Someone set up a Facebook page after Dave’s death so people could share memories, photos, videos. There was a discussion board, and it only took a little more than a week for people to start fighting—over who he had been really, his faith or lack of faith, what he thought of the church, what he would want for people to think and do after his death. This is what you become, apparently, when you choose to die young, a topic for discussion, everyone’s story. Some people were offended at the memorial service when the pastor began to talk about God, about Heaven and Hell and how to live and what Dave did right and what he’d done wrong. I read the transcript, and I can understand. It was heavy-handed, and while I didn’t technically disagree with what he said, I was a little put off by how it had been said. I know the pastor meant well, though, know his heart was in the right place. How do you preach at a funeral like that one? I mean, really, is there anything to say, is there any right word, is there any appropriate sentence?

What bothered me, and what bothered me about the discussion board, was that in those words Dave became an object lesson. An example, a warning. Dave wasn’t a lesson. He was a boy, he loved music, he had a girlfriend, he was going through something heavier than we can imagine. He was just a boy.

I think if someone is going to see Dave as a warning, they’ll see the warning without being told. If they’re going to see something in his life that screams at them turn around, they’ll know it, they’ll hear it, they don’t need anyone to point it out.

And all this focus on the actions, the drugs, it just seems misplaced. Turn your life around, get off drugs, stop the manic lifestyle, the painkillers and second-hand smoke. I don’t think Jesus came to give us advice so we could live our neat little lives a little more well adjusted. He didn’t come to make us better Americans, to keep us off drugs, to get us to wear cute little acronym bracelets. He came to have a relationship with us. Isn’t that it? Isn’t that enough? To show a deeper reality, to open up possibilities and activate senses long dulled, to say things silence never would. The possibility of a clear conscience and a broken heart, the duality of joy and sorrow, life more abundant. I just want to scream, it’s not about cocaine or the absence of cocaine, and staying off drugs will never be enough, and doing the right things at the right times will never be enough, and living the “Christian life” will never be enough, and keeping the grass mowed and going on a mission trip and not being racist and saying hi to your neighbor, it’s never going to be enough by itself. It’s not the point.

I didn’t chime in on the message boards because I didn’t feel it’s my place. He wasn’t my friend, though I am mourning his death. I have no claim on him, do not know his family, have only second-hand memories, have only what he was to Jesse. But I do wish I could say, enough, let Dave be Dave, let him be complicated, let him be the unanswered question. Can we stop pretending this is simple? Can we stop pretending life is black and white, that God doesn’t color outside the lines sometimes? Can we stop acting like doubt has no part in faith?

I’ve now picked a squash, a massive zucchini, and five cherry tomatoes from the garden. (Plus basil and parsley, as needed.) The rosemary didn’t make it, and the cilantro has already flowered, that pesky stuff.

A little while ago, I made an organic fertilizer mix that I sprayed into the garden. This fertilizer required a can of beer. So, there I was in Wal-Mart in the middle of a Tuesday, buying the cheapest can of beer I could find. I’ve never felt so white trash in my life. It was a giant can of beer, too. One of those frat boy cans of beer. I had to call Sharon to ask what size a normal can of beer was, since this one seemed so big… I didn’t want to double the recipe unknowingly. We decided I should use half the can.

Buying a bottle of wine is one thing. Buying a can of beer in the Leland Wal-Mart on a Tuesday afternoon is quite another. I mean, it’s not like anyone could think, she’s having a party. No, it was, she’s buying herself a giant man can of beer at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Oh, what I do for my vegetable garden…

Clarification: To understand this, make sure you’ve read these posts first: This one, and this one. I am not thinking about baby names because I am pregnant or hoping to be. It’s actually rather sad. So. Anyway.

One of the first things Jesse and I ever agreed upon was what we’d name a son if we had one. David. We had years and years before sons would be actual concerns, but even before we started dating, we both knew what our “boy name” would be. When Jesse and I first started dating, we’d talk for hours and hours on the phone, about anything, everything. Baby names seemed as good a topic as any. We were sixteen and seventeen, and there’s something about the telephone that’s a little magical at that age. I hate telephones now and much prefer email. But that summer, it was rare we were without a phone pressed against our ears (thank Heaven we didn’t own cell phones yet–can you imagine?).

David is my brother’s name, and this was years ago, back when we still saw him every now and then, when he’d call Dad on weekends. I admired him more than just about anyone on the planet. Now, he doesn’t call, he’s hiding out somewhere in California, and who knows what he’s into, who he’s with, how many children he has. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I have a brother; sometimes it doesn’t feel like I do. But I still love the name, and somehow the bittersweet association adds depth to it–maybe it’s a little hope for redemption, a little bit of a second chance.

