Miles to Go

When Rich died 15 years ago, I was profoundly shocked and unprepared. He was only 27, and I didn’t comprehend that someone so young could die of natural causes. I knew that it happened, but I don’t think I really believed it could. At least not to him.

I was 30 then, and now I’m 45, dealing with the same issue again. I was shocked to walk into the ICU and see Shannon's tiny room full of people with every light on. I knew what was going on from across the unit. I must have looked visibly shaken, because someone came up and asked me if I was Jeff before I made in 10 feet from the door.

The hospital had left a message on my home phone minutes after I left to go see him. They didn’t call my cell phone, and that’s probably just as well. I might have run the car off the road if they had.

The shock is wearing off slowly, and I wasn’t really prepared for Shannon’s death. I don’t know that anyone can “be prepared” for the death of anyone they love. I think we psychologically fight the awareness that death is a possibility as long as we can and only acknowledge it when there is no other choice.

I wasn’t prepared, but I was better prepared than I had been 15 years ago.

I was talking to a co-worker whose husband died the same weekend Shannon did. She said she has 3 divorces under her belt, but this is the first time she’s been a widow. She wanted to know what it was like and how long it took to get over. I told her that I’ve never gotten over Rich’s death, but I’ve gotten beyond it.

That took 5 years.

I think that’s the best any of us can hope for: to get beyond.

I’m nowhere near that right now as regards Shannon. I found out today that my co-workers had contributed $350 in his memory to the local food bank. Enough for 1,050 meals. My first thought was that I had to tell him, and then I realized I’d have to hope he knows in his own way. It made me cry.

He would be happy that the money wasn’t spent on anything else. Not flowers or plants or anything other than where it went. As am I. It was a fitting tribute to a fine man that I’ll never get over.

When I’ll get beyond is anyone’s guess. It won't be soon. I hope it's not 5 years. That's too long. Longer than I want. Regardless, I have miles to go before I sleep.

The Great Beyond

Shannon's memorial was Saturday. I planned a simple service with some of our favorite music and friends and family talking about him. It was kind of like group therapy with a planned program. It was lovely, and I left feeling exhausted, relieved that it went well and proud of my last gift to him.

When Rich, my first partner, died 15 years ago, his family swooped in and took control of everything. As a result, his funeral was a travesty. It had nothing to do with him.

I vowed that wouldn't happen with Shannon, so his memorial was all about him. He would have liked it.

I officiated and then delivered remarks that I prepared ahead of time.

This is how I opened:

We come together at times like this for mutual comfort and support or to support others. It’s all part of what the great Southern writer Eudora Welty called “the pageant of grief.” It’s for the living more-so than the dead. She said that the rituals surrounding death have evolved to provide some sort of structure to what often seems like an unexpected train wreck and the grief that follows. That occasions like this help us give that grief a name and help us realize why we’re grieving. They help us crystallize why we grieve. Why we will miss someone.

This event isn’t about anything so much as remembering why we loved Shannon. It’s not about death: it’s about life and celebrating his in particular.

Several people spoke in between musical interludes, and then it was my turn. This is what I said:

We all knew Shannon in different ways. He was a cousin, an uncle, a brother, a son and a friend long before I knew him. However, I am probably the only among us that he stalked. He always said “pursued”, but one man’s pursuer is another one’s stalker.

He almost literally blew into my life on a bitterly cold, windy evening in January 2000. I will never forget that first encounter. I was sitting in a small club in downtown Austin that was deserted because it was so cold outside reading a book and minding my own business. I felt a blast of frigid wind before I heard the door close or saw anyone.

The bartender looked up and said, “Shannon, close the door behind you. And go fix your hair.” It was longer back then, and had flopped over somewhere between upside down and sticking straight up.

I looked up and saw a typical Austin kook with a bad haircut, so I went back to my book. He went to the men’s room and emerged shortly, still looking kooky but better groomed.

He was wearing a shirt I’m sure he had gotten sometimes in the 70’s, rainbow toe-socks, jeans and sandals. I hadn’t seen toe-socks since the 80’s and wondered where he had come across them. They weren’t attractive in the 80’s and nothing had changed, especially not with the sandals. Sandals when the wind chill is hovering around 20?

He took the seat next to me and insisted on talking. He was intrigued that I was sitting in a deserted night club on a cold, windy night reading. I told him I was sharing a too-small apartment with a friend and needed some space and that I was reading because I wanted to.

