Editor’s Note: I realize that this is an extremely long blog post. I have no apologies about the size. Dan Krawiec was a large man who easily qualifies for such a tome and, truthfully, I could’ve written much, much more. I have tried to suit the needs of those who like their weblog content broken up by subheadings, white space, and photos. I am also happy to include this table of contents that makes little to no sense but will allow the reader to jump around the page and enjoy the limitless potential and infinite wonder of hypertext.
Table of Contents
- A Love for the Sport
- My Stupid Brain
- My Rusty Jaw
- And Then I Guess I was Mad
- We Used to Trade Glasses
- Dirty Dishes
- Thank You
I. A Love for the Sport
A few months ago, I lost a very real and very true friend. He was one of those friends you like to brag about knowing. He was one of the cool kids. In all the right ways, he was one of the cool kids.
In my “Drafts” folder there are 11 unfinished, never-to-be-published posts about Dan. I don’t know why I finally feel ready to finish one. Finishing one would be good.
I missed his birthday bash this past weekend. It would’ve been healthy for me to be with those who loved him. To be with other people who were proud to have been his friend.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Dan these past few months. I’ve had dreams. I’ve accidentally texted him. I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds during a shuffleboard game a couple of days ago because, once, I played a game of shuffleboard with Dan.
I remember him walking towards me with a look of pure determination and utter confidence on his face as he carried 4 poles and a rack full of discs . I asked if he played shuffleboard professionally or something because damn, he looked like a professional shuffleboarder just then. He didn’t break stride or crack a smile. He just shook his head while he walked past me and said, “I just have a love for the sport.” My laughter was both silent and violent. Painful, break-a-rib laughter was followed by intermittent fits of giggling throughout the rest of the game. I think I narrated that story to every person I knew for the whole week after.
That’s just how it was if you were going to be with Dan. Silent, violent, painful laughter.
At his memorial service after he passed, it was good to hear a lot of laughter. Though we were all confused and twisted up we laughed during the eulogies, the slideshow, outside the church after the ceremony, and at the after-party.
II. My Stupid Brain
Amy, Avi, and me walked in to the service with a batch of friends. I felt like you do when you walk into a party and everyone’s screaming and dancing and some are waving at you and you’re just trying to figure out what’s going on while trying to make it look like you know exactly what’s going on even though, secretly, you’re freaking out about where you’re supposed to hang your coat.
I didn’t know how to feel, how to act, where to sit, where to look. I may have been smiling or I may have been looking real sad. I bet I probably just looked weird; all my face muscles working against one another to make me look not-freaked-out. There were hundreds and hundreds or thousands and thousands of people there. I actually have no idea how many were there but it was enough that my stupid brain freaked out and turned on the panic-laced, anxiety-filled existence that I lead whenever leaving my house.
Our gaggle of friends sat silent. Avi was making baby sounds and a few people smiled at him but no one made a noise. I wanted someone to say something funny or laugh at Avi or throw something at me. I just wanted someone to take my coat, make introductions, and direct me toward the drinks. Maybe they were all waiting for that too. Maybe they were all panicky and didn’t know where to look or how to feel too. Or maybe they knew exactly what was going on and they were just being appropriately reverent. Maybe it was just me.
My stupid brain would just turn off when I was around Dan. Dan made you think that you belonged wherever you were. Dan took space and held it as his own.
When my 8-month-pregnant wife and I (we’re idiots) went to a Godspeed You! Black Emperor show a while back, we arrived to find that the entire place was literally shoulder-to-shoulder. Amy was not going to survive the heat, the lack of space, or the pounding, deadly force that band emits. Giving our best puppy dog eyes to several bouncers, one saint of a giant grabbed a folding chair and line-backed us all the way to the best seat in the house next to the sound-booth (we’re awesome). I began to have a severe panic attack about a third of the way through the mass of sweaty nerds when I felt a tug at my shirt. When I turned around, it was Dan…I swear, everything changed in an instant…no tunnel vision, sweats, heart attacks…nothing. I smiled up at him and he smiled back and all he said was, “You clever bastard, you.”
