I attended Jeff Shannon’s memorial service yesterday on the
site of my old high school. I say ‘site’ because my high school was torn down
fifteen years ago and rebuilt from scratch. Lesson in impermanence. Jeff died
of complications from pneumonia in December. Another lesson in impermanence. The location of the gathering was
appropriate because Jeff also attended Meadowdale High School in Lynnwood,
Washington oh so many years ago. We were in the graduating class of 1979, affectionately
nicknamed the “Smelts.” Many of my fellow Smelts were there yesterday. I
suppose we are all getting to a time of life when attending funerals and
memorial services have begun to regularly punctuate our years.
Yesterday I heard stories about Jeff, many I hadn’t known,
from friends, colleagues and family. It was good to have an overview of Jeff’s
life and hear tribute from the many people who loved him. But even before his
passing, Jeff has long been on my mind.
Two weeks after we graduated from high school (and stayed up
all night in the senior grad party writing deep thoughts in each other’s
yearbooks) and a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, Jeff went to Hawaii
and broke his neck in a diving accident. Spinal cord injury. He was on a trip
with other kids from my high school. When the accident happened, these kids
saved his life. Jeff spent the next thirty-four years living with the reality
of C-5/6 quadriplegia. This, Wikipedia tells me, meant he had some function of
biceps and shoulders but little or none of his wrists or hands. And no
controllable function in the torso below the diaphragm.
I heard about Jeff’s accident a few weeks after it
happened, during a rather horrible summer when I was working in a paint factory
earning money for college. I was shocked but imagined Jeff would probably get
better. Eighteen year olds are, after all, optimists, and I had my own worries
and concerns and future ahead.
I have a cousin who has been a paraplegic since the age of
twelve, so I had some inkling what life in a wheelchair is like. Physically, at
least. Mentally, spiritually, much less so. I didn’t understand why life had
meted out this karate chop of fate to Jeff of all people. Even at eighteen it seemed frighteningly random. In the book of Genesis, one
night Jacob is beside a stream and some guy comes out of nowhere, attacks him,
and they wrestle all night, neither getting the upper hand. In the morning, it
turns out the pugnacious thug was an angel. Why did the angel pick on Jacob? Why
all night? Why did the angel wrestle and not, say, offer Jacob a nice back
massage? Why?
At Meadowdale (doesn’t it sound like a bucolic land of
frolicking sheep?) we all knew, and took for granted, that Jeff was immensely
talented. So talented that he could shine effortlessly in multiple areas at
once. He could sing. He could dance. He could act. As his brother said
yesterday, when Jeff got up on a stage, your eye
followed him. You couldn’t help it. He
was charming. He was handsome. Things came easily for him. He had a bright future.
He was also quite a writer, even then. I remember during the spring quarter of our last year of high school, when every senior had
checked out mentally even if the body was still required to be present, watching with awe as Jeff sat down an hour before a paper for college prep
English was due. In the next forty-five minutes he proceeded to handwrite a
five-paragraph essay with a thesis, development and conclusion. When it was
done, he turned it in and received a pretty decent grade. It was an assignment I’d
spent six hours on (and typed!) so I was both indignant and envious that it took him so little effort. It was clear that writing was already a strength of his,
even if the greatest value of that strength was to allow him to spit out a
paper pronto so he could dedicate time to other pursuits. (I’m pretty sure if
he’d allowed himself a second draft, he could’ve outwritten us all back then.)
So all this talent, all this energy, all this future. And
then wham. The metaphoric angel of Genesis knocks him down with one of the
biggest body blows life has to offer. Why did it have to be Jeff? It could have
been anyone of us. Why did life make that extraordinary demand of
him?
If Jeff’s life were a movie or a novel, the spinal cord injury
would be the igniting event, the point where the character moves from normal/status quo territory into a heroic sphere where great achievement and great
failure become possible. To overcome the presented conflict/obstacle the
character must struggle, adapt, change. He (or she) must draw on both internal
and external resources, invariably discovering ones he didn’t know he had. In a
comedy, the process of defeating the obstacle/resolving the conflict causes the
character to grow/develop/experience epiphany and achieve a higher level of existence/consciousness.
(In a tragedy the obstacle defeats the hero.)
At least that’s how it works in stories.
As far as I can tell, Jeff did proceed down the hero’s
path. With the help of friends and family he faced what he had to, transcended
much, and achieved a level of spiritual accomplishment that I
haven’t often run across in the days of my life.
How do I know this? Over the last thirty-four years I’ve only
seen Jeff in person a few times. But over the last five years, I've read Jeff’s writings. I was
especially enamored with his contributions to Facing Disability.com where he
had his own column/blog. I encourage you to read his posts. They are still up.
Especially, “
Finding Plan B,” “
Happiness is A Choice,” and “
Mother Nature Wants to Kill You.”
It is in these writings that I see both evidence of his
struggles and his achievements. I see that
he wrestled his way through the five stages of grief and came out at a place
not so many of us ever get to. He did it through day-in, day-out perseverance,
guts and courage. (In the end, is there any other way?) Combine this with his
enormous intelligence and creativity, and you get the kind of life and
achievement he was able to create for himself.
When I speak of achievement, I'm not talking about money, fame, or awards. I'm not even talking about love. (It’s clear
Jeff's heart was open to give and receive love, and that this was an important source
of his strength.) What I admire and respect Jeff intensely for was his
willingness to undertake a terrifically difficult journey that asked so much of
him. That he had a deep enough sense of himself and the universe to understand
that the journey was worth the effort. That though he’d been put down on a
path far outside his ken, that offered few of the conventional rewards any boy
of his age might want, that meant constant physical and emotional struggle, he rose
to the occasion and became a man in the process. He wrestled that angel, an
angel that fought dirty and mean. And while I wouldn’t say he ever won, like
Jacob in the Bible, Jeff did last out the night. He did find joy and meaning
and grace and spirit. He did prevail and perhaps was blessed.
I suppose we all wrestle with our night of angels in one way
or another. Why Jeff got that particular one is still a mystery to me. But I do
see that Jeff was on a hero’s journey that transformed him. I suspect he is
still on that journey. I hope in some way, some form, our paths cross again. However, you don't get to choose your angel. It chooses you.
