Goodbye, friend

In which we celebrate living for today

I threw my legs out of bed the moment the alarm sounded. A long day ahead: drive to the Seattle airport, fly to San Diego, rent a car, pick up the new prop shaft at Neena’s place, drive to Mexico. But the moment I stood up out of bed up lightning bolt struck me and I rag-dolled face first onto the carpet, a twitching, shrieking bag of pudding.

“Bradley, are you okay!?”

I’m okay now, of course, but this was a little more than a year ago and I was anything but fine. Any attempt to move caused a small band of knife-wielding sadists to twist their blades into my lower back.

“You’re NOT going to Mexico today,” Sheena said.

“I have no—AAACK! JESUS CHRIST!—I have no—HAVE MERCY!—I have no choice!”

What we had here was a classic case of B40S (Being Forty Syndrome), in this case acute paralysis accompanied by persistent stabbing pains brought on by the act of attempting to stand up at the age of 40. But I had a point about having no choice, and my dedication to the cause surely impressed Sheena; the boat yard in Mexico was expecting me that night with a shiny new 10-foot-long, 85-pound prop shaft to replace ours, which had been inexplicably bent. All that stood in my way was a Bilbo-Bagginsian epic journey involving all manner of interconnected actors and modes of transport and international borders, maybe villains, maybe corruption, maybe tacos.

Sheena dressed me (I was truly paralyzed), though she heckled me the entire time, accusing me of being a sissy and an over-actor. Shame on her. She placed two large duffel bags filled with additional heavy boat parts in the trunk, slowly assisted me into the car while I screamed and hissed, and then drove me to the airport.

After dropping me off at the curb and stacking the duffels there in front of me she sped away, citing the no-parking regulations of the drop-off zone, and I whimpered, then screamed and crumpled to my knees. Nothing to see here, folks! A half an hour later I made it into the door and up to the baggage counter by slowly sliding the bags inch by inch.

“You can proceed to your gate, sir.”

“Actually—ACK! JESUS!—would it be possible to get a wheelchair assist?”

“Erm, yes of course. You can just ask at that desk there.”

“The one right there?” I said, pointing to the disability desk thirty feet away, an impossible distance.

“Yes, sir.”

I moved to the desk in such a way that it was impossible to tell that I was moving without speeding up the tape, and I eventually got the attention of two Ethiopian women who had been chatting in their language and hadn’t noticed my arrival on account of it being impossible to tell that I was moving.

“Yes hello, sir, can I help?”

“Yes, I need a wheelchair please.” (Winced, suppressed a violent gasp, blinked heavily.)

The women looked at each other and laughed, then one of them craned her neck around the desk to look at my legs. Moments of shared eye contact passed and she realized I wasn’t joking, despite my having legs and standing on them.

“Sir, please sit in that wheelchair over there.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Could you wheel that thing just behind my knees, please?”

When it came time for me to sit down, the Ethiopian women suddenly realized that I hadn’t been joking about my new disability. I lowered myself into the chair, my lower lip quivering and tears welling up in my eyes.

Every moment of that wheelchair journey was a moment spent in hell being repeatedly backed over by Satan’s Honda Civic. The flight attendants could see I wasn’t effin’ around and made arrangements for me to have my own row so that I could lie on my back for the entire flight to San Diego.

When I arrived in San Diego, a rotating cast of good Samaritans carried my bags to the bus for me, loaded them, and then brought them to the rental car counter while I slowly shuffled, screaming. I had procured a gigantic Cadillac Escalade or some such for the last leg, dark and shaded like something a drug cartel boss would drive—just what I needed for my trip south of the border. Only thing that would hold a 10’ long prop shaft without sticking it out the window like a javelin. “Welcome to Califowrnya, hop in!”, the very tan rental car attendant said in his just-went-surfing accent, to which I huffed, puffed, whimpered, shook, and slightly shit myself and then reclined the seat into a full sleeping position, then I drove directly to a chiropractor’s office that a lady on the plane had recommended, unsolicited. She just knew. She had handed me the paper with the phone number on it, cast me a pitiful gaze, and then scurried away.

