right now, let alone his own kids and the rest of his family. This world has lost a really bright light and for now, I can only curse the darkness. I have lived long enough to know that soon enough I will be celebrating the light that Dave cast, and still casts, in the hearts of all who knew him. When that happens he will ease our load again, just as he did for me so many years ago. But for now, I can only feel that sense of loss. I miss you Dave, more than you could have known. And I bet there are many more like me, people you didn’t really know all that well but who you touched just by being so completely yourself...
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 14:53:32 +0000