by Luke Lively
I could imagine seeing him running. I felt connected to Benny’s words—not my usual detached perspective. I realized the numbness I had cultivated to protect me from the life I was living in Philly wasn’t working here.
“So many people appear to be in agony when they’re running. But Ben was different. I’m not exaggerating—Ben smiled the entire time he was running. His track coach said he had never seen anything like it. He could be nearing exhaustion and somehow at the time of his harshest exertion he didn’t grimace—he smiled.”
I hadn’t opened my heart to feelings like this for years. But now, sitting in a rocking chair at Smith Mountain Lake, my heart was suddenly exposed.
“When someone is doing something they love, people can see it. Ben won almost every track meet he competed in, even though he was competing against high school juniors and seniors three or four years older.” Turning toward me, Benny said, “Winning wasn’t what made Ben run so fast. It wasn’t the competition—even if someone was nearby, it didn’t change his pace. He ran at his own pace. It wasn’t because of his physique or his technique. I had track coaches from the competing schools come up to me and tell me that Ben was the best they had ever seen at that level and age. One of the coaches from Blacksburg told me what made my son so unique. He said he was a natural. When he ran he was in his own world. Nothing seemed to affect him. He was purely in the moment.” You could hear the pride and happiness in Benny’s memories. I thought of Joshua and Jessica. I had barely been present most of their lives. Benny looked back to the lake, putting his hands on the rocking chair’s arms.
“Ben loved it here at the lake. He would come here and we would fish, hike, and work on the cabin. He helped me build the deck and expand this porch. We carried every rock that went into building the fireplace.” Benny paused for a moment, lightly patting both hands on the arms of his rocking chair as he slowly rocked. “When I come here, I can feel his spirit, as if he were going to bounce onto the porch, sweat pouring from a five-mile run and ask, ‘When are we going fishing, Dad?’”
It was at that moment that the pain of his loss hit again—but much harder. I wasn’t sure I could have tolerated being here if I was Benny, with all of those memories. I felt a tear drop down my face. I quickly wiped away the tear and took a deep, silent breath.
“One of Ben’s rituals was to get up early and go on a morning run. Not a jog, but a run. He didn’t do it for training purposes; he did it because he loved it. It was a Saturday morning. Ben was on the porch stretching. He rarely talked before he went on his run. It was like he was already there, out on the road, visualizing where he was going. But that morning he talked.”
Benny was now struggling to keep his voice even. He was gripping the arms of the old wooden rocker with a slight tremor visible in his left hand. He continued to rock the chair in the same rhythm. I was frozen and trying to keep my emotions in check.
“Ben told me that his conscience was bothering him and he wanted to get something off his chest. I’ll never forget it. He looked at me in my eyes and said, ‘Dad, I lied to you and Mom about drinking at the party last weekend.’ He told me everyone else was doing it and felt like he had to do it. He told me he got sick and was embarrassed. He said, ‘Dad, I know you knew I’d been drinking, but you didn’t say anything.’ He was right—I knew. I figured he was already punishing himself enough for lying. My son was a very honest young man, Jack.”
I felt another shot of guilt strike me. No one had ever accused me of being honest—it had always been the opposite.
Benny leaned forward in the rocker and continued. “Ben said to me, ‘I’m sorry I lied. I learned my lesson and won’t do it again. I just want you to know you’re the best Dad in the world and I love you.’”
Benny had stopped rocking. Tears were streaking down my face. I was not wiping them away. I wasn’t embarrassed to feel the pain. I thought of my relationship, or lack of, with my father and my son. What Benny’s son said to him were words I had never spoken and would never hear.
“I told Ben I loved him, and he was the best son a father could ever hope for. We hugged. I patted his shoulder as he turned. He smiled and said he was going to run his five miles and would be back to eat pancakes with us. He bounced off the porch running toward the road. I stood and watched him go over the top of the hill, floating along like he had wings. That was the last time I saw him alive.”
After a moment, as I choked back the streaming tears, I asked, “What happened?”
“We don’t know. Someone struck him with a vehicle on Route 37 past Harry’s store. Hardly any traffic is on the road at that time of the morning. Evidently a driver didn’t see him and was going too fast and hit him. When Ben wasn’t back in an hour, I got in my truck and drove out to look for him. I knew something had happened. I thought he might have sprained an ankle. I knew his route. After I went about two miles from the turnoff I saw him on the side of the road, curled up almost as if he was in the womb. He was already gone. The injuries he suffered from being hit took his life almost instantly. I held him. I didn’t know what else to do.”
I felt Benny’s loss. I couldn’t imagine losing one of my children. The pain I felt from his loss was now turning to anger. How could this man, a good man with a family, lose a son? A son who was obviously special? A son who would live a good life? A son who any man would have been proud of was taken away too early. Why? My emotions were cascading. I put my hands together and began rubbing them tightly. I didn’t know what to say. We sat in silence, with only the sounds of the birds and the lake lapping against the nearby shoreline. I don’t know how long we sat in silence.
