A Man to Love

Something is interesting about him -- I can't quite figure it out!

It wasn’t until yesterday that I learned about the death of a man I could have fallen in love with. He was a storyteller, a poet, wry, hysterically funny, while acerbic at the same time. Let’s call him Joe. He was likely handsome once, or at least attractive, but you wouldn’t call him that now. Joe was interesting, a non-committal word that, on digging deeper, means much more: capturing attention, provoking curiosity, intriguing, provocative, complex, or mysterious. Joe was all this, which made him very attractive.

He appeared to be under five feet, eight inches, but I’m no expert on estimating height, since I’m well under five feet now and my assessment skills are not as fine-tuned as they used to be. Like most of us who reach our seventies and eighties, he was likely taller once, and over the years, lost inches to gravity and gained girth as back surgery and other aches and pains slowed him down.

By the time I met him three years ago, he had a prosperous waistline supported by spindly legs, and a deeply receding hairline typical of someone approaching their final decades. At the back of his head and around his ears, his silver hair was thick and wavy, his brows heavy with expression. His beard was stubbly, and he always looked like he needed a shave, but that has been the look of avant-garde men of late.

When I was in town, I saw him once a month at the local literary society open mic. These meetings were intermittent for me. I traveled back and forth to Oaxaca, and had other commitments to see family and friends, and my schedule often did not coincide with the events. I was always impressed by how he remembered my name and greeted me when I entered the small room to take a seat.

One Sunday, I went to a jazz society concert shortly after meeting Joe. I spotted him in the audience. He called out my name to say hello as I passed, searching for a seat. I looked for him afterward, with the idea of asking him to join me for coffee, but he had vanished. One night, after I read "Lipstick" (which you can find among the pieces I have published here) at the literary society, he came up to me to say it was the best piece he had heard in twenty years of attending readings. This encouraged me to submit the piece for publication, and it was accepted.

I told myself a story: He’s interested.

Over the next two years, I saw the spark in his blue-gray eyes, but it wasn’t sustained. We were cordial. He was distant. He left the impression of sadness, bewilderment, disappointment, and deep pain. These were the eyes that might have once scanned the dance floor or bar for a meet-up. We once, long ago, called these bedroom eyes. I could see the remnants. Now, they focused on no one for longer than a moment or two.

Yet, there were moments when I thought it was still possible to make a connection. I hoped for a get-together, conversation, and then, sometime later, dinner, a concert, a movie, and an invitation to my home for a meal. I wonder what it is in me that pursues the impossible, that ignores the cues, that remains hopeful, that can turn a dream into a smile broad enough to light up a room and someone else’s life. My personal coach, Emily, says that by telling myself a story, I limit the possibilities for what can develop. If I say, Oh, he’s not interested, or I’m afraid to put myself out there, then the world closes off, she says. There is an unfathomable distance between dream and reality.

I wanted to know more about him. I searched the internet and found the history of a man who had known a life of wildness, love, divorce, and then a long, endearing marriage to an artist who had died six years earlier. He wrote a book of poems dedicated to her. The melancholy I detected must have stemmed from this loss.

Would you call this stalking? I call it information gathering. I learned he began writing and publishing as a young man, that he attended Catholic school, and grew up in the era of priests, nuns, discipline, and rebellion.

I imagined sitting across from him at the coffee shop he frequented, enraptured by his tales about coming of age on the West Coast, bootstrapping himself up from poverty and parental neglect, telling a life story from birth to advanced age, one year at a time, poignant, stunning in its honesty, sensitive and funny. Like a stand-up comic, Joe had a propensity for literary genius. At the readings, our small band of ten or so writers, that sometimes swelled to fifteen or twenty, heard his voice recounting each year, from birth to young adulthood. And then it stopped. I wanted to hear more. I’m certain he never finished.

In spring 2024, soon after I returned from spending the winter in Oaxaca, I rejoined the once-monthly group. There, Joe announced a Parkinson’s diagnosis. He went to the doctor after his hands began to tremor uncontrollably. I didn’t see it, and it didn’t seem to have much of a physical impact. By mid-summer, at another gathering, he said his doctor was prescribing meds and a brain stimulator that had the progression controlled. He looked good, with high color, always cheerful and charming, with that familiar touch of the morose.

In early December, a few weeks before returning to Mexico for the winter, I saw him with friends in town at a breakfast joint. He greeted me warmly. I asked how he was doing, and he said, Really well. We chatted about my back surgery and his. He asked about my well-being. Good, I replied. I suggested we meet up for coffee before I left. He said, Great idea, what’s your phone number? With some enthusiasm. I didn’t care if he had a debilitating diagnosis. I liked him and respected his creativity and lifelong dedication to writing and publishing.

I waited for the phone to ring. The call never came.

Joe died in February, just two months after I last saw him. He appeared to be in good health and had an attitude that mirrored it. However, something was nagging at me. Death so soon after seeing him in such a positive state seemed an impossibility. I realized he had no desire to continue to live with a debilitating disease that would erode his being, self-esteem, and life force. It was then that I wondered if he had chosen to end his own life, wanting to accelerate his reunion with a wife he loved deeply. And it was today that I learned that Joe had, in fact, elected physician-assisted dying, legal in New Mexico.

The Medical Aid to the Dying law took effect on June 18, 2021. It requires the patient to self-administer the physician-prescribed medication, although two medical professionals must be present. This is framed as death with dignity, with respect for the patient and his/her autonomy. It emphasizes patient choice, compassion, and medical integrity.

In this final act, Joe chose death on his terms, much as I assumed he lived his life. I will always think of Joe fondly, remembering his supportive words for Lipstick. I consider him to have been a friend.

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