John

John died about three weeks ago.  I didn't really know John, although I considered him a nemesis of sorts.  We were briefly engaged in a battle over the devotion of about twenty-five seventeen year-olds when I was hired to do his job in 2008, while he was recovering from an illness.  Who won that battle is unclear; perhaps it was a draw.  When he did not come back to work, and I kept the job, that was when the tide turned in my favour and that crop of kids graduated and took their I HEART JOHN t-shirts with them.  I was hired because he was sick, and yet I always felt there was some animosity between us as though I had pushed him out.  He kept in touch with the kids while I was teaching them and encouraged them not to connect with me because he would be back soon.  This turned out not to be the case, but his poison was still semi-effective.  There was a group I could never reach.

I only met John once, and he was pleasant enough that day.  He told me he intended to sleep on the floor of our shared office during his spare block.  He told me he was lucky to have the right kind of insurance that allowed him to work part time but be paid full time.  I cannot say he made a good impression on me.  Fortunately he ended up not coming back to work at my school after all, and therefore I never had to step over his sleeping body to get to my books, nor hear anything else about his finances.  He was pleasant enough.  Most of my understanding of him was developed through the words of others: staff members who told me how obnoxious he was to work with, and kids who told me he'd messaged them on Facebook to tell them to tell me what plays he would prefer I not teach.  I had a low key hatred for him that may or may not have been accurately rooted in reality.

Now John has died of a heart attack, which apparently was not a surprise to anyone.  It is interesting to see what people write about him now he is gone.  It is almost as though their words erase the reality of a perfectly imperfect human being, it is almost as though they intentionally choose words that reflect the opposite.

It makes me think about what I would want for myself if I was to die all of a sudden at the age of forty-eight.  I would not want to canonized on social media, nor in person.  As a theatre major, I know my most interesting qualities are my flaws - and I suspect John knew this too.  I would hate for anyone to proclaim me to be "principled" and "devoted" and "adored" when we all know damn well that I'm awesome only until I'm not.

The best funeral I ever went to was for Carol, a secretary from my first school.  Carol was a fiesty old lady who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and sassed everyone who got thinking they were too important.  Her family recognized her for her true self in that service, and told hilarious stories that reflected her comic genius and her true character.  And then they invited us to come up and share our stories too.  I laughed a lot at the funeral and left feeling like I knew her better, and loving her all the more.  That is how I want to be remembered, by people who really know me, and aren't afraid to point out my flaws and laugh at them with me.

Poor John.  He died very young.  I'm not afraid to say he was probably a narcissistic, insecure fuck who was taking advantage of his union.  I wouldn't put it his obituary, nor post it on his Facebook wall, but let's laugh about it here.  And let's also recognize that my information has been filtered through other opinionated people, and my eulogy of John may say more about me and them than it does about him.  Amen.



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