I finally had to put the book away. I knew I wasn’t going to get to the next paragraph with him there, much less the next chapter. I discovered that he was intelligent, well-educated and definitely a bit of a kook. That’s when he started stalking me (or “pursuing” me, depending on who you talk to).

I was at a difficult point in my life, still mourning the loss five years prior of my first partner, Rich. I was emotionally unstable and generally unhappy. Anyone who was sane would have just walked away from me and called it a day. But we all know that sanity wasn’t Shannon’s strong point, so he stuck around.

I was evasive and elusive for months. I didn’t want a relationship because I was still dealing with the wreckage and baggage left over from my first. Still, he called. He showed up places he thought I might be. He courted and wooed me, but I wasn’t having any of it.

Then I found out that my best friend, who I was sharing the too-too small apartment with, had throat cancer and the prognosis wasn’t very good. The day Bucky left for MD Anderson in Houston for treatment, I called Shannon and asked him to come over and stay with me. I didn’t want to be alone.

He was there in record time. And he never left.

He stayed with me through the illness, the death and funeral. I’m not sure what I would have done without him.

He was a prince that anyone here could be proud of. He never shied away from any of it, unlike the many people that jumped ship like they were rats and the boat was going down. He stood by me and held my hand during the funeral.

I knew he was a keeper.

Neither one of us has been particularly easy to live with, ever. But we made a life together, never-the-less. And it was good. All of it.

When I look back and remember the times that he didn’t know me because he didn’t know who he was, they fade away. They were a small part of the great tapestry of life that we created together.

More than those dark times, I remember a trip to Padre Island National Seashore. It’s a pristine beach where you can sit for hours and contemplate the waves coming regularly onto the shore and watch the pelicans flying in formation overhead, absorbing serenity and peace. I did just that until some idiot (named Shannon) threw the left-overs from our picnic lunch into the air near me and I was swarmed by sea gulls.

There’s a picture of me dancing around trying to fend then off somewhere. I’m surprised the picture came out because he was laughing and cackling so loudly. The picture will never be seen again. Except by me.

I remember walking around New Orleans and having him take pictures of the back of my head in front of whatever building struck my fancy. Riding on the street car and taking a swig of something I still don’t know what was from some European tourists. It was some sort of concoction in a Gatorade bottle, and they were passing it around. Those German kids made us look like amateurs when it came to partying.

And the times we spent at Hobbit House in Bastrop state park, where there’s no phone, no nothing. They had a bathroom with a shower. I said “Let’s go”. It’s cabin #2. The weekend in Fredericksburg at a little cabin with a great view and tiny shower. It also came with a calf out back who loved having his picture taken. I nicknamed him Glamour Boy. I started with Glamour Puss, but then looked a little closer. He was definitely a boy.

I remember how much I missed Shannon when we had to be separated, but always knew that he’d be fussing over the cats and taking care of what needed to be done. One of his legacies is a series of spoiled, demanding cats. They pester me now because they can’t find him.

Mostly, I remember the mundane days and nights of me going to work and coming home. Him calling me to remind me to pay one bill or another. He was always better at that than me. The simple joy of coming home to someone I loved every evening is what I remember most. As unglamorous as that sounds, it’s all either of us ever wanted, and it’s what we had.

I keep looking at his end of the couch and expecting him to be there or for him to come walking out of the next room. But he’s not there.

In a way he is. I can almost see him in places where I expect him, just not quite so clearly as before. Or I hear a noise and think it’s him. Or thinking I’ve got the tell Shannon this or that because he’d get a kick out of it.

I have a long standing theory that relationships often do better when there are at least as many TV’s as people. Shannon liked his cops and robbers shoot-em-ups, and I’m more of a PBS kind of guy, so I often either watched something else or worked on a project in the next room. Of all the things I will miss most, it’s walking through the living room for one reason or another, kissing him on the forehead, rubbing it and telling him he was my baby. And that he would be forever.

That simple thing I’ll hold next to my heart when it’s January and the wind is bitterly cold. That alone will keep me warm on the cold, dark nights ahead. It’s what I have left.

In the end, I don’t think it’s possible to capture the essence of a person in words. So I will suffice to say that he was among the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, most generous and loving men I’ve ever known. While he remained something of a kook, he was my kook.

I wrote a letter to him a few days before he died, but every time I was at the hospital, he was either asleep—I wanted him to get his rest—or someone was fussing over him. I thought that Saturday night would be a quiet time to give it to him.

I never got that chance.

So I’ll read it to you:


"Sweetie,

"I miss you something fierce. The house is still empty, and the cats are getting more neurotic. They were actually curled up not far from each other earlier: Amanda in my desk chair in the living room, and Lucy on the desk right above her. No taunting or hissing or anything. I think they miss you, too.

