Like the man says.........

One of the many things that have been thrown my way since the beginnings of this walk across the United States was this: “Oh, someone came through here last month doing the same thing as you.”
Well, I beg to differ, but I dare say that while someone may well have been walking across the US for a charity or a cause, or just for a lark, it wasn’t the same as what I am doing, nor is what I am doing the same as anyone else. We all did what we do for our own reasons. There was a guy I heard about from a few people. He toted a cross on his back, with a wheel on the bottom to make it a bit easier to roll along. It was said that as he went across the bible belt, he almost literally had people throwing money at him. Was that his intention? I have no idea. Earlier there was the brave and talented Rachel Milano and her almost half ton wagon that she pushed all the way from Savannah, Georgia to Atlanta, getting sideswiped by a truck in the process. She was making folks aware of the awful stigma that child abuse carries with it for the victims of that heinous act, and was and is herself a survivor.
My favorite was told to me by Bob George, a retired teacher in Dodge City, Kansas, who related a story of a man who walked across the states wearing a shirt that said ”Live Life.” The man had had a son, but his son’s demons caused him to take his own life one day, suddenly and violently. As a way of grieving, his father decided to make that trip with that slogan printed on his shirt. It was how he dealt with his grief. It was a way for him to figure out his son’s death, and his life, and to come to terms with both.
Life. A short word, but all encompassing. We are born with no guarantees save one: that we will die. What we do in the scant time between the two biggest events of our existence is up to us, and it behooves us to make the best use of that time that we can, and enjoy every sandwich, as the late Warren Zevon said, upon finding out he was in stage 4 of a cancer that took him shortly thereafter. Don’t wait til you have cancer. Enjoy every sandwich, and cookie, and breath of air, NOW. Do something small, then do something huge, but do something. Sitting idly is your choice, of course, but then, as the darkness is closing in, you have no right to regret anything . Don ’t wait for someone tell you to get out there. Just do it. Do it for yourself. Do it to honor someone like the great Harry Chapin, as I did. Do it to honor your dead son, as the man with the shirt did.
I was thinking of that man today as I walked up the path to the Golden Gate Bridge. I think a lot about the bridge anyway, and a documentary that was made about it several years ago. The movie was not about the physical location or structure , but about how it becomes the location for a couple of dozen suicides a year. The downtrodden simply come out, walk on the pedestrian footpath, climb up and over the railing and step off…
The film is about those jumpers. The cameras that the filmmakers set up preserved the last moments of life for two dozen people that year, including a man named Gene Sprague. Gene was a misfit of society-- thirty plus years old, looking not unlike Joey Ramone, long black hair, black leather jacket and shades and that general look of one of society’s disenfranchised souls. He had no job and had left applications all over town, to no avail. He would visit the bridge frequently. He would lean on the railing, starng out into the bay. Sometimes he would pace back and forth, deep in thought, and then leave after a while.
On May 11, 2004, he left for good, climbing the railing with his back to the water, standing straight up for a second, and then, with arms tucked close, fell backward, allowing gravity to take him to oblivion. It was spellbinding and sad and pointless.
His family told the filmmakers that the next day they got a call from a prospective employer offering Gene a job. Too little, too late.
I was fascinated with Gene Sprague, and his decision. I wanted to go the place where he chose to make his last act in such a public way. So I went.
Ironically, there was a Relay for Life marathon going on, on the bridge. Sunday, July 31, 2011. The coincidence, like so many others on this walk, was almost too much to believe, again.
I’ve never been suicidal, except for one time a long time ago. I never got close to committing the act, because thoughts of my recently born daughter came into my head and the realization that I might not get to know her and watch her grow up very quickly pushed any such notions out of my head. The fact that I still do not know her very well at age 28 doesn’t matter. There is still time.
So Gene Sprague chose May 11, 2004 for the day he would take himself out. Ironically that same date is someone’s birthday. In fact, it is the birthday of many people. They choose to celebrate life, not end it. My friend Brian recently ushered himself out of this world as well, so thoughts of the selfishness of suicide have been on my mind a lot as well, in recent times. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, as Alex Bennett, ironically a longtime San Francisco radio personality, calls it.
So I walked onto the bridge with all of the dark thoughts of Gene Sprague in mind. I found the spot where he took his final bow. I even had my picture taken there. I did not see Gene’s ghost anywhere, did not hear the anguished final cries of others who took that way out, and did not shed a tear for anyone. Not Gene, not Brian. No one. I actually smiled because of what I saw and heard.
What I did hear and see were thousands of beautiful people running a relay for life. Celebrating life and encouraging people to do the same. Life. Live. Living.
As the great Liverpool philosopher John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” How right he was.
As the man in the t-shirt said.
“Live life.”
How right they both were.
I’ve stepped out on a very long limb, inspired by the spirit of a man who adored life and worked to make others lives better, Mr. Harry Chapin. At the same time I was chasing the ghost of a man who didn’t treasure that which he had. I’ve learned that life is what you make it. Life is too short to even consider an early exit. So, Gene Sprague and his ghost? I don’t need ‘em in my life.
Nope.
Not anymore.
Live life.
Peace.