3/4ths through the show, my knees gave out and I started to panic again because I didn’t want to leave Amy because she might have Avi (which would have ruled now that I think about it). Dan, who must’ve seen that I was in rough shape, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Go take care of yourself. I’ll make sure Amy get’s out okay.”
Dan always cured my stupid brain whenever he was around. He was a big, cuddly Klonopin.
III. My Rusty Jaw
Back to the service…
My jaw hurt from clenching my teeth and I was getting a headache.
Then the service started. I realized what we were all there for. I clenched my teeth some more. Fast forward just a little bit where we were led by my friends Andy and Woods in a sing-along of “We’ll Meet Again” in Johnny Cash style and the way Dan always liked to sing it…”Hwe’ll meet again. Don’t know h’why. Don’t know h’when.” That’s when I realized that if I could just open my jaw a little bit I could make room for things like oxygen, tears, and laughter. Once my jaw got a little bit of that in the hinges it opened right up and I didn’t stop laughing and crying for the rest of the service.
I’m not sure if it was the air conditioning or what but my tears felt cold. They just came from all corners of my eyes and down my face and felt so good and they weren’t salty. I was crying cold spring water and it felt like when you’ve been camping for days and you find a mountain-trickle stream and splash it over your face and it feels better than any hot shower you’ve ever had even though your gasping and can’t breathe from the chill. I would’ve just let the tears sit there washing my face had they not been mixing poorly with the not-so-mountain-stream of snot collecting on my upper lip. I used my t-shirt collar as a hanky because, what the hell, over the age of 5, how often do you get to do that in public?
And I just kept crying. My smiles and frowns were painful. I grabbed onto my hair and put my elbows on my knees and I shook my legs restlessly. And I just kept crying.
I cried for Dan’s father for I am a father now and I have no idea how he managed to be staying alive and fed and not dead from anguish which made me think that, since he wasn’t dead, he was probably feeling so much pain and sadness that being dead may have felt better. I cried for Dan’s mother who hurt so much and knew she had to keep everyone alive through all of this but maybe she was forgetting to take care of herself and I prayed that wasn’t the case. I cried for Dan’s brothers because my brother is my best friend in the whole world and all that pain pulsing through the body like that…it hurts just trying to put it into words. I cried because I wasn’t exactly sure how that family was standing. I cried because I was happy they could. I cried because I don’t want to ever feel how they feel but I most likely will.
IV. And Then I Guess I was Mad
I cried because I was mad because Dan will always look young to me and I felt both morbidly jealous and horrified by this and I wanted to see him age.
I was pissed because I heard about holding onto memories and people sharing memories and me having memories and I realized that what we got from him in the way of memories is all we’re going to get. I was pissed because my supply of friends is being cut shorter all the time because that’s just what happens and Dan was one of those people who tried hard not to let that happen. I was pissed because my supply of friends who make me laugh so hard that I worry about my organs is now on the I-Can-Count-Them-On-One-Hand list and maybe it’s more like half of one hand and that’s just not enough hurt-laughs for someone of my disposition. I was pissed because everything I was angry about was all about me and everything I wanted to tell people about was all about me and even though I loved him was I close enough to him to deserve to be this sad?
I cried during the slideshow Dan’s brother made (thank you so much for that Josiah) because it was physical proof that once, Dan was a baby and fit perfectly in the arms of his very rosy mother and his very beaming father. Avi was not in the room because he was crawling under the chairs and Amy had to take him out to crawl elsewhere but I wanted him with me right then very much. I thought of the night of Avi’s birth and how I couldn’t believe that all the cliches about loving your own child so much that it hurts your chest and how finding out that you are capable of such love will change you forever…all those cliches…they’re so right and so understated. I was so sad that Mr. and Mrs. Krawiec lost their baby that I almost left to go crawling with Avi.
V. We Used to Trade Glasses
As the slideshow continued, Dan grew up in the pictures. One particular picture was of Dan standing behind an unknowing victim with a bludgeon of some sort and I give thanks to my good friend, Ben, who let out such a spit-take and honest laugh that I remembered that I could laugh too.
