What Lasts

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 12 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I’ve written since 1997. Enjoy.

The death of my friend Russell Shaw was one of those events which happens to everyone, the kind of event which forces you to re-assess your own life and path.

Sudden death can come to any of us, at any time, in any way. As we age, heart attacks become quite popular.

I still remember my trip to Japan, almost 20 years ago now, for the Electronic Networking Association. We were given a banquet in Sendai, copious amounts of sake, which caused me to pass out. When I awoke I learned that one of our party had stayed with the festivities, agreeing to join his hosts for a Japanese-style bath, many degrees hotter than an American hot tub. And there, his heart stopped. He was pretty old, I thought later, 53.

I’m 53 now. And Russell was 60.

His death hit me hard because, truth to tell, Russell was more like
me than anyone I know. We were both obsessive about the same work,
journalism. We were both loners by nature, both worriers. Both, when
left on our own, a bit sloppy and disorganized.

But there was a big difference between us, and her name is Jenni. I
was lucky enough to find Jenni when she was a college freshman, and I a
college junior. We fell in love around the same time. She insists she
was first. I’ll let her think that.

Jenni and I have been together, as much as possible, since September
14, 1975. We were married late in 1977, because her parents could get
her through college and my j-school teacher had told me emphatically
"if you want to make a good living, find a spouse with a good job."

It’s not the job that makes our life together meaningful. It’s our
love. We waited a decade before having kids, and the oldest is now 20.
I see aspects of myself in her, and aspects of Jenni as well. As we
both do with our son. They are now, both, seeking their paths in life,
both still living at home, chomping at the bit of life, getting ready
to try out their wings.

My chief wish for both is they find someone as fine as my Jenni to care about them.

Russell missed all this. Partly it was the nature of his career arc
— he started writing about music, went into business freelancing, and
gradually drifted toward my beat of technology. Partly it was Russell
himself. He was gruff, highly opinionated, a solitary soul seemingly
destined for singleness. In his last years he had a girlfriend, named
Ellen, whom I will meet for the first time (sadly) at his funeral on
Sunday. I pray they had joy.

There’s another big difference between us.

I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. Jenni says I notice every ache and
pain, even the imaginary ones. I exercise every day, I try to watch
what I eat, and I take my medicines. I do this, in part, to lengthen my
life with her. But I also inherited, from my dad, an intense awareness
of my own physicality. The night Russell died I shot up awake, in a
full-blown panic attack. That’s when I wrote the piece about Hillary
Clinton and the mourning process of her supporters.

Still, even hypochondriacs die. Time wounds all heals. When my time comes what will abide — what lasts?

I’m too realistic to think this work will last. I have tried, in my
writing, to push history forward a little bit, by peering over the edge
of time and seeing how change happens. I am constantly looking ahead,
urging people on, and sometimes they go that way, but usually they
don’t.

I have, like Russell, written for a lot of newspapers and magazines,
but most of my work has disappeared. My early stuff is upstairs, on
floppy disks, turning into rust. Or it’s on fading, yellowing paper. I
have done some books, but they’re not important.

Instead I have become increasingly defiant about this medium, the
Internet, about developing its voice and exploring its nuances. I am
proud to note that much of my earliest work, with Newsbytes and the
ENA, still lives online. Some of it, like The Interactive Age Daily,
has been aggressively erased by my former employers, but most of it
survives. I no longer worry, as I once did, that no great books are out
there with my name on them. My hope is that this medium will make us
all immortal, thanks to caching and copying, that centuries from now
some of what we said here can still be found.

But if all you leave behind is work and some loved ones, what kind of legacy is that?

I was greatly humbled at the start of this year, attending my father-in-law’s funeral.
He left money, and work and loved ones, sure. But he left his imprint
on literally thousands of other lives as well. As a school
superintendent for over a quarter century he brought education to a
side of town that might not have gotten it otherwise. He found ways and
means to bring money into Hispanic communities others hadn’t thought
of, and spent it all wisely. He touched so many people, not just as
teachers or students but as a friend, a man who could make the
bureaucracy work for other people and went into action because it was
just the right thing to do. He didn’t waste a moment of the 88 years
God gave him, always expressing the solid Texas values he was born to.

That’s what saddens me most about Russell’s passing, and perhaps my
own as well. True greatness lies in touching as many people as
you can, giving back all the gifts you get, and in trying to make a positive difference in others’ lives, every day
that you live.

That’s also a good definition of happiness.

Was Russell happy? He seldom expressed happiness to me. He kept his
head down in what he did, and otherwise mainly kept to himself. I like
to think he was happy, especially after moving to Portland.

But I can learn a lesson from this, and you can too. What lasts is
what seems so ephemeral in life, the things you do for other people.
What lasts are the small assists you give, whenever you can give them,
to anyone who reaches out to you. What lasts is the example you set,
and the lessons you teach, and the hope you bring.

Living for others is the key to a meaningful and happy life. Learn
that now, practice it, and your funeral too can be a time for
celebration.