One of the best friends I’ll ever have died on October 31, 2006. Eric Shockley drowned in his own body fluids in a hospital bed, in his early 30’s. A couple years ago his aorta started to balloon. They were able to patch it and replace the damaged valve, but we always knew it was going to kill him. We just didn’t think it would be this soon. And I promised I’d say this at his funeral, but I didn’t find out he’d died until afterward. So here goes:

Eric had a heart of gold. Shame about the shitty aorta.

Our friendship started randomly, as all great ones do. On a ford focus discussion board of all places, debating politics. Eric was a dirty socialist. I was a hardcore conservative. But by the time he died we were both converging on a kind of conservation-centered pseudolibertarianism. The politics weren’t important, except that they were the way we met, and a microcosm of our entire friendship.

Sometimes, I still think it’s some kind of sick joke. That there’ll be a gigantic 300lb crate on my doorstep when I come home from school some random day. That upon prying the lid off, out will pop a heavyset 6′4 white guy with a stupid beard who’ll shout ‘Surprise’. I’ll scream and have a heart attack and then we’ll both have weak tickers and moronic facial hair.

Which is exactly the kind of thing Eric would do. But he probably wouldn’t let me stew this long. At least I don’t think he was that much of a bastard.

Anyway, the point is, Eric and I were like brothers. We fought constantly, usually because one or the other was being pigheaded about some opinion or another. And then we’d make up. Heck, we were worse than brothers. If you’re a Scrubs fan as I am, you probably find great humor in the pseudo-homosexual relationship between JD and Turk, epitomized by the touching and beautiful song, Guy Love. That’s about where we were.

I’m known for my gay jokes around school, but Eric definitely holds the title for ‘gayest thing ever said by a straight man’ when he in all seriousness told me that the only time he ever smiled anymore was when we talked. But that was one of the great things about our friendship. Self consciousness was never an issue. We were ourselves.

People have a lot of layers. Some more than others. Myself? I collect layers as a sort of hobby, not to mention as a defense mechanism. I can’t say that too many people know the real me. Eric did. Hell, without Eric I don’t think I would know the real me.

In a post I made about a week before he died, I all but named him specifically. And I’m glad he commented, because it would turn out to be our last interaction. Around Eric, and perhaps a couple others, Nick came out. Not the jock, not the clown, not the nerd. Just the guy.
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You know how all 5 year olds have that annoying ability to ask you ‘How Come?’ until you’re blue in the face with frustration and are starting to contemplate just how far you can hurl 40lbs of annoying kindergartener? That kind of doggedness was Eric’s greatest gift to me. He forced me to push my understanding of the world and myself. And whenever I’d get to a ‘Just because, dammit!’, he’d force me through it and out the other side into deeper understanding. I’d like to think I pushed him too, which is probably why he was slightly less of a hippy by the time he died. And why I’m slightly more of one.

We have a concept in hinduism known as maya–the veil of illusion. The thing about reality is that we will always have trouble perceiving it. It’s concealed from us by our imperfect sense, by our prejudices and our preconceptions. But if we’re aware of these imperfections in ourselves and in our view of the world, we can come closer to finding reality.

In science we develop models of the world, and these models are based on certain assumptions. A model is only as true to the world as its assumptions are. The more accurate the assumptions, the more accurate the model.

Eric wasn’t a hindu or a scientist, but more than any scripture (and I’ve read them all), or any science book (and I’ve read thousands), he was the most instrumental in helping me to acknowledge the veil, and start to lift it. Because of Eric, I’ve pushed back the boundaries of simple belief and replaced it with knowledgeable understanding.

And that’s why even though I’ll never be lucky enough to see that giant crate on my doorstep, will never again hear him say something so gay that even JD and Turk would be embarassed, I know that Eric isn’t dead.

Eric’s gift is still with me, pushing me, demanding more of me. Like that 5 year old, his memory tugs on my pant leg, asking why? I’ve still got my ‘Just because’s but today it’s a much different, much smaller set of them than it was before I met him. And I keep pushing through, finding explanations for things I’d taken for granted. Changing my opinions, seeking to find not internal consistency, not some assumption upon which to build a castle in the clouds, but the truth. And it’ll never stop. I owe that much to Eric.

Eric was larger than life. And he was taken long before his time. But I take solace in the fact that everything I do, he does. That whatever I manage to do with my life is in no small part his doing. That if I can push people the way he pushed me, to find themselves and in so doing find each other, that if I accomplish nothing else, it’ll still be a life well spent.

So in memory of Eric, I’ll ask you. Where does your understanding end, and your blind belief begin?

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes “AWWW!”
–Jack Kerouac