Right About Time - Remembering Eric

A week ago, I found out that my friend (& brother of my best friend Michelle) Eric Mead passed on. When I first got Michelle’s message on Friday night, I couldn’t breathe from the shock and the sadness. He was only 42, and had touched many people from all walks of life during his time here.

There were so many friends and relatives at his funeral service on Wednesday – it was standing room only. Many relatives from their extended family; friends from his adopted town of Millbrook; people he had volunteered with at an animal shelter; friends from his AA and NA meetings; some ex-girlfriends; people he had gone to school with; friends he knew through Michelle; and many more were there to remember him, and to support his family. I know that must have been a comfort to Michelle and their mother Claire. I hope that all this love and support, as well as their faith and their strong mother/daughter bond, will help them cope and somehow carry on through their forever-altered days.

The service was sad and overwhelming, but also heartfelt and a great tribute to Eric. Michelle’s favorite priest from her church gave the sermon, to remind us all that death is the gateway to everlasting life. Our friend Katie, an opera singer, sang “Ave Maria,” and a Puccini aria – it was beautiful. Our friend Larry (who warned everyone that he’s NOT an opera singer!) sang “Will the Circle be Unbroken.” Several relatives and friends spoke about Eric, and Michelle gave a great eulogy, that honored Eric’s unique personality and spirit. She said that Eric was many things to many different people: an artist/poet; a rebel; a philosopher; a spiritualist; an animal lover; a recovered addict; an individualist; a person who was always real, spoke the truth, couldn’t tolerate injustice and lived a simple, creative life. She said he was all of these things to her, and the best brother she could ever have. Michelle’s love for Eric gave her the strength to overcome her grief, as well as the physical pain and exhaustion caused by her fibromyalgia, to give this lovely tribute to him.

I wished I could have spoken at the service – I felt that I had something to say, but the words were stuck inside my throat, the feelings stifled in my mind and heart. I’m uncomfortable speaking in front of groups of people anyway – I’ve always thought that’s why I’m a writer rather than a performer or public speaker. But in the past week I haven’t been able to write it all into words either. The thoughts have formed in my mind, but then I’ve found myself at the keyboard, unable to type letters into words into sentences into paragraphs, that would adequately express what I think and feel.

This has been a common problem for me – my inability to write whenever something bad or sad happens. I start thinking, life sucks – why bother? The writer’s block can last for days or weeks, until I can deal with what happened and move through it. But by the time I’ve finally emerged from my funk, the setback has affected whatever project I’m working on, and it’s hard to pick it up and continue. I’ve allowed this to happen too often – it’s no wonder I’ve had trouble finishing my many projects. My old journals have pages and pages that are blank except for the date and the notation “didn’t write.” I can look through them and remember, oh yeah, that was a bad day… that one, too… that one, too.

But I think it’s right about time that I try to write through the sadness and numbness, and tell what I would have said about Eric at his service. To talk about Eric, the poet/artist, and how his creativity inspires me.

Eric was one of the most unique and interesting people I’ve ever known – he had a brilliant, creative mind and personality that could barely be contained. Although I’ve been close friends with Michelle for over 15 years, I’ve actually known Eric longer. He and my sister Karen were friends for about 25 years, since they were teens. Karen was deeply affected by his passing, and despite chemo-induced pain and fatigue, and emotional distress, she went to the service, to let Michelle and their mother know how much Eric meant to her over the years.

The first time I met Eric was in 1986, when he came bopping into the mall record store where I worked, looking for a friend who worked there too, but had gone home for the day. He spent hours, until the store closed, excitedly talking to me and the store manager (complete strangers) about his passion for music and his plans to be a rock star. I knew then that this kid was one of a kind.

Around that time, Karen met him through some friends, and they became fast friends. They both had rebellious natures, and a mutual interest in music, books, and art, and they spent much time hanging out and talking about everything. Over the years, Eric gave Karen tapes of music that he’d written and recorded, and pages of poems and writings, all expressing his many thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences.

By the time Michelle and I met, around 1993, at the bookstore where we worked, Karen and Eric had grown apart a bit, but once we found out they knew each other, we encouraged them to re-connect. Michelle also gave Eric a creative outlet for his writing – she’d started her own ‘zine, Artless & Naked, a forum for free-expression that she compiled, printed and distributed regularly. Eric’s incisive free-form poetry usually took up several back pages, and gave readers much to ponder once they closed the back cover.

Eric was inspired to start his own iconoclastic ‘zine, Americhaos, and he created several issues, full of his poetry, prose and illustrations. His work asked questions, stirred controversy, and broke barriers. I did an interview with him for Artless & Naked, and we had some great, long talks that stretched out into a 2-part article. It could have been longer – he never ran out of interesting things to say.

In 2001, my friend Lee started a poetry open-mic night, at his Cubbyhole Coffeehouse. Eric became a regular, poetry-slam-style reader there. He would always make sure he went on last, and he usually ran overtime, but he always captured everyone’s attention, and gave them food for thought to carry home with them. People who thought they would be hearing “flowers and teacup” poetry, as Eric liked to describe it, were left astonished. He would throw his whole self into his rapid-fire readings, and the room would crackle with energy, and then at the end he would just go outside for a cigarette. Each week people who were impressed would follow him outside to tell him their reactions, and he would say thanks. I could tell he was glad when they “got it.” But more important than an audience’s reactions was the chance for self-expression. And he would have pages of new poems each week, always something new to say.
In more recent years, Eric worked prolifically on paintings and illustrations, as much as his writing. He would create vibrant abstracts, with recurring motifs of bright colors, sharp angles, pyramids, and eyes. Michelle gave him gifts of pastels and large artist pads, and he sent her back dozens of drawings, each one a visual image of his ideas and thoughts that he expressed in his writing. He was truly a multi-media artist, and the last time I talked with him, he was excited about some new projects he was working on.

Some of his paintings were displayed at his service, and they emanated his passion and personality throughout the room. And I thought of his gift of turning everything he experienced and felt – the hard times of pain and struggle as well as the good times of humor and happiness – into art. He never let anything hinder his creative self-expression. He truly lived an artist’s life.

And so I think I will do my best to honor Eric by trying to write during the bad, hard times instead of just waiting for the good times when my creativity is easily expressed. I need to open myself up, and breathe, and push past the blocks of sadness and malaise. I need find a way to turn everything in this life into artistic expression. I need to live an artist’s life, even when I’m not writing.

Michelle fervently believes that Eric’s spirit lives on, and I believe it too. He’s especially present in his works of art – his poetry, paintings and music – creative touchstones that will help him be unforgettable, always.

I can only hope my writing will do the same for me, someday.

Thanks, Eric.