Reflections on Life After a Week of Death

Klimt's "Death and Life"

This last week or so has been haunted by death. At least for me. I've seen traces of the end through the passing of others, a glimpse of the great last ride into the unknown, the only frontier from which no adventurer returns. In particular 3 deaths over the last week have done to haunt my waking and wind themselves around the fabric of my dreams. And I'll admit, I'm scared to death of death. Three morte of varying relation to myself seem to be circling around my head. First the snowboarder Spackman who died in a slide in Grand Teton National park who was best friends with the guy who I'm supposed to be doing some work for up here in Jackson, a snowboarder who, in this small community, seems to be related to everybody I know by at most one or two degrees. Then there's Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan leader, thorn in America's side, whose points about U.S. imperialism, especially when it comes to oil, are disturbingly valid though on the other side power seemed to turn him from a socialist man of the people to an autocratic crank. And then there's Rani, a co-worker from my old place of employ, the only other script reader who'd been at my old talent agency longer than myself, an acquaintance with whom I shared niceties and jokes about the Judeo-Christian dichotomy, who succumbed to cancer far too soon. Varying degrees of intimacy, importance, and lives and yet for these three men the spark left within a week of each other.

The first one was Jarad Spackman. I never met him, never really heard of him until he died. One of the greatest shames of death is that often it shows us people we never knew or paid attention to until they're gone, like a lingering shadow whose source we missed the opportunity to properly see. In Jackson there's a feeling that, of all the places I've lived, this is the one where everybody most appreciates all life  has to offer. Up here the global sentiment of "what do you do" takes on a new meaning. Up here that question doesn't center on "what is your job." It's more like, are you a winter or a summer person? If winter do you ski or snowboard? Do you stay at the village or do you hike the pass or do you skin the park or do you ski mountaineer? There's just so much to do, so much life to live, so much to explore that people spend their whole lives pursuing this love of alpine adventure within this small hole of the world and never feel like they're missing out on anything else. There's this strange mixture of fulfillment and hunger that defines this place. From what I gather, Spackman was a living embodiment of that idyll.

At 40 he was a family man and also a successful realtor - in fact, his family (father, brother) regularly ranked in the top money-makers nationwide in terms of real estate brokers. But unlike, say, the MILLION DOLLAR LISTINGS punks who use real estate sales to support a life filled with bacchanalia and gourmet meals and a lot of high-end sitting and talking and drinking, Spackman's life was spent often in the high alpine. Just a few weeks before he died, he and mountaineer/writer Christian Beckwith clocked the first recorded descent down a new couloir on Prospector Mountain in the Grand Teton National Park, The Rapture. This descent required a series of rappels - that is, after spending hours skinning and climbing up this sheer peak, you snowboard down, stop, take of your gear, rappel down a sheer cliff, strap back in, go a bit further, rappel again, and so on. With first recorded descent they got naming rights and named it the Rapture as mountaineers like to keep to a theme when naming a certain area (Rapture feeds into the larger Apocalypse Couloir which feeds into Death Canyon). As such, it's chillingly ironic that after notching such a powerful line in his mountaineer belt, he was snowboarding the lower Apocalypse Couloir a few weeks later (which is a bit more regularly ridden, though still a near-impossible challenge for 99.99999999% of the ski and snowboard population) when a slide swept him 1000 feet to his death.

Great mountains are mystical and revered, mythologically home to the gods and, in their very divinity, testing to men to the point of death. In BOYS OF EVEREST, a mountaineer looks at a summit and in his head goes through the following calculations: if he tries for the summit, he may never see the sunrise again; but if he tries for the summit and makes it and returns, every sunrise from that day forward for the rest of his life will be different. As such, no doubt Spackman's life was filled with such moments. No doubt he was a more fulfilled and actuated man than those who spend their lives never knowing how such a conquest feels, who pursue the phantoms of security and economics and keeping up with the activities of others (TV, film, pro athletes) and then wonder why they wake up one day at 50 and feel empty. But on the other side, to die at 40, to leave behind a loving family, a career he obviously was good at and enjoyed, is a shame. Dying doing something you love is noble beyond words but on the other hand is a life-changing snowboard run worth risking your life? For many the obvious answer is yes, especially when you look at the other option, living a life ruled by fears and limitations. A life in which you never go beyond your comfort zone, never feel the tingle of death behind you or the rush of endless internal human growth before you. A life of tedium and complacency.