A quick snap, crackle, pop and I was out of there, having received no relief whatsoever from the gang of knife-wielding stabbers twisting their blades in my lower back. “I’ll pop your back, but I probably can’t help you,” the ranchy-looking chiropractor in jeans and boots told me. “You should probably go to a doctor.” And then I was off to Neena’s apartment to grab the prop shaft, which I’d had shipped there from a machine shop in Florida or something.

Neena and I had first met at work almost ten years ago when she joined my department at Novo Nordisk. It didn’t take long for her to become a dear friend to Sheena and me. Her energy and joie de vivre were infectious. After a team outing on our sailboat years ago, she said "I should buy a small sailboat for my girls, they could sail around the islands!" I mentioned the risks of navigating a small boat in Puget Sound, something about Seattle's variable weather. I mentioned the time we’d been rescued by the Coast Guard. "A small classic wooden one—it would be so freeing!" She and I had discussed taking a series of work trips to Bangalore, setting up a big collaboration there. We had lined up interviews for the positions we’d need. "You'll love it there," she had said, "the food, the people, the energy!" I was excited too, but I mentioned having to re-summon the will to live after navigating Nacho through India years before. "I'll show you the best things! The best places! It will be amazing!" She had an uncanny way of seeing the best in everything and everyone. I can remember her wearing her sari, holding Quinn when he was so small, dressed in his Nepali outfit at one of her annual Diwali parties. Over the years she had become like a big sister to me. She had recently moved to San Diego to add a little adventure to her life. “I’ve always wanted to live in San Diego, so why not?”

I hobbled from my cartel-mobile to her door, leaning against the wall and dragging my feet as if I’d been shot. When she opened the door her eyes were like saucers seeing me in this state of disrepair (has he been shot?), and after one or two steps I collapsed on the floor in a sad, twitching heap. I may have been crying, but let’s just say I was acting super brave. She helped me to the couch, stuffed pillows all around me to make me comfortable, and made me into a sort of unplanned centerpiece for her dinner guests who had just arrived from India. "Stay, you'll love them! You're in no condition to drive to Mexico." Her guests left late that evening, leaving me with a small stash of muscle relaxers from a pharmacy in Bangalore. The next morning Neena loaded me up with medicine, lidocaine patches, and a cane from the CVS, then rolled the prop shaft to my rental car on a rolling desk chair (too heavy to carry) and sent me on my way with a hug and a smile. "Have a great time in Mexico! Stay safe crossing the Pacific, and maybe I'll see you in New Zealand!"

Mexico welcomed me with its usual warm embrace and I breathed through the back spasms as if giving birth while eating street tacos. Pure agony and pure joy all at once. The following morning it took me 45 minutes to descend the ladder from the boat down into the boatyard and I feared a mis-timed back spasm could send me toppling to my death. I emerged from the boatyard unscathed but suffered terribly all the way back to Seattle. It would be three months before I would fully recover.

As we sailed halfway across the globe during the ensuing year, Neena and I passed messages back and forth all along the way. She checked in on us every few weeks. “Hello hello! Hope you all are well and enjoying the adventure. Just checking in!”

She sent us a message from India just before New Years, just about one year to the day after I had collapsed in her apartment: “Listening to Drive Nacho Drive on audiobook, looking at the landscape from the Indian Railway on way to Mumbai. Thanks for the book and your fun rendition!”

But then she stopped responding.

I reached out to a mutual friend and asked what was going on and he informed me that Neena had been in a car accident while driving with her daughters in Seattle. She had been in the hospital for a month under sedation, had undergone multiple surgeries. He said her daughters were okay and that she would recover.

About ten days ago, after more than a month lying unconscious in the hospital, Neena passed away.

Our family is just one of many that have been infected by Neena’s positivity, energy, and laughter. In that way we’ll always carry a bit of her around with us, as will so many others, and her influence will live on through us. Thank you for everything, didi, we’ll miss you.