And I laughed. I laughed because Dan could profess to you that he was just a humble, casual shuffleboarder without even the slightest slip of a smile. I laughed because he could make fun of someone for as long as it took for everyone else in the room to feel uncomfortable. Everyone except for the subject of ridicule because it always felt so good to be in on his jokes. I laughed because he spent twice that time making fun of himself. I laughed because him and Ben and me would all take off our glasses and swap them for a bit while pretending to be one another, revealing our most horrible qualities to a large audience or even, once or twice, to just ourselves. I laughed because Dan was one of the assholes. In all the right ways, he was one of the assholes.
After the service there was a slight feeling of peaceful energy going through the crowd. The young-ish punks stood outside smoking and talking and laughing with older-ish men and older-ish women. There were those I knew talking with those I didn’t about someone we all had in common. And there were many cookies and decent coffee that kept our hands busy while we tried to smile even though we were all still very confused.
VI. Dirty Dishes
I’ve tried to make this a universal tale of how people loved Dan. But I’m going to end on a personal anecdote and I suppose it’s just me bragging again about being friends with the cool kid but, nuts to you anyway.
Within the first few months of living in Ithaca, NY, Dan came up or down from wherever he had been to stay with me for a few weeks. Dan was always amazing to have in a group situation because, like I mentioned, he was a laugh ’til it hurts kinda guy as well as a human Xanax. But the private Dan was a Dan kinda guy, meaning the kind of person that is rare. Rare because he was skilled at showing you the inner workings of his brain, heart, and soul. You could actually see these internal mechanics on his face and feel it in the timbre of his voice (a voice, by the by, that was as far as I’m concerned, the most suitable voice for the thick and unmistakable dialect of Southeastern Pennsylvania). We spent hours sitting facing one another on my crappy, old futon talking about God, Jesus, love, drugs, music. I had known Dan for quite a few years by then but that was my first extended period of time spent with the man that was truly the Dan worth bragging about. He was vulnerable. He was loving. He was kind. During those times, if we started to joke about something serious that came up he would always stop the conversation with a “no, but seriously” to make sure that we got to the heart of the shtuff.
He was thinking about moving to Ithaca so we spent some time looking through ads for apartments and I drove him around and we explored the town that I had yet to call my own. I was becoming an adult finally and every day at my first big-boy job was incredibly stressful and I was full of anxiety and self-doubt. Dan was with me at the perfect time. I was coming home from work happy that he would be there. During his stay he unpacked all my CD’s and alphabetized them. He fixed the timing on my record player. He cleaned the baseboards with Pledge and a toothbrush. He cooked for me while wearing an apron that had drawings of lobsters and said something about gumbo. We ate and drank well for his entire visit and we never did the dishes because we didn’t want to and we were adults, dammit. It was while Dan was with me that I began to really get to know and love my new home, job, and life.
The most poignant moment during his stay was at the very end. I was upstairs throwing some stuff on Dan’s iPod for his trip back to Philly. When I came downstairs to give him his iPod and see him off, I found him in the kitchen wearing the lobster apron and finishing up the many days worth of dishes.
I’d love to say that I stood there all choked up and teary and that I told him I loved him and that it was such an awesome thing to do. But I’m pretty sure I probably said something about him being a woman and why haven’t my pants been ironed and why was he spending so much on shoes and I was going to have to revoke his credit card privileges.
So it was strange that, after being told of Dan’s passing, my very first thought was about him doing my dishes that day.
VII. Thank You
So Dan, if you have at least a dial-up connection in heaven and you happened to stumble upon my weblog, I hope that after you get done making fun of me for having a weblog you will listen when I say, “No, but seriously…” Because I have been thinking about you a lot since you died. I didn’t send your family a condolence card or food because I don’t ever think about that stuff even though I really should. But since you’ve been gone, I’ve been working harder or at least thinking a lot about working harder on my life. I need to love Amy better. I need to remember that Avi watches me closely so I need to make sure I’m showing him how to love and how to be happy. I need to be kinder. Cynicism has got to go. I really gotta stop putting modifiers like “good” and “bad” on my days, months, and years. It’s time to get work done without hating the process.
