{"id":2141,"date":"2015-03-15T21:27:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T02:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sparetherock.com\/wordpress\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2015-03-15T21:27:11","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T02:27:11","slug":"eric-brown-memories-longer-than-the-road-that-stretches-out-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparetherock.com\/wordpress\/ramblings\/eric-brown-memories-longer-than-the-road-that-stretches-out-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Brown: Memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"eric\"<\/a>Last week’s show<\/a> was all about friendship, and, as some of you know, that’s because I was heading to Minnesota to be with my friend Eric (pictured, left) as he reached the end of his life.<\/p>\n

As I posted on Facebook, I told Eric that I was there with many many other people in spirit, hovering behind me. \u00a0The stuff below (posted with Lisa’s permission) is largely for those hoverers, to try to help them know more about the end of Eric’s remarkable life, but it’s also a way to share with more people the amazing life of an amazing man. \u00a0His obituary<\/a> tells much more about his professional life, helping countless veterans, and you should read that\u00a0too.<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m starting this document on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. I\u2019ll be getting on a plane at a stupidly early time tomorrow to go up to Minnesota; Eric will be taken off of his ventilator on Thursday afternoon. He will probably die before I leave on Friday. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to do anything with this, but I wanted to get some thoughts down.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

I told Ella last night that I think Eric\u2019s dying is to me something like what my dad\u2019s dying was like to her. (She was 10 when he died.) When my dad died, it was shocking and awful and devastating to me, but at some level, it wasn\u2019t surprising. He was 73 and, while I hoped he\u2019d be around a lot longer, and he certainly had more good things to do and good thoughts to think, nobody looks shocked when a 73-year-old dies.<\/p>\n

Except that\u2019s not true for grandkids. His death came out of nowhere for them, and Ella, being the oldest of the grandkids, might have been immediately impacted more through sheer awareness. It just wasn\u2019t fair, or right, or sensible that her Granddaddy was dying.<\/p>\n

Eric\u2019s my age. He\u2019s got kids younger than my kids. And so, even though we\u2019ve known that this was coming for Eric for a couple of years, it still feels like the rug is being pulled out from under Eric, and Lisa, and the kids, and us all. It isn\u2019t fair, or right, or sensible that he\u2019s dying, any more than it was when David Banigan-White died<\/a>.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
\nGently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
\nQuietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
\nI know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dirge Without Music)<\/p>\n

I suppose quoting that poem is on par with reading the \u201cLove is patient\u201d Corinthians verses and having the Pachelbel Canon at your wedding. (We did both. \u00a0Go ahead, judge.) But there it is, saying what I want to say, better than I can say it.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n

Eric told me when I was visiting a couple of months ago that he sometimes worried that his girls wouldn\u2019t remember him. He knew rationally that they would, but the fear would sneak up on him. I asked if I could write to them about him, and this is what I sent to him to pass along to them.<\/p>\n

Dear Vica & Kaia:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about your dad lately. \u00a0He mentioned that it\u2019d be okay for me to write some of that down and send it along to y\u2019all. \u00a0(I live in Texas now, so I get to use the word \u201cy\u2019all.\u201d \u00a0You probably shouldn\u2019t unless you want your Minnesotan friends to look at you funny.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known Eric since I guess 10th grade. \u00a0(That makes it almost thirty years now.) \u00a0He played French horn in the full orchestra (I played violin), and we crossed paths in various nerdy activities (this probably doesn’t surprise you). \u00a0Among other things, we both took tests well so we ended up as National Merit semifinalists:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"NatMerit\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We hung out a fair amount in high school — Eric played in a band that played in the Battle of the Bands that I helped run, and we just ended up in many of the same places, classes, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eric started off at Hamline University for college, as you might know, and then took some time off for health reasons. \u00a0After that, he lived in my parents’ house for a while — I don’t actually remember how long, but maybe a month or so? \u00a0Right around that same time, I decided to take the second semester off of my first year and so I had to move off campus. \u00a0And that was when Eric was looking to move back into St. Paul. \u00a0So, in January of 1990, we both moved into 1598 Dayton Avenue in St. Paul, in the far right apartment on the first floor:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"1598\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was…an adventure. \u00a0The apartment itself was nice enough, though we had some neighbors with, uh, sanitation problems, leading to there being perhaps more roaches than you’d want. \u00a0The back porch had bright green astroturf on the floor, for indeterminate reasons. \u00a0And it had no dishwasher, but it did have a trash compactor for reasons that pass understanding. \u00a0But it had a couple of bedrooms, everything worked, the landlords were nice, and it was cheap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We got a cat (Trillian, pictured below, along with us and Rogers, in Rhiannon’s room), and another cat (Ione). \u00a0Trillian was smart and mildly sociopathic; Ione was very sweet. \u00a0Rocket scientist? \u00a0No. \u00a0But sweet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That summer, I worked in Tennessee and our friend Rhiannon (whom I was then dating) lived in the apartment over the summer. \u00a0I think some other people might have been living there too. \u00a0In any event, your dad and Rhiannon looked to see if they could find a bigger place, unsuccessfully, so that fall we also took over the neighboring apartment, converting its living room into a bedroom. \u00a0We added more people at that point – Jim & Kim, Rogers at some point, maybe others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That fall, we initially thought we were going to rent the house at 1650 Dayton Avenue, just down the street, and then it turned out that the potential landlord was not successful at buying it, so my mom and I did and we all moved down the street one very cold day. \u00a0(The cold, it turns out, was a good thing, as we could leave all of our stuff outside overnight and kill the cockroaches, other than one \u00fcber-cockroach that we found a good while later.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dorm\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019m honestly pretty bad at remembering specific things; Rhiannon is better at that and I bet she\u2019s doing something like this too. \u00a0But we lived in that house, with that core group, from late 1990 through sometime in 1994 (when Dena and I got married and the various roommates moved out). \u00a0People who lived there for various times: me, Eric, Rogers, Rhiannon, Jim, Kim, Dena, Scott Keever, Steve Bucheck, Britta Gustavson, Tom Flood, Judah something-or-other, and I\u2019m sure some other people I can\u2019t think of.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some things I remember:<\/p>\n