And on Jesse’s end of it, two reasons. First, because in the Bible, King David’s father was named Jesse. The name David is mentioned more than any other name in the Bible except for Jesus. David was flawed and imperfect, but more than anything else he loved God, and isn’t that the point, wasn’t his good made more realistic by his bad.

And second, because of Dave Rask. One of the most talented musicians Jesse’s ever known, one of the sweetest people. Someone who always had a kind smile, who could have been arrogant but wasn’t. So quiet, impossibly quiet. But such a good person. Who better to name a son after.

Now, the name has taken yet another meaning, another dimension, a tribute of sorts, a memorial, a meaning we never could have guessed a decade ago, talking on the phone, thinking we knew exactly how things would work out.

Dave Rask

Ed McMahon

Farrah Fawcett

Michael Jackson

Billy Mays

Jesse’s friend from Texas committed suicide last week. We found out on our way to Luke and Jamie’s wedding on Saturday, one of the hottest days of the year so far. There were no details then, nothing to say. As the shock wears off, the news gets heavier. The way he died was extremely violent. There are too many gaps, too many pieces of missing information.Why was he left alone? Where did he get the gasoline? Was it a match, a cigarette lighter? And all things in between.

I finished We the Living today and was just beside myself, considering what’s been on my mind since the weekend. I knew what had to happen, but mentally I was just begging the book to be different, to end differently. Oh, please, please, end differently. I guess there are so many endings we wish were different. But this book, this book I knew wouldn’t end well but I wanted to rip out the end and replace it with a new one, and until the very last page I held out hope for better.

Last night we ate fried cornbread and drank little glasses of milk before bed and we talked about him, about the years, and it was so quiet in the house. Earlier, I had cried, had begged Jesse to know how much I loved him, because when one person dies everyone could die, everyone is just impossibly fragile and temporary.

Tonight, I watched old home movies, Christmas in West Virginia, playing hide-and-seek with Uncle Gene. Who is that little person with the long dark hair and the tiny, shrill West Virginia accent? I don’t have that voice anymore.

That’s all. Just a series of images, a line of thought that makes sense in my head and falls apart on the page. But that’s fine, that’s fine with me. The dots don’t always connect. We don’t always get the ending we’d hoped for.

Have any of you ever owned or slept on a futon? We’re in the market for one, and we might be having a long-term guest, so I need it to be comfortable. Of course, since we are kind of poor, I also need it to be affordable. Any ideas or suggestions?

So, as I’ve recently come to the realization that life doesn’t end at twenty-six, I’ve been attempting to act like it. Thus, the solo beach trip on Monday “just because. ” Then Monday evening Jesse and I went to a graduation party for a guy he works with. A high school graduation party. My only really “old” moment was when I mentally estimated one of the kids’ ages to be fourteen and later found out he had just graduated high school. And then I thought, oh dear heavens, this child is going to college. He probably drove himself here. Were we all that young at eighteen? Anyway, we all played Catchphrase, and got noisy. Jesse and I were only two of three people attending who had heard the word “trifecta.”

Then last night Jesse and I went to Overflow, our church’s mid-week thing for college students and twentysomethings. I had never gone before, since I didn’t feel I fit the demographic, but last night they had free food and you know Jesse and I will eat anything free right now. So, we ate the free food and watched an auditorium full of people playing dodgeball like their lives depended on it. And it was fun. (Except when a stray ball hit my head. Even though I was sitting quite far from the action. That wasn’t so fun.) It made me realize that I can still fit in that demographic. I’m still a twentysomething, for crying out loud. I’m not thirty yet (and even then–our friend Stewart, who’s in his thirties, came by last night too and he fit right in, so apparently fun doesn’t have to stop at thirty either). I may be married, I may have a mortgage and a yard, but I can still watch a game of dodgeball, I can still stay up late and play games and act silly and laugh a little too loudly.

I was talking to Beth on the phone yesterday, and we were talking about purpose, about direction. I told her I didn’t want to get to the end of my life and say, “Well, I paid all my bills on time.” (Although I do have a certain affection for paying my bills on time and have no intention of stopping.) I want to have something a little more important to say. Not that I have to be an important person or do important things. But I want what I do to matter.

These are the two elements for me, in regaining my footing in this quarterlife thing. Recapturing a sense of fun, of spontaneity and lightheartedness. And refocusing my efforts, regaining hope and vision and purpose. I finally feel I’m getting traction on both elements.

This is getting good.