Sunday, December 4, 2011

We lost Rocco yesterday. Those who knew him well know what a loss that really is. Those who didn’t will likely never understand who it was they missed.

Robert “Rocco” Anderson died sometime Friday night, after another hard seizure, it seems. I don’t have all the details yet. Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy is common enough, apparently, to have its own acronym, a fact I can imagine Rocco riffing on in his own inimitable style. He’d have worked “SUDEP” into a poem, a rant, a status update, or one of his many and often eye-opening comments, and then followed it with a big ol’ “LOL.” One thing I can say about Rocco… when he wrote LOL, you could be absolutely certain that, wherever he was, he had, in fact, laughed out loud.

I knew Rocco for seven years. I knew him as my daughter’s partner. I knew him as a drummer. I knew him as a writer, as a keen observer of the human condition. I knew him as one of the primary editors of my novel. But mostly, I knew him as a friend. Somehow he managed to weedle his way deep into my heart, and there was no getting rid of him then. I don’t make friends easily. There are few to whom I’ve found I can give away all that I have, with whom I can be exactly who I am, no hiding necessary, no holding back ever required. Rocco was one of the few with whom I could show up just as myself. He actually WANTED who I was, and never ceased to love me, to hold me up, to call me forth. He NEEDED me to be who I was. He NEEDED what I had to give him. And that’s about the greatest gift anybody has ever given me.

We tried to make a documentary of Rocco, Sally and I. Shut Up and Drum, we tentatively called it. We sat with him for long hours and days during the hot North Carolina summer of 2009, listening to his story, coaxing him through it, loving him when he did not love himself, holding him up as he spoke out loud the aching, painful past he still carried inside of him. Rocco lived a hard life. Harder than any other person I’ve ever personally known, I think. That hard life had left him with doubts and confusions, habits and beliefs and patterns that held him back and got in his way as much as the physical manifestations of his epilepsy did. It was our hope that we could help Rocco still those voices in his head, those doubts, those confusions, so that he could get about the business of living his life, and of doing full-out what he had come here to do.

And while it eventually became apparent that Rocco’s story was not for us to tell, while we gave up on the documentary, we never gave up on Rocco. And because he had so many who loved him, even as lost and confused and self-defeating as he could appear to be from the outside, Rocco learned not to give up on himself. He stayed in one place for a good long while, putting an end to the long years of homelessness and wandering, the astounding succession of jobs and cities and rooms and shelters. He connected with a host of helpful people, groups, and services. He came to see and know that he was as deserving of help and assistance and support as the dozens of people HE had helped and supported over the years. He began to DEMAND that he receive some help. He saw that he was WORTHY of support and nurturing. And eventually, because he asked for it, because he demanded it, because he allowed it, the help began to fall into place.

In what is either a gross injustice, a tremendous display of Cosmic Irony, or an example of things working out exactly as they must, Rocco’s death came just as he’d managed to begin what he would have considered his “adult life.” After decades of uncertainty and struggle, Rocco had achieved for himself a measure of stability and security he’d never before been able to find. With a stable home, a loving roommate, and the Social Security support finally coming through, Rocco was poised to step into a whole new phase of his life. In our last phone conversation, maybe a month ago, he dreamt of a new drum kit and the opportunity to play it, and spoke with joy and excitement of his plans to visit his daughter at Christmas. He was finally in a position to offer her the support he’d long wished he could give her. His long, lost adolescence was coming to an end. He was stepping into his adulthood. And then he died. It all feels so unfair. But death has rarely felt particularly fair, now, has it?

If it’s true to say that Rocco was beaten up by his epilepsy and his hard life, it also feels true to say that Rocco was never really beaten. No matter how often he smacked his head on the pavement, no matter how many times he dislocated a shoulder or broke a bone, no matter how his seizures battered his body like a decades-long torture of stunning, bone-cracking electric shocks, no matter how the old memories haunted him, Rocco’s good heart was never stopped from loving, and his great spirit was never dimmed. That’s the thing about Rocco: underneath the anxiety, the outward appearances, the quirky banter that could put some people off, the man could SHINE, just as Geoffrey Rush did in the movie Shine, one of Rocco’s favorites. No matter how hard his life was, no matter the pain and confusion he carried inside, the man never stopped loving, never stopped caring, never stopped teaching, never stopped encouraging, never stopped hoping. And he never stopped laughing. He said what he thought. He followed his own advice. He stood up for excellence, for learning, for the betterment of the human being. “Love, truth, strength, hope,” he wrote, “Push ‘em. They’re important.” Informed by thinkers like Frank Herbert and Ayn Rand, Rocco could see that his fellow humans, as lost and damaged and confused as they could often be, could also find and step into their own greatness. He could see this because he could see himself, I think. He knew that, even as lost, damaged, and confused as HE was, his heart was good, and his intellect was clear, and his intentions served the greatest good for all. Because HIS spirit had never been beaten, Rocco knew that we could ALL grow and learn and heal and evolve. That was the vision he served. And he served it right to his end.