Phil leads me up Albright

Every hour, every minute of life is a gift. To not use that gift to its fullest, wringing everything that life has to offer out of every second of existence, is simply robbing yourself. A few days after he died I took my first foray into snowboarding the Grand Teton National Park, skinning up Mt. Albright, the next peak over, and my buddy pointed out Prospector's and Apocalypse and Death Canyon. And I never felt so alive as when, after 4 and a half hours skinning up, I came roaring down in full view of where that great mountaineer breathed his last breath.

So it's ironic to go from a man who lived his life to its fullest in a secluded enclave to a man whose life was seemingly a bee-line for the role of national leader and international center of controversy. The second person I have no direct or even indirect relation to. Readers might even be insulted - these good, respectable Americans astride a Venezuelan dictatorial hater of freedom? But looked at objectively, not only was Hugo Chavez possibly one of the most ambitious and tenacious leaders in modern history, he brought up some very interesting points and for the most part stuck to his convictions in spite of intense pressure every step of the way.

Chavez began his career in military academies and in the military he was part of counter-insurgency forces. While there he had a lot of downtime he spent reading, finding some Marxist literature and deciding Venezuela needed to move to the left. He tried to work within Venezuela's political status quo but was quickly disappointed. The politics were corrupt, the officials phonies, everybody just a few steps away from American capitalist puppets. So he fell in love with the idea of equalizing life for the impoverished everyday Venezuelans by turning to socialist revolution, in many ways similar to the iconic "American-kids-wear-a-shirt-with-his-face" hero of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara. Chavez was a leader of the Bolivarians, basing their ideas on those of equal-opportunity Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar. Chavez even attempted an armed coup in 1992, which failed. Yet, undaunted, he decided to build a real political party and, in 1999, was elected President following the government's foundering and punishing austerity measures (when will people realize austerity doesn't work?). He remained such until he died last week.

Over that time he worked to overthrow capitalism's stranglehold on his nation's resources, especially as often the people pulling the strings were our countrymen practicing what he called "American imperialism". According to the UN, Venezuelan quality of life improved under Chavez and poverty rates decreased from 48.6 % in '02 to 29.5% in '11. His policies were called great equalizers of the Venezuelan people by proponents while opponents stated they consolidated too much power with Chavez and his party and as such were dictatorial. He became best friends with Fidel Castro, pissing off Americans holding onto Cuban misgivings based on atavistic fears and policies that are about as relevant today as the word Soviet (seriously, what do the embargoes do except make us smoke Dominican cigars and keep Starbucks and McDonald's from opening up in Havana - which, let's be honest, is better for Cuba than for us). He nationalized their oil, drawing ire from a U.S. which had been successful at getting previous administrations to agree to private contracts with U.S. corporations. Notice this was what Saudi Arabia did and not only does America kiss the Saudis' ass, their nation's oil revenues were used to improve the lives of its people immensely and, even more, Saudi Arabia is the only nation that didn't have some wild "Arab Spring" rebellion.

America went on to call Chavez a dictator, a communist, all sorts of things. Chavez called America modern imperialist looking to colonize and take advantage of smaller and less powerful nations by using insidious tricks of modern industry which isn't, to be honest, all that incorrect. And in spite of being "bullied" by the super nation "United Empire of America" into our system of capitalism which is, at best, very flawed (see: Occupy Wall Street), he stuck to his guns. Good leader or demon? Hard to say. But the man had convictions, didn't let his failed coup or a movement to unseat him (supposedly supported by the U.S.) turn him back from his ideals, and based on the UN indexes seemingly did more good for more people in the nation of Venezuela.

