Drinking gin & tonic and taking pictures in a hayfield. Angers 2008.
I’m drinking a gin and tonic. I don’t usually drink cocktails during the week, but yesterday, while I played Wii at a friends house, or while I fucked around on Facebook, or maybe while I thought angry thoughts about my husband and my family for sticking around the house making noise and watching television when I had planned to work on my degree essay, my friend Charles hit a hole on a highway in South Africa and lost control of the car. He hit a tree, and died.
I’m trying to convince myself that this has actually happened. Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself that it hasn’t actually happened. Whatever I’m doing, it’s not working.
I should tell you our history with Charles, I suppose, but at this moment, everything I could tell you about how we’ve known each other over the last 15 years or so seems pretty inadequate. I could tell you, for instance, about how when I was pregnant with Meena, Charles and some of his LSU crew, who are grieving with me right now, drove 90 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans for my baby shower. For his shower gift, Charles brought my as-yet unborn daughter a gigantic book about civil engineering. You know, the physics of how bridge spans work and such. It was perfect, of course.
I could also tell you how, two summers ago we stayed up all night in Tossa del Mar, talking philosophically about the future and exploring the castle fort at 3am–and how we hit every fucking flamenco bar in town.
I could tell you how Charles loved Jazz Fest, and when Rod and I lived in Bayou St. John, our house served as Jazz Fest base camp. Charles showed up armed with a straw hat, a map, and a schedule he’d cut out of the Times Picayune all marked up with highlighting and notes. He had his musical enjoyment planned pretty much down to the minute. There was room in his schedule for contingencies, of course, and he had marked those contingencies accordingly. With notes. And arrows. On anyone else, this kind of fastidious planning could have been annoying, but Charles had that shit so dialed you were just grateful to be a part of it. Here’s a litte ditty he wrote up for someone he didn’t even know, about what to do in Barcelona. Read it, even if you’re never going to Barcelona, because if you read it, it’s like listening to him talk, and he was a real good talker. Charles could always be counted on to enhance your experience—whether with his planning or his presence—and he just always made me feel like: thank God for Charles.
And he was so fucking smart. So effortlessly, unbelievably smart. He was good at math, and history–he wrote a bit, too–his blog is here. He would do things like buy the exact camera I would have recommended, tell fascinating stories about how the French buried the stained glass windows in Chartres Cathedral during the war, and learn new languages seemingly by osmosis. He mixed a mean cocktail; he knew his way around the grill. He was generous and kind and built like a sturdy bear. He had a smile that touched your whole heart.
Oh, Charles.
And how that Charles loves our Stephanie. He loves her, and she him, and their love is a presence that makes me want to live up to it. I won’t write about their love in the past tense, people, because love lives on. As a matter of fact, it’s all we really have.
Today, when I talked to Stephanie on the phone, she was as you might imagine a person who has just had her very life snatched away might be. She wanted him to come home; she didn’t know what to tell Anselm; she needed Charles to hold her and help her through this. About this—about the pain that my friend has to endure—I don’t know what to say. I want to shake something, break something—I want to fucking rip the fabric of the very planet apart this shit is so wrong. It’s wrong that Anselm should be born to the sweetest daddy a boy could hope for, and then not get to know him his whole life long. It’s wrong that Stephanie has to raise her child without Charles by her side, without him holding her hand and sharing her joy, and helping her.
And as much as we, and anyone who knew Charles can give Anselm, or as much as we can tell him about his father, it’s not enough. It’s not the same. It’s so fucking inadequate. All evening long, since my children came home and began cutting up, like they do, every little bit of joy they brought me, every smile I’ve given them, has cost me. Why me and not Stephanie? It doesn’t feel so good, to be home with my family tonight while she is on a plane to South Africa, steeling herself for what’s ahead.
And so, I am drinking. Here’s to Charles. It may not be the healthiest response, but it’s what I’m doing to get through. Hold your loved ones close tonight, okay? Appreciate what you’ve been given. Do it for Stephanie, and for Anselm, and for Charles, and remember: life is precious and beautiful, and oh, oh so fragile.
