Take, for example, our last conversation in person. The conversation began where our last had finished: he asked me if I’d seen any of the pick-up material that he’d burned for me. I told him that I had not gotten the chance yet. Swimmingly (which means fueled by his chattiness), the conversation moved along to the hassles of dating Hispanic women, his attempt to learn Russian in order to court Eastern European women, an aesthetic review of my ex-girlfriend (not good), spirituality and the nature of God (he argued that Conversations with God made God seem like a white suburbanite and therefore was tacky), and his passion to create music. The jump from wanting to learn Russian to the nature of God is a leap indeed, and it certainly didn’t occur this way--however, these are the items that I vividly remember, perhaps due to my own predisposition to them.
At this point in the conversation, Dave shifted gears to something that was more important to him: music.
Dave had been a musician since roughly the age of seventeen when, influenced by Jimi Hendrix, he began playing the guitar. (This time also coincided with his spiritual metamorphosis.) He played the electric guitar at first but soon found it either difficult or boring and from then on switched to the acoustic. The guitar soon became an escape from his daily mundane existence here at home. He referred to his guitar-playing moments as “jam sessions”. He matured as an artist, began appreciating the music of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, and played the guitar while composing his own songs until his chronic pain prevented him. He also played the piano but never quite mastered it. The song sheet in his piano when he died was “You Are So Beautiful.” Maybe due to his pain, he put his music on hold as he studied to become, and became, a radiographer.
I saw a spark turn on inside of Dave as he described to me the type of music he wanted to create: music that would “move the masses.” He used countless hand gestures as he recounted the story of an old, frail Pablo Casals who, stricken with rheumatic pain, would nevertheless walk to his piano every day and play till the pain drained out of him. He continued: “When asked why he kept playing the same Bach concerto well into his nineties, he replied that he always noticed a little improvement.” He loved that story, and would use it to inspire himself whenever he felt pain or lacked inspiration.
Dave didn’t discuss his pain too much with me and I never asked him about it. I never thought that he was anything other than okay, which is why I’d question my mom whenever she used words such as “sickly” to describe him. Maybe he spoke to her more about it than to me. But deep down, I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to see him as sick. After all he’d always been my older, stronger brother, something nearing a superman. The knowledge that he had pain was always intellectual, but the reality that he was indeed sick didn’t come to me till I saw him lying on the floor dead that fateful night. It was then that all my mom had ever said of him came flooding back into my ears. I wonder, though: even if I would’ve broken through to his illness, what would that have resolved? Was Dave unreachable?
What Dave talked about was just about everything else. He was a really no-holds-barred, nothing-off-limits type of person. I guess what I really enjoyed about conversations with him was just that: that they were about every and any thing. And also that he brought a level of intelligence and rationality that not many people I’ve known have been able to bring. In short, he was my intellectual counterpart. In areas where he lacked, I teemed, and vice-versa. I often see us as a Hispanic, low-budget version of Frasier Crane and his younger brother Niles. I know he would’ve liked that one, especially since it was him that coined “low-budget” among us two.
On trips to the Dominican Republic with our mom, we’d pass the long hours talking. On top of that, we talked the only language we ever talked, which was English, beautiful and alien to hear in Dominicana. Once, a conversation ignited a daring game where he agreed to walk the rat-congested floor in our aunt’s house in Higüey for a peso, which amounts to about six cents in American currency. He won the bet (and therefore the peso from me) and yet I still didn’t wanna give it to him, though he ultimately forced me to do so--I was giving him what a peso could buy: cold water pouches, with the occasional flavored water choice.
What conversations with Dave ultimately represent is the influence that he was able to exert on me. Though he also used his life as a glowing example, his conversations more than anything helped construct my worldview. Maybe our worldviews are such that if looked at through an external lens, it is difficult to tell where his end and mine begin. To be sure, the conversations and the flow of knowledge was always symbiotic.
Les Brown often makes the observation that cemeteries are the wealthiest places on earth because they hold all the intrinsic worth of people’s deferred dreams. Dave died before he could really get started. He often referred to Malcolm Gladwell’s belief that true mastery of anything is gained only after 10,000 hours of practice, and he surmised that he was at 2,000 hours as of March 31, 2010, just two months shy of his passing. When his ex-girlfriend Gina told me that he told her that he enjoyed talking with me, I was happy to know he likewise enjoyed our conversations and to such an extent that he’d say so aloud. I think that more than the intellectual exchanges, he loved the fact that I believed in him. It kept him driven.
Every year on June 5, the day that Dave passed, we should all remind ourselves of our life’s priorities and whether we are living up to them. The reality is, that we should do this every day. See June 5th as a new New Year’s Day. The resolutions will be the priorities. There will be no fireworks and confetti, there will only be silent observation.
Song composed and performed by Dave, "Come Home"
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