He served that vision with me. He guided me through the editing of All of the Above, seeing things my other editors missed, demanding that I stick with the process even when it seemed to go on forever, even when I just wanted to scream. He would not let me stop with “good enough.” He could see where we were headed even when I could not. He pushed me, challenged me, goaded me, praised me, and loved me, always he loved me, as we took that lump of unformed clay that was my first draft and carefully molded it into its final form. He did it all with incredible wit and a piercing humor that left me, at times, literally doubled over with laughter. And now, on the verge of writing the sequel, I’m left staring off into the distance, or glancing up to the heavens in consternation, and wondering just how the hell I’m ever going to write another book without Rocco here to help me. Rocco was the inspiration for the character I named Obie, a character who died at the end of All of the Above. In the world of the book, the possibility exists that Obie will somehow return in the sequels. In the world of “real life,” I’m going to hold that same possibility for Rocco. I know he’ll be busy, wherever he is now, drumming and laughing and teaching people to think, people, think! But maybe he’ll find some time to watch over my shoulder as I write. It shouldn’t be that hard for him, even now, to reach into my computer, grab the electrons as they race through the wires, and make a few edits here and there. I surely hope so. I can always use another muse. In any event, I expect that there will be some strong sense of aching loss in my next book, with Obie and Rocco both gone. Rocco was so excited by the idea of editing the sequel, and was full of ideas about how he could help. It gave him so much joy, to help. And Rocco deserved every bit of joy he could get his hands on.

Richard Bach, in his book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, wrote “Here is a test to find whether your mission here on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” If that’s true, then the reverse would be this: when someone dies, their mission here on Earth may be finished. As much as it hurts to have lost him, I find some comfort in the notion that Rocco has completed his mission here. He took the awful hand that had been dealt him and finally… finally… finally… found the trump card hidden amongst the deuces and treys. With a glint in his eye he pulled that trump card out and played it on the table of his own life with an enthusiastic “Blam!” and a hearty laugh. He’d done it. He’d won. He’d shown that healing is possible. He’d found his own sense of worthiness. And having found it, he could go. Mission accomplished. What’s next? If that’s so, then I feel it my obligation to honor Rocco’s life by taking his accomplishment and paying it forward in my own life. Rocco showed me how, even in the face of such challenges as he faced, a human being can hold onto their true selves, and demand their right to be who they are. I shall not forget that.

Sally, upon hearing the news of Rocco’s passing, was struck by a vision of him crossing to the other side, of his coming up for air after flailing about for so long under the cold and choppy waters of physical existence, of shedding both his epilepsy-ravaged body and a mind that blinked on and off, betraying and obscuring the great heart and huge intellect contained within. What relief it must be for him now, to be rid of such limitiations, to be free at last of the pain, even as sad as he must be, to have left us all so suddenly. “Yay! Yay! Yay!” I can hear him say. Wherever he is now, I am certain that Rocco is, indeed, laughing out loud.

The writer and teacher Malidoma Somé, speaking of the Dagura tribe, explained how it was the duty of the living, when someone died, to adequately grieve the loss, such that the departed would not get stuck in this earthly plane, but would move on into the world of the ancestors. I, for one, intend to grieve my friend Rocco as completely as I can, to let the tears flow and the sobs burst forth, to feel the aching loss as deeply as I can. It’s what I can do to honor him. It’s what I have to give him now. And I could sure use another ancestor, especially one as bright and loving as Rocco. The world could use such ancestors. I invite you to join me in that process of grieving.

So good-bye, Rocco…

Poet

Teacher

Genius

Wild man

Friend

Comedian

Drummer

Lover

Giver

Dreamer

Cheerleader

Good-bye, you good, good man. You did it. You made it. Go find your peace. Go do your work. Go make your magic. And go knowing that I love you. To use TS Eliot’s words, you were “worth the trouble of understanding.” You were a gift to me. I will never forget you.

As you always said to me, take most precious care,

Tim