Benny began talking again in a voice that helped to calm me, even though the loss was so much his. “I was angry. I wanted to find the person who killed my son and make him pay for the crime. After the police had exhausted their search, I hired a private investigator. I wanted revenge. But nothing helped heal the loss. I kept asking, why? Losing Ben wasn’t the only thing I lost—I lost hope. Everything changed. Our life, which had seemed so perfect, fell apart. Ann and I rarely talked. Every time we would start to talk, we reminded each other of Ben. I couldn’t stand to come here to the lake. We listed the cabin with a realtor for sale. I hated going to work. Everywhere I turned, I saw a place where Ben should be. It seemed like there was no peace to be had in living. I hated my life.”
He paused and looked down, now slowly rocking. “I was lost, Jack. I didn’t know what to do. Ann and I tried counseling. That didn’t work. I tried everything I could do to take my mind off of life. Most of it was harmful and made the hurt worse. I wasn’t myself. Ann moved to Charlottesville for several months to be with her mother. Left alone, I made terrible choices feeling like nothing mattered anymore.”
Rising from a near-slumping position in his chair, he repositioned himself upright. “On a Saturday about six months after we lost Ben, I drove back here to the cabin. I don’t know why I came back. I had decided I never would come here again, but that morning I got in my truck and drove here. When I got here, I parked my truck and walked around the cabin, almost afraid to look at it. The leaves were off the trees. It started to rain. I had never felt so lonely—I wanted to die. It started to rain even harder. I walked up here onto the porch to get out of the rain. I sat down in this rocker. It was facing the road. I began to replay the morning Ben left for his run.”
Benny then maneuvered the rocker to face the road. I could now see the side of his face. I leaned to the side to share the same view—staring up the dirt road into the trees. He continued to talk in a calm voice. “As I sat here that morning, Jack, I remembered the last time I saw him alive. I had blamed myself for his death. I had turned my pain into a selfish pity that was killing me. I realized what I needed to do. As I remembered Ben running over the top of the hill going out of sight, I decided at that moment I would never sell this place. I vowed that I was here to live, not die. Two words were in my thoughts—honor Ben. Since that day, whenever I feel the grief
and pain coming back—whenever I feel like I have no options—I remember to honor Ben. That’s why I’m here, with you, right now, Jack. Otherwise, I probably would not be alive. I had given up. I know you’re here this weekend to talk about a job, and that’s important to you and me. But life is so much more than a job. I’m here to honor Ben. What else could I do that could mean more?”
I remained motionless staring up the road. How had I handled losing lives of people close to me? I tried to run from death, but it had finally caught up with me. I had never come to terms with my grief and anger over my father’s death. The guilt I carried from not being there to help him, from being powerless to stop him from jumping from a bridge, poured over me. But my guilt didn’t stop there. I had nearly frozen my mother out of my life. She died without hearing me say I was sorry. She didn’t hear me say I loved her. Why did I treat her so coldly after my father died? Why? Benny’s story of a life lost much too early shook out the lies I had told myself over the years. The past grasped my heart. I felt a wave of nausea, but remembered José’s advice and slowed my breathing. After a moment, I told Benny, “I could never handle something like that.”
“Yes you could, Jack. You never know what kind of strength you have inside until you find yourself looking down into the abyss. The choice is clear. You summon your will and strength, and do the best you can. The options are few when you reach that point. I had absolute clarity in what I needed to do. I chose to live.”
“How can I get rid of my pain?” The question Benny had posed himself after the death of his son was another question I knew well.
“Even though I chose to live, it hurt,” he said. “For so long, every breath I took hurt. I wondered if I was going to be able to get rid of the anger and pity. As every day passed I realized the choice was more than just to live—it was a choice of how I wanted to live my life. I looked at myself as honestly as possible. I was tired of the self-pity, the anger, and the hatred. To honor Ben, I had to be different. I had to change.”
When he spoke those words, I listened carefully. If ever there was someone who needed to change, it was me.
“I decided I was not going to let my sorrows define me,” he said as he turned facing me. “I didn’t know the answers to all of the questions I was asking myself. Who am I? What is my purpose? Why did I lose my son? I decided to not run from the questions I couldn’t answer but face them. We aren’t supposed to know all the answers. But we have to keep asking. We have to live a questionable life—a life filled with questions. The life we have been given.”
I was ashamed. The question that I asked all my life was “What else can I take?” I did something I had never allowed myself—I was honest with someone about how I felt.
“I’m the opposite of what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m still running from those questions.” I told Benny how I had lived: a life devoted to getting, giving only the minimum in the process. I exposed who I was to a person I barely knew. Finally I said, “I’m sure I’m not the person you would want to be your successor. I’ve wasted my life.”
“Jack, you’re still alive,” Benny said, smiling. “You haven’t wasted your life as long as your heart is beating. It sounds like you’re a lot like I was years ago. You’re out of balance. It’s like a wheel that’s out of kilter—it may still work, but the faster it turns the more you notice the imbalance. Balancing is a moment-by-moment effort.”
“But how do you balance your life?” I said.
“I’ve found you have to be rebalance,” he said, a huge smile lighting up his face. “You have to give more than you take.”
“What do you mean?”
