My Buddy Jake: the late, great, inebriate.

Before you read to far into the title, know that Jake, my friend, was not a drunkard. I don't even know if he drank. I never saw it, and I knew him well from age 15-23. What I did see, was the biblical variation of inebriate. To be happy, giddy, and drunk in the spirit. There's an old Catholic prayer called the Anima Christi that says, "Blood of Christ, inebriate me" which is a petition to be deeply overcome and filled with God's grace and love. 

That was the Jake of later life, and he aged into that gracefully. I knew a slightly different Jake who was much younger and much more immature.  And these are the stories I told at his memorial. 

"Why Him, why now?" the eulogist lamented. What the minister didn't say, is, "why not someone else?" There's so many ugly, disgusting, vile, mean, creatures roaming this Earth masquerading as humans, why couldn't one of them die, instead. 

Because Jake didn't deserve to die. Not at 46. Not without kids. Not before his parents. My friend Jake was a beautiful soul. Childlike, antagonistic but in a charming way, fiercely loyal, adventuresome and oddly innocent. But somewhere in his mid-30s he came down with multiple health issues that confounded the doctors. How could he have emphysema when he didn't smoke? He also got some form of Cutis Laxa, a disorder that causes your skin to droop and sag and gave him the appearance of being much older than he really was. I don't know all the issues. His wife said he eventually died from COPD, basically his lungs could no longer support him and he was denied a lung transplant that could have potentially saved him. He eventually came off the respirators and after three days without speaking gracefully said, "I'm ready." Not many people can say they're ready for death; and maybe there's a tiny blessing in knowing the inevitable. Outliving your death date by a few years probably prepares you and everyone around you for that sad reality. I'm glad we got that extra time with him.

But as I sat in that large church auditorium filled with at least a hundred people I've never met (I figured a few people from high school would be there, but I didn't see a face I recognized, a testament to the life he lived after he was 18 years old), it was clear that none of us were truly ready for Jake to be gone. All of Jake's immediate family sang a song. His wife, mom, dad, sister, aunts...they all pushed through the emotions and sang and played songs, because that's what Jake really loved. Music. Naomi, his sister, sang a beautiful version of "The Arms of the Angels" by Sarah McLachlan. This version can now replace the imagery/audio of the neglected dogs commercial, and for that, I will forever be grateful to Naomi.

I was asked to sing a song too. It wasn't my best work, but I guess it's not about that. But I can tell stories. And I have insight into who Jake was that this room was not aware of. His developmental years in high school. I had the tea on Jake. 

Senior Most? Best Hair: Jake. 

Not like ex-girlfriends, or anything like that...as far as I know, Jake didn't have any. Even years after high school I never heard him talk about crushes, or who is gorgeous, or who liked him. I know a few girls liked him. I don't think he entertained them at all. I remember my high school girlfriend was always saying Jake was so cute. He had good hair. Even if he was still rocking a mild form of the mullet in 1996 (years after Billy Ray Cyrus had chopped his). He was smaller in high school, especially 9th-11th grade. When we played football at lunch for those underclassmen years, Jake's height and elusiveness made him one of the better ball handlers. He moved like Barry Sanders. He shifted and darted and burst through tiny gaps and made the defense look silly. His crafty maneuvers pissed off the opposite team. You wanted Jake on your side. 

And that craftiness of creativity was a defining element to who Jake was. He didn't see the world like the rest of us. Our third year of Art 2 class (EHS offered no Art 3 or 4), as Senior leaders, we were tasked with the chore of painting a mural for the school. I'm not sure why Mr. Teal had us do this art piece. It was pre-designed, and we merely colored it in. It was stupid, and only lasted a few years (dis)gracing the exterior of the gym building. I honestly don't remember if I did anything at all to that mural. I think I did. But I do remember that Jake was painting the grass. He painted it mostly brown (and some red). At one point I noticed and said, "Jake, why is the grass brown?" Jake was shocked. "It's not green?" That's when I found out that Jake was colorblind. 

Thankfully, this piece of art, 
not our mural, made it into the 
yearbook. 

That brown grass was my favorite part of that ill-conceived mural. Some people think art is painting perfectly within the lines, and while that might win you a free piece of pizza at Dominos, but it won't win you lasting peace. Jake wasn't interested in paint by numbers art. 

He did like symbolic art. I had a 1983 Chevy Silverado in high school. It was up there in miles. The top of the dashboard was cracking. especially where the speaker holes were. One time, my friend Steve was playing with the cigarette lighter and "accidentally" burned a circle into the front of my dashboard. Then over the course of the next few weeks, He and Jake added new circles, until they had burned a perfect Olympic symbol into my dashboard. I threatened to kick them out of my car each time I saw it, but their sheepish, impish looks of innocence made me eventually forgive them for absolutely tanking the value of the classic truck.  

This was the kind of abusive friendship we all shared. Once in Jake's tiny bedroom, he insisted on a homemade bean-bag fight. Only Jake's family would have homemade beanbags (well before the era of corn-hole). Jakes room was the size of a glorified office, and he was throwing full force. He wasn't Nolan Ryan, but it was blunt force trauma from 7' away... 

He also, being diminutive, had this amazing ability to trip anybody with what he called his "leg sweep." He just swooped to the ground and to the side when people were backing up, and they just...went down. It wasn't mean spirited or violent. It was usually funny (as long as it wasn't you who was being tripped). But I grew to hate that leg sweep. 