And I have to tell people thanks when they do my dishes. And I most definitely must, without any doubt, hesitation, or whining, start doing other peoples’ dishes.
I’m sorry I missed your birthday party. I hope this is enough to make up for it. I hope that publishing this 12th draft of a post on a blog that is on the internet where anyone can see it and make fun of me or whatever is enough to explain that we all really miss you down here. Thank you for challenging people and challenging yourself twice as hard. And thanks for letting us watch how you lived.
Most of all, thank you for staying with me while I mourned you these past few months…I am more evolved.
Peace brother,
Ben
If you would like to make Dan a happy soul, donations can be made to Providence West Chester, the non-profit community center/church that Dan became very involved in through his last stretch of recovery. The money will be used to start up different activity and support groups for recovering addicts at the community center. Which is exactly what Dan would have wanted.
I love you, Ben. So sorry for your loss.
Thank you, Shelby. Hope you’re doing well after grajudating from writer school.
Loss is hard enough to accept and then to want to honor the feeling with perfect words. That’s nearly impossible, but I think your effort was perfection. Sorry for your loss, Ben.
Thank you Sheryl…12 drafts pay off i suppose!
Thank you so, so much.
This is Andy, by the way.
No. Thank you, Andy.
Ben,
Dan’s mom and I read your blog this morning. Between the tears and the laughter, we want you to know how much your words meant to us. Dan is missed every second of every day. Everyone tells us the pain will be less as time goes on. I don’t know if that’s true, but we do want you to know that when we read things like what you wrote, see the love for Dan at Anchorfest, and having some of his closest friends over this past Saturday (Dan’s birthday), we are comforted. Thank you and God bless you.
Fran (Dan’s dad)
Thank you, Fran. I’m glad i could finally start putting it into words.
Very thoughtful Ben. He was obviously a great friend to you and I am very sorry for your loss. Sounds like you have some pretty great memories that will keep him with you.
That i do Dennis…good to hear from you.
This was really wonderful, Ben. Thank you for letting me get to know Dan.
Thank you and you’re welcome, Heather.
I love you, Ben. I love you so much..Thank you for this
Ben…that means a lot, good sir.
thanks for making me cry, you asshole.
You’re welcome, you asshole.
This is pretty awesome. All I have to say is that it took me 3 months and 12 drafts to write what I needed to write. I was terrified of publishing it but I did because I knew it would help me a little. Today I’ve been terrified of the reactions to what I wrote. I just logged in tonight to read everything and I wish I could put some hard work into telling you all how amazing this experience has been. I was about to start writing 12 drafts of a response. But I am emotionally drained for now. Let me just say the post has received over 600 hits in the past 12 hours. That’s about 10 times that of my second most read entry posted over 8 months ago. I see there were about 50 hits to the church donation link so, thank you if any of you could give. Thank you all for letting me tell my story and thank you so much more for listening. Thank you for your kind words. And thank you for missing Dan with me and reminding me that I don’t have to keep it to myself. Now go hug somebody. I mean it.
This is beautiful, stunning…I am so sorry for your loss, and so happy you knew this man. I would have love to have known him, too. Much love to you, Ben. xox Nicole
Ben–
i must say that i was fearful of reading this post- though i was positive you’d do justice- i decided to read it for the first time tonight. Thanks in part to you for sharing the row when i didn’t know where i belonged or how to speak, and for offering a ride and simple conversation on the way back. Thank you for sharing some great memories.
My deepest, sincerest condolences go to the Krawiec family. Thank you for embracing me.
I honestly would’ve had it worse had you not been there with me Travis. Miss you.
I’ve been thinking about Dan today.
I read this post moons back when you sent John the link, but we didn’t have internet at the time and there was no easy way for me to respond, even if I’d known how to respond, which I didn’t. I read it on his phone in the dark of our bedroom and silently cried and cried.
I still don’t know how to respond, so I’ll just thank you for stepping into the fearsome spaces and giving a good man a ’til h’we meet again’ worth giving.