“What causes us the most suffering is chasing after things. You are trying to hold onto something you only think you have. The one undeniable law of the universe is that everything changes. Trying to hold on to things in order to avoid change only sets us up for disaster. We think we can be satisfied by having more or keeping the status quo. That’s where the wheel goes out of kilter. We are simply taking more than giving.”
“That’s me,” I said. “But how can you ever get ahead in life without wanting more from it?”
“Jack, you just said it—wanting more and getting more doesn’t satisfy. To find balance, you must change your intent. If your intention is to have more, you’re already aimed at the wrong target. You’ll never find balance in wanting more. But we will in letting go and simply living, accepting change for what it is—part of life.”
Letting go of anything was almost impossible for me. I had taught myself to hang on to everything I had worked so hard for. Now, this man was telling me to let go. I was struggling with the idea. “That sounds good if everyone is doing the same thing,” I rebutted. “But that isn’t reality. Most people are out for themselves. If you live like you suggest, you’ll be taken advantage of.”
“You have to start trusting that giving is of more value than getting. Life is an interdependent process, a process you share with everyone. To live fully, you have to let go of the attachments that drag you down and hold you back. I ask this with all respect, Jack: Is the life you’ve been living working for you?”
I leaned over with my head down, rubbing my hands together. Then I told Benny about my father, something I had never talked about. I told him everything I felt—the pain, the anger, the loss, the guilt. I then told him how I failed with my mother. I shared the story of how I only told her I loved her when she was in a coma in the hospital and that I was asleep as she passed away. I couldn’t stop the tears. The guilt was too heavy. “No,” I said. “My life isn’t working—for me or anyone else.”
Benny put his hand on my shoulder. “Jack, I know your mother heard you. You went to sleep holding her hand, at peace with yourself. She heard you and passed, peacefully, holding your hand. She was at peace. You did the right thing. You were there, and you were honest with her. You cannot change the past. But you can change now. You need to let go of the guilt, Jack. Just let go of it. It sounds like you have carried it too long.”
Benny gripped my shoulder for a brief second. I remembered when I was in the hospital and I told my mother I loved her and I was sorry, I thought I felt her tighten her grip on my hand. Just for a split second, I felt the slight pressure of her grip. It wasn’t my imagination—it did happen. She did hear me.
“Jack, you need to forgive yourself. Don’t live in the past. Your parents loved you and were proud of you. You have your life to live. Live a life that will honor your parents. Drop the baggage you’re carrying, Jack. Only you can let go.”
“You’re right—I’ll try.” But letting go seemed impossible. I did not tell him I had much more baggage. How could I drop that so simply?
“I think we forget sometimes how connected we are to everything. The rose grows out of dirt. We use garbage and waste to feed plants that help to sustain our own quality of life. The world we live in is in a fragile balance with everything. One of the wisest people I’ve ever met told me, ‘All is all.’ Beauty isn’t separate from ugliness. Creating opposites is only our way of trying to lessen change. But change is life; the good comes with the bad. Everything’s connected.”
I had never thought about the interconnected nature of things. It was something I had avoided. Being separate made my life easier to accept. I was still feeling the lightness of a confession.
“Thanks for listening,” I said. “This is the most unusual job interview I’ve ever heard of.”
“Always expect the unexpected,” he said, laughing. “I’m going to get you another glass of clove tea. It looks like you enjoyed it,” he said, smiling as he stood. “See what trying something different will get you—a new favorite drink!” He laughed and stepped inside the cabin.
I looked back up the road where I had visualized Benny’s son. By sharing his loss, I was able to shake loose many of the chains holding back the guilt of my own life gone wrong. I felt lighter, as though a huge boulder had been lifted from my back. I still had the baggage, but I kn
ew what to do with it.
Let it go. But could I?
I trust a person who is seeking the truth more than those who say they’ve found it.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRICE
28. Who Do You Want to Be?
“WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?”
It didn’t take long for me to retreat from the ideas about change that Benny had brought up. I had stepped back inside the cabin to wash my face and prepare for my first real fishing excursion. Walking down the hallway leading to the bathroom I saw a photo from a Halloween when Benny’s son was alive. Benny was dressed as a cowboy. I smiled. He looked a little bit like a much taller version of Howdy Doody.
Seeing the photo, I remembered a masquerade party of my own. Tina had twisted my arm and forced me to attend a Halloween gathering at our neighbor’s home. As usual, I didn’t want to go. I was too tired to put on another mask.
“I want to be a couch—with me on it,” I answered from the living room.
“Who do you want to go as?” Tina asked, rephrasing the question to get a more positive response.
“Pinocchio,” I shouted. “He’s a wooden puppet. That sounds close.”
“What are you talking about, Jack?” Tina asked as she stepped into the room.
“You’ve been telling me I’m unemotional,” I said, referring to an argument earlier that day. “You always tell me I do whatever Chad tells me, like a puppet. Pinocchio seems like a good fit for me.”
“I was thinking of a different outfit,” Tina said. “Scrooge.”
“That fits, too,” I said. “You find the right outfit, and I’ll wear it.”
“There’s no need to change what you have on,” Tina said. “You’re already him.”