In Jake's defense, I deserved a fair share of leg sweeps. Once I told Jake I would drive him home to Walton (a 20 mile drive from our high school). I must've forgot, because my parents picked me up, we went and did errands and didn't get home until 6 pm. Jake was in our front tire swing. I was like, "what are you doing here?" He said he was waiting for that ride home. Oops. "How long have you been here?" "Oh, just going on 3 hours, swinging in this tire swing." 

The house was unlocked, but Jake being Jake, didn't even try the door. Gen Z will never know the things we used to be able to do before we could scroll on our phones and/or game for hours on end. There used to be magazine racks at the doctors office. Imagine reading to fill time? 

Our friend Zach once won a 15" subwoofer speaker and amplifier in a screaming decibel contest. Zach hit something like 115dbs. Anyway, they installed this amazing system into his 1985 Chrysler Laser. We thumped anything with bass music down the road: Tupac, Too Short, and our personal favorite, Tchiakovski's 1812 Overture. Most people don't realize how much of an OG ole' Pyotr Ilyich Tchiakovski was. When those cannons explode at the end of the song, people outside would hit the ground. Was it thunder, an earthquake, a drive-by shooting? Nope just young punks thumping classical music as they are prone to. 

Jake also thought he was gangsta. We often thought we were gangsters when we went to lunch at Dairy Queen in Veneta. A Peanut Buster parfait at noon on a Tuesday was our version of gold chains.  Jake and I were sitting in the backseat of Zach's car. Jake was watching the speaker bounce. We were talking about those hip hop videos where they threw rice on the subwoofer (it bounces to the thumps) and Jake suddenly
thought it would be okay to toss his spare change on Zach's speaker. Zach was livid. That was his well-earned free scream-off speaker. Ain't no punk gunna drop a dime on his Blaupunkt.  But Jake got that impish look in his eyes. Zach, thinking the verbal abuse would stop Jake, went back to driving the car. Jake then took his freebie Dairy Queen glassware and carefully set it on the speaker. It flopped like a frantic fish. The subwoofer made sounds no speaker should make. Hisses, pops, cackling...

The speaker was fine. And Jake was quick to reiterate, "It's fine, its working fine." Zach wasn't appeased. I jumped in Jake's defense, at least he didn't burn the Olympic symbol into the dashboard... 

Zach eventually forgave Jake. You couldn't stay mad at Jake. He was too likable and silly and immature. He was the glue that held our silly group together. He even got us to form a band. 

He had once been in a middle school band called Buzzsaw. They covered AC/DC songs, and I think even tried to play a Pantera song. A middle school metal band. How hardcore is that. The lead singer I believe went to jail our freshman year. I don't know. It was all lore to me, as I didn't know them in middle school. But by Senior year, Jake wanted to get a band together for the talent show. He had basically taught me how to play guitar a year earlier. Farmer joined on the bass guitar, Alex on drums, Zach as lead singer...and well, we won. We could cover any grunge band: STP, AIC, Pearl Jam, Nirvana...you name it, we played it. Okay. We attempted to. We butchered Enter Sandman by Metallica. We decided 5 minutes before showtime to play it...we never asked Zach if he could sing it. He could...in a different key. My acoustic guitar screeched feedback the whole time. It was totally metal. Or punk rock. Or whatever music isn't great. 

One night we were practicing a new song, Interstate Love Song, by Stone Temple Pilots. There was only one guitar part and Jake had learned the whole song. He played electric guitar. I said, "What am I going to do...if I play the same parts as you, nobody will even hear my acoustic guitar." Jake said, "well, yeah." 

Like that was it. I had no part. I was worthless in the band. For some reason our friend Steve was at the band practice. He wasn't in the band. We are sitting in the kitchen and Steve sees this loaf of white bread and says, "Chris, you can play the bread." and he picks up the bread package and smashes it...it then recoiled back to part of its original shape. He smashed it again. Each time it made a meek smoosh sound. Everybody laughed. 

Jake was like, "yeah, you can play the bread." 

I got all butt-hurt like a stupid 17-year-old is prone to. I walked out. "I quit the band!" I said on my way out. I got mostly out to my car and Jake comes running out. He apologized. It was authentic. Not many men can apologize. I've tried to normalize apologizing to people I've hurt, and often it's seen as a sign of weakness, and its even backfired on me. But real people, real men, know that you can be wrong. And you can fix things by being humble. 

You see, we both grew up a lot since high school. We were once young, idiotic, and immature. Tripping each other, calling each other names, vandalizing each other's property, even smashing perfectly good loaves of bread. But we grew into something much different. Jake almost only posted online about the Bible and God as he battled his issues. Never complained. Never questioned. He was ready.  

We fought once, online, in our adult life. It was near the end. I thought he took a Bible verse out of context and used it in a way...well, whatever, I argued with him. It almost got personal. And then, because we both realized it wasn't worth it. We both apologized. No theology, or personal belief was worth our friendship. And I saw his side, and he saw mine, and we both met in the middle. 

Admitting you are wrong, like apologizing, doesn't happen much anymore. Why can't we be wrong? To humble ourselves and accept correction, or to say, you know what, I'm learning too, I'll look into it and see if I can come to a different conclusion.  I'm trying to be more like Jake. I don't care so much anymore about being right. Just being gracious, loving, and kind. Inebriated in the Blood of Christ. 

God, I wish we could all be more loving, kind, and gracious. I wish we could all be more like Jake. 

Our HS Yearbook: Fatty, chunk-chunks is me. Such a heart
-warming moniker. Jake was one of the only friends who could
say it to me in adulthood and it would still make me smile. 

God, I'm going to miss you bud.