Saturday, February 15, 2014

Momento Vivere


Len and Tessa

It's a really strange thing to lose track of friends these days, especially given the over-exposure we indulge via social media. But it happens right under our noses all the time. Last night I was thinking about Len, a friend from North Carolina I hadn't heard from in a while, so I Googled him. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I'd learn unwelcome news by pointing search engines at old friends, but I wasn't prepared for the dozens of results detailing Len's brutal murder, and it's aftermath in the little town where we were neighbors. Did Google get the wrong Len Willson? Did I forget the double "L" in his last name?  A fresh search reaffirmed his death with precision. It happened just over three years ago during a home invasion. Len was beaten to death with a shovel and a pitch fork by a teenage boy he'd been mentoring. He was 53. The assumption I had that he was still out there, available for me to reconnect with was betrayed by ugly facts on my screen. But there it was. Three and a half years had passed since my friend was killed, but for me, Len died last night. Somehow none of our friends from that little town had mentioned it.  Was it such big news they had assumed I knew? Or was the burden of repeating the story to someone who moved away not worth the emotional investment?

In corralling these thoughts into something of a eulogy, I sought more information about Len's background, but mostly what I kept finding were details about the young men charged with his murder. I can sympathize with the rage that survivors of psychopaths and mass shooters feel when they see so much attention given to the perpetrators. It perpetuates the power they hold over our imaginations. Instead I want this to be about Len, but I'm left with little besides my own anecdotes and fading memories to build you a picture.

Fate double-crossed Len a long time ago. For starters he was wheelchair-bound by the time we met, paralyzed from the waist down by an auto accident when he was 22. Determined to live on his own, Len bought a historic fixer-upper on the waterfront in Bath, North Carolina, just across the street from Kae and I. We got to know each other while walking our dogs. Occasionally I would go over to Len's place to hang out since he couldn't negotiate the stairs to get into our house. The first couple of times I visited I was disoriented by the look of his home. What first appeared a cluttered mess turned out to be an efficient system for negotiating his belongings. Everything was low to the ground and arranged by function, with wide areas of access for his wheelchair. Nothing was put away in a cabinet or closet. Cookware, cups and plates were all set out on the countertops for ease of access. It took a while for the order of it all to become apparent to me.

The strongest impression Len made on those he knew, and even among many he didn't know well, was the intentionality and self-reliance with which he lived his life – more so than most able-bodied people I know. While his lower half was all but useless to him, his upper body took up the slack. He gardened, fished, cooked all his own meals, read voraciously, and biked all over the backroads of Beaufort County on his hand-cranked recumbent bicycle. When I asked why he never wore a helmet he squinted at me for a moment, and then with the slightest smile said "Because I'm already paralyzed." 

Whatever frustrations Len endured as a paraplegic, much of that energy got refocused on external causes. He taught English as a Second Language at the local community college and was an active member on the town's Board of Adjustments. He also mentored youth in the community. At home, he was endlessly figuring out how to do things by himself. When his companion dog Tessa developed advanced hip dysplasia, Len fixed the old Belgian Shepherd up with a wheeled harness for her back legs so the two of them could still go on "walks" together. The image of them out rolling around the streets of Bath was a curiosity to some, but to me it expressed a kind of sacred love and perfection between two wounded companions. The kind of sacred that will nonetheless make you smile.

Sometime after 10 pm on the night of October 5, 2010, two teenage boys broke into Len Willson's residence while he was home. One of them was a sixteen year old with a troubled history whom Len had mentored and employed doing odd jobs. They met through the boy's mother, when Len taught her English. She thought that maybe Len could help straighten her son out. The boy saw things differently and eventually decided to rob Len. Whatever the intruders intended when they broke in that night, things got nightmarishly out of control. The 16 year old set to work beating Len to death with nearby garden tools. He later confessed that he did it because he "needed to put Willson to sleep." And while it would be a small comfort to hope Len died quickly, the medical examiner's report indicated that was not the case. Len fought to defend himself, but he was a middle aged man in a wheelchair. An easy target. His cause of death was blunt trauma to the head. The local District Attorney said it was the most brutal beating he had ever seen in his 23 year career.

Vexed. It's an old-fashioned word, but it comes closest to describing the mess of emotional and cognitive chaos I feel when trying to wring any meaning out of this. Vexation refers to a type of distressing puzzlement, a harassment of the soul. It forces unanswerable questions. Why did this kid turn on the man who reached out to him? Why didn't any of the neighbors hear? How could a loving god, or a benign 'universe" have failed to step in on Len's behalf? Having grown up in the evangelical Christian church during the Kumbaya era, I have this lingering image of a deity who takes a personal interest in the minutest of details in the lives of his followers, and in particular, their successes. This version of God is the one that football players point to in the end zone and actors thank when they win fancy awards. But this all-powerful being seems strangely absent when whole villages get swept away in floods or your friend is getting hit over the head with a shovel. There's another, older and less popular version of this same divine creature that identifies more directly with human suffering. Evangelicals abandoned it a long time ago. This is the Jesus depicted in old catholic churches, betrayed, broken and dying. If you can see past the kitschy trappings and creepy statues, this image of a dying god seems more authentic and meaningful in light of the wounds humans perpetually visit upon one another. But regardless of whether you have faith in this god or any other, it's hard to shake the notion that fate alone owes each of us a fair shake. Or put more simply, that the law of averages wouldn't at least have offered Len Willson a break. But that wasn't to be. Lightning often does strike the same place twice.

The last time I heard from Len was in 2006 when he came out to Colorado to receive a controversial treatment to stop his increasingly severe leg spasms that were making it impossible to even sleep through the night. The out-patient procedure would mean intentionally severing even more nerves - not something many neurosurgeons care to specialize in. The choice to have it done meant any future breakthroughs in the treatment of spinal injuries would be out of the question for him. But after waiting a quarter of a century for some new therapy to come along, and with the spasms taking over his life, Len flew out to Denver for the surgery. The treatment ended up not offering much relief. The doctors said he'd need another round, where they'd cut still more nerves. Len was confused, depressed and out of money. He needed some space to figure things out, so he flew home to North Carolina instead of heading up into the mountains to pal around with me as we had planned. Thus we began to fall out of touch. The last I heard he was doing better and was teaching English at the local community college. I kept thinking we should get caught up.

Grief can creep further into the psyche than we imagine, and the time it takes us to work through it is incremental at best. As I begin to surface from the raw brutality and loss at the center of this story to join the rest of Len's family, friends and neighbors in coming to terms with his death, I'm clear on one thing. Each time a light like his is forced out the world gets a little darker. We can either let our eyes adjust to that darkness or burn a little hotter to make up the difference. Whether he died in vain is a choice the rest of us make. While he was alive, Len Willson was the kind of guy who reminded you to quit your whining. Not because he was so much worse off than you, but because he lived his life with more purpose and grace. So that's the lesson I'm choosing to take away - to live mindfully, and to look for places to seed kindness in this world. It's a goal anyway. And if Len's life was any indication, with practice I know that way of living becomes second nature. Seamless. Transparent.

Rest in peace
Leonard Alfred Willson III
1957-2010

Bath Creek, North Carolina