"I hate not being able to have a conversation with you. You’re the person I talk to about the things that I don’t with anyone else. And me doing all the talking isn’t exactly a conversation.

"I know that it’s got to be frustrating for you, too. Probably even more-so than for me. I’d probably be a bigger mess than you in the same situation. I’m mouthy (I take after Mama, as you well know), so anything that interfered with that would give me real problems.

"I’m doing the best I can to take care of you. Part of that is listening to the doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists, then making decisions when I have to about your care. None of them seem to mind when I ask what they’re doing and why. They actually seem pleased that someone cares enough to ask questions.

"I haven’t seen anything that would make me think that you would be better off anywhere else. To the contrary, I think you’re in the best place you could be right now. Where people who know how can take care of you.

"It hurts my male pride not to be able to take care of you myself, but my love for you is much greater than my pride.

"I will do anything I must to get you home where you belong. Even if it means a long, slow haul. You stood by me when I needed you, and that’s when I knew I loved you.

"Now it’s my turn to stand by you. For the long haul, no matter how long it gets.

"I love watching you sleep. A few times I’ve come in, and you were asleep. I haven’t woken you, but I’ve stood by the bed and watched you sleep. You seem at peace, and I want to savor the moment but still let you get your rest.

"I guess I’m taking care of you by proxy: I’m allowing people who know what they’re doing to do what I could if I knew how. I’m not sure any of them could look at a balance sheet and know how to read it (or even what one is). Their specialties lie far from mine.

"I feel so helpless and alone, even though I know on one level that I’m not. We have support from others on many levels, but the honest truth is that we’re the ones dealing with it the most.

"I’ve spent about 3 hours a day coming, going, parking and making it to the ICU. That doesn’t include the time I’m actually in the ICU. I drove 240 miles last week, mostly coming and going to and from the hospital. I eat lunch at my desk while I’m working so I can come see you at noon. But I don’t mind. I start to get neurotic as the cats if I can’t see you.

"You’re the person I share my life with. All of it. Good and bad. You’re part of me.

"That part of me is missing itself. I want you home, but only when I can take care of you properly. Right now, I can’t. And it breaks my heart.

"All I can say is that I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Without you, I’m only half a person."


I grieve because he was my beginning and my end. My life revolved around him. And for a good reason: he was worth it. He was a kind, gentle, intelligent, generous man who never ceased to challenge me or encourage me to become my better self.

Today, I celebrate the years we had together and the wonderful, kooky, sweet, complicated man he was. We had a good life together. A great life, even. He was truly happy, perhaps for the first time in his life, in spite of his deteriorating mobility and multiple health problems. He knew I loved him and would be there, come hell or high water. He basked in that love. I loved him well. He was not mine to keep.

Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing you to your rest.

He was cremated. The box pictured above holds part of him. The rest went to family members.

He is at peace, I think, as am I, to one degree or another. I'm sad, but not immobilized by grief. I'm trying to learn how to be a single person again and allow the reality that he's gone sink in slowly.

I told someone today that I'll never get over his death. The best I can hope for is to get beyond it.

My Hero

Shannon Montgomery Stenberg was born August 7, 1951. He passed on to his greater life Saturday night, September 11, 2010.

After a difficult and tumultuous youth, he blossomed into the man everyone knew he could be. He was kind and gentle, always eager to help anyone in any way he could, and a talented musician who loved nothing better than playing his guitar and writing songs.

Shannon spent his life as a musician, cabinet-maker, student, teacher and Hindu disciple, all worthwhile and fulfilling pursuits. He lived his last decade with a partner who loved him dearly, without condition. Although Shannon suffered from chronic mental illness (a topic he never shied away from) and became increasingly mobility-impaired, they were among the happiest years of his life.

He is survived by his partner, Jeff Morgan of Austin, his mother Johnnie of New Braunfels, TX, his brother Gary and sister-in-law Leslie of Austin, his brother Mike and sister-in-law Beth of Warrenton, VA, his beloved aunt Anno and cousins Claudia and Heidi of Magnolia, TX, and countless other cousins, nieces, nephews and friends.

A memorial reception will be held on 1:00 pm Saturday, September 25, at 31900 RR 12 at the West Hill Center in Dripping Springs. All family, friends and loved ones are invited to attend.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made in Shannon’s memory to the Capital Area Food Bank, a cause that he believed in and supported regularly.

We loved him well. He was not ours to keep.