To Everything, There is a Season...

Today´s post goes out to Nicholas Michael Bourassa: a good friend and neighbor who left us six months ago today.  

It was already a heavy week when the news of his death reached me.  The aunt of one of my best friends in Peru had recently been killed and I had spent the majority of the week prior in Talara sitting through burial preparations, family arrivals from Lima and all of the various stages and formalities of a Catholic funeral.  I mostly just lingered around waiting for Luchito to have a spare second when we could steal him away from the sadness for a few moments of laughter and an empanada or two.  Later, he would thank us for being the only glimmers of hope and happiness in the wake of the most shocking and traumatic loss his family had ever suffered.

 On that particular day, I had spent the majority of my afternoon running around Talara trying to hunt down lice shampoo and popcorn kernals in 100-degree weather.  Nico texted me to tell me that he and Emi had nabbed the last two spots in the combi so I knew I´d be cutting it close in terms of getting back to Lobitos before the kids´ film festival.  Somewhere between my lice treatment and running down to L.C.P. headquarters to make palomitas for 100 kids in a pan that was comically small, I checked into my facebook and found a message from Jeff.  He had sent me a link to an article in an Orange County newspaper.  I clicked it to read a vague description of a young man who was fatally injured after being hit by a car on the freeway.  I barely had time to process it between the ticking clock and my itchy head so I shouted goodbye to Mari and ran out the door to find Emi and get ready for the event.

As we stood over the tiny gas stove in her kitchen, already popping batch five or six out of a dozen or so pans of popcorn, I told Emi that I had recently gotten word that a good friend from college had passed away.  Her shock overshadowed mine.  Between scratching our heads and finding the humor in the horror of having contracted head lice for the first time in our adults lives, we shared a somber moment for sad news sent from far away…a reality we both know all too well.

The film festival was a hit.  As usual, any stress or sadness I was feeling was squeezed out of my lungs by the hugs of many beautiful little friends.  All mental energy was channeled into entertaining them, distributing snacks and preventing the event from erupting into total and complete chaos.  An impromptu game of duck, duck goose (pato, pato, ganso) kept them entertained long enough to clean up after the event and we even managed to keep them (mostly) quiet long enough for Nico to introduce the videos.

When the crowd thinned out, I headed up to La Casona where my girlfriends had gathered to have a few beers.  I wasn´t up for it.  I hadn´t eaten all day and hunger and sadness were starting to creep in.  I snuck off towards the only store that was still open to buy a massive bag of fried banana chips.  As the grease settled into my stomach, I stomped on thorns and wandered in the direction of the sea.  I kicked off my flip-flops and let my feet carry me to the water.  I flopped down to my knees at the shoreline and let myself cry.  I gave myself up to whatever it was that I was feeling: confusion, anger, hunger and overwhelming loss. 

Everything felt surreal; I had never felt the presence of death all around me as much as I did during those weeks.  It seemed like all of my expat girlfriends had also gotten unexpected news of freak deaths from home.  One of the sweetest men I know had recently run over and killed my best friend's puppy after a particularly rowdy Corrazón Serrano concert and, back in Lakeside, my own family was torn up after the sudden death of my nephew's 20 year-old cousin who was killed in a car crash in Hemit just ten days before.

I looked up at the gorgeous night sky at a billion stars that stared down at me, unpolluted by city lights.  I gave myself the time to think about Nick and our big back porch at Gustafson apartments. There, we shared war stories and confessions over Sierra Nevada Pale Ales.  The porch connected our two little apartments which we shared with our respective partners. We wandered out when we needed to and sat on the steps for fresh air, perspective and cigarettes.  The back yard was filled with raccoons, the smell of orange blossoms and ferel cats.  Though we were a strange little community, we always had each other’s backs. 

Together, we protected our apartment bike rack from theft (the number one crime in Chico, California).  Joe's moms warded off the evil spirits with some kind of séance ritual, the smoke of which was visible from our perch on the porch steps.  Mattie did his part to feed Orangey who had been abandoned by her alcoholic mother Paula when she was dragged off to rehab.  Being the nurturing soul he was, he felt it was only fair after he had lucked out and scored an apartment so close to two of his best friends.

Nick and I kept our cats (Nico and Gizmo) indoors in our respective apartments, away from the perils of Chico alley cat life.  When I shipped out to Chile, I left Jeff in Nick's care.  They became gym buddies, pizza partners and eventually, best friends.

Nick was no stranger to death.  After serving in Iraq, he knew it well.  He showed me the scars left on his flesh by roadside bombs and talked about the deaths of his comrades casually.  The only thing that really got him teary-eyed was talking about his little girl Melanie, who he didn't get to see as often as he would have liked to.  He was honest and sincere, tough but not too tough to admit his mistakes and ask for forgiveness.  Ironically our friendship actually began with an apology.

A few days ago, I found a photo of the program from his funeral on his facebook.  It reads, 

"To everything there is a season 
and a time to every purpose under heaven.  
A time to be born and a time to die."

 Be it a hard pill to swallow that a twenty-five year old veteran’s “time to die” was on the side of an Orange County freeway, crushed by a reckless driver, fairness was never something that death took into consideration.  Be it by way of cancer, stroke, shark attack, old age, parachutes that don't open or grenades thrown through bedroom windows, death isn't something that is earned or deserved.  It just is.

As you may have noticed, I am on a bit of a Passenger kick these days and I thought today would be a good day to dedicate this song to Nick, a man who understood that life is for living.  I hope you will all take five minutes to listen to the lyrics of this song and let them sink in.  At the risk of sounding both morbid and cliché, we really don't know which day will be our last so make sure you're doing things right, saying what you need to say and living and loving with all you've got.  Do it for the ones that aren't here anymore to do it themselves.  

RIP Nicky boy, we love you man.  

 

"Well grey clouds wrapped round the town like elastic 

Cars stood like toys made of Taiwanese plastic 

The boy laughed and danced around in the rain 

While laundrettes cleaned clothes, high heals rub toes 

Puddles splashed huddles of bus stop crows 

Dressed in their suits and their boots, they all look the same 

I took myself down to the cafe to find all the boys lost in books and crackling vinyl 

And I carved out a poem above the urinal that read: 

Don’t you cry for the lost 

Smile for the living 

Get what you need and give what you’re given 

Life’s for the living so live it..."