Meditations on Death

Paul Linden Myklebust is gone. I have to keep telling myself that to make it feel real.

The past week has been spent trying (and failing) to distract myself. Before that, a week was spent preparing for the memorial service. A week before that, I was talking to Paul on the phone.

I’m not the first person to lose a friend. But it’s the first time I’ve lost a friend at a young age. It sucks.

Suddenly, life takes a sharp right hand turn, and it feels as though nothing will look the same again. Every action is cast in the light of “this could be my last” and every night is filled with dreams and memories of my friend. He gives me warnings on how not to die: Buckle in the car seat, he says. Exercise. Wear a life jacket.

Wear a life jacket. Why would he come back to tell me that?

You see, Paul died. Drowned in murky circumstances in less than 10 feet of water. For three days they searched for his body. When the divers found him, they wrapped their arms around him in a hug as requested by his parents. Then they carefully brought him to shore.

The next day I was on a plane to be with his family.

During those seven days, I did things I never thought I would do, least of all for my best friend. I was asked: would he have preferred to be buried or cremated, which urn would he would prefer, what music should be played at his funeral, who needs to be notified of his death and recovery of his body, what else can be done?

That is the question on everyone’s mind: what else can be done?

I tried to lend support to the family. I tried to give a final goodbye with song. In the end, I cried and wanted to feel more pain. I still feel that way. How I can I hurt more so his family can hurt less?

His funeral was a true celebration. Attendees were asked to wear blue to celebrate his life and the church was filled with blue and black. The music was sorrowful and ultimately up-lifting. The messages were funny and touching.

I realized at the funeral that the things he did in his life that annoyed me the most were the things most celebrated after his death.

He never did what anyone expected of him or what people told him to do. It always frustrated me as I tried to help him plan. As his brother-in-law said in his eulogy, many people wanted Paul to wear different shoes. In the end, he wore his own.

That’s what made him great. He was himself. Inspiring laughter, living in the present and enjoying a life saturated with love.

How many of us are worried about the shoes others want us to wear? When a healthy, loving 31 year-old can die in a flash, why would any of us waste our time in shoes that don’t fit?

I was also amazed at how a little project we created together as freshmen in college became one of his legacy projects.

During January of our freshmen year, we spent three weeks recording almost an hour of music that we wrote and played together. Using an old Gateway 2000 and a small sound mixer we created our debut and farewell album, chillingly titled “Hello and Goodbye.”

The clairvoyance of this title cannot be over stated. We spent most of our first year saying hello and diving head first into music together. We continued to grow together, beyond simply writing and recording music. We spent most of our waking and sleeping hours together. We played frisbee together, ate together, sang in choir together, dated women who were friends and grew up together. We soon said goodbye to the recording career of our band P.S., but we remained best friends.

The years moved us apart, but we were always close, connected by the shared memory of watching one another become men. When I ripped off my shirt at 2am in Jimmy John’s, it was just another night out. When we performed an acoustic version of J-Sean’s “Down” for a wedding, it seemed natural. When he played beach volleyball on crutches at my bachelor party, no one was surprised. When he gave a toast as my best man at my wedding, he perfectly blended humor, love and congratulations for finding the perfect partner.

We all were waiting for him to marry. To settle down, to start a family, to have a wedding. It’s these milestones that now sting so much. He never got to do the things he would have been so good at.

But again, that is me trying to tell him what he should do. It is time to say goodbye, but how do you say goodbye when it doesn’t yet feel real?

After Paul’s death, a friend challenged me to honor the dead by honoring the living. What do the people around us do that we love and want to emulate?

Everyone wanted to emulate Paul’s zest for life, his love for others, his ability to see both sides of the story and above all to do what he thought was right. I should have told him I admired those traits instead of being frustrated he wasn’t more like me. Who else in my life am I trying to change? Maybe I am trying to change them because I am too afraid to say I wish I could be like them.

There is unending praise we can give to Paul. He was my best man in every facet of the word.

Now, he is gone. My life will not be the same, and I don’t want it to be the same. Right now I feel pain and emptiness. I hope the more I carry, the lighter it will be for others.