Short of turning this into a debate between communism and capitalism, let's just say he was a man who, if nothing else, should be admired for his ambition and refusal to submit. And of all the South American nations, he was the leader people most hated, feared, admired and discussed. That's certainly something he shares with all great men.

Finally there's the death that's closer to home, a Story Consultant from my old talent agency, Rani Sitty.

I knew Rani as a colleague at best. I'd occasionally see him out and we'd joke, shoot the shit, talk about nothing and/or film. In a lot of ways I guess that could describe most of my relationships at my old job. He mentored my own journey towards becoming a somewhat "respected" story consultant. At work we would have discussions about story structure and the script process in general. We'd rib each other about our faiths - I remember getting a chuckle from him as I expounded the Hunter S. Thompson quote about Christmas in New York, how (paraphrasing) [New York City is a weird town around the holiday.  It's a city with a strong Jewish population who no doubt get a bit nervous at the celebration of the birth of a man who in just a few short months they would be accused of killing.] Jewish Rani seemed to find that funny as his gentile to a fault cubicle-mate, myself, went on to ramble on about God knows what.

Rani traveled a lot from what I gathered but was never what I would call an adventurer. When I told him some of my tamer exploits he'd just chuckle, unable to understand what would drive a man to do such. He loved L.A. He loved his friends. Had a great girlfriend. Enjoyed the movie business, enjoyed writing script coverage and judging contests, discovering young up and coming writers. Over 2 years ago he was sick and out of work for a while and I received bits and pieces of what was happening - that the cancer, the treatment of which had hobbled his leg the first time around, had come back. I watched as he returned to work, a bit shrunken, his hair gray, his body aged far beyond his years, but otherwise same old Rani. He was younger than me. He fought valiantly for over 2 years (from my own experience, it's never good if it takes more than 2 years to get cancer into remission). He continued to come into work and do his job as much as he could while I looked on incredulous that anybody would come to work should he be so sick. But it was his duty, and privilege, to do what he did.

His is a death that hit home because it was followed by calls and emails and texts from colleagues who, now 2 months and 1000 miles removed, have mostly faded into remembrances of a past life. I feel like I could live to be 150 and never experience all that life has to offer and the fact that he died so young, before he could experience a family or middle age or the adventures and sensations I've been privy to and want to be privy to, has hit me harder than I'd thought it would. Most notably, at death's door, he seemed to face it stoically, going to work, doing his thing, trying to live his life as he would have if not at the end of the road.

So there it is. 3 deaths. 3 very different men. 1 taken too soon and another taken way too soon. 1 I knew and him only somewhat. But from all of their deaths I'm reminded again of why we're on this spinning rock. Reminded of the basic lesson that life is too short, for some especially, and as such we have to live lives that fulfill us, that will make us feel, on our deathbeds, that we didn't waste our precious hours and minutes and seconds. Life, especially one lived well, is rarely comfortable but often sublime. One need only discover what he truly believes and do what is right and, once one finds his own inner strength and cause, he must pursue it tirelessly. We should surround ourselves by people we love and appreciate or a job that fulfills us - or, at the least, we should learn to see the value in whatever we do day in and day out 40 to 50 hours a week. And one more thing, of these 3 men, one died doing what he loved. One was killed by cancer after living a long, packed, globally poignant life. And the third died painfully young of cancer that was in no way related to anything he did. That is, we all have to die and it could happen in an avalanche zone or in your bed in Los Angeles. So next time you agonize over the risks of something physical, the very real possibility of death inherent in most activities I love, think about the tragedy of a young man cut down in his prime by some insidious internal cell. And do it anyway. Because fuck it. If death defines life, then a life well-lived is spent defying death.

Though, no doubt, such sentiments don't make death any easier. To all the fallen, I raise a glass in salute for the lessons we living must take from the dead's voyages to the beyond.

- Ryan