Pennies for Jonny

By Jillian Owens
March 28, 2014

What legacy do you want to leave behind after you die?

It was a common enough early-dating question.  The kind of question you ask hoping for a pleasantly deep but not too cocky response that will launch a pleasantly deep but not too deep conversation.

I don’t care.

Silence.

I could tell this was obviously not the response this guy was hoping for.

I mean…what difference does it really make?  When you’re dead, I doubt you’re concerned with what others think of you.  If this bothers you, and you’re dead while reading this, then get an afterlife.  I elaborated on the above sentiment perhaps a bit too passionately to New Guy who was probably really ready for the check at that point.

I find conversations about death and dying deeply annoying ever since last year, when one of my dearest friends died completely unexpectedly.  When I got the news, I immediately called another friend just to make sure this wasn’t some terrible joke.  Then I curled up in bed.  I would wake up for a few minutes, eat a chocolate rabbit (after Easter sale impulse buy) then go back to sleep.   After 9 rabbits, it really began to hit me.

There’s no way I’ll make it through the next five minutes, I told myself.  Then, five minutes would pass, then 10, then, 15, then 20.  A constant onslaught of all these minutes lapsing, then sitting on my chest…making it too heavy to breathe.

I don’t even know how to explain how wonderful Jonny was.  He was the kind of guy who, if you were having a terrible day or going through a painful breakup, would say Hey!  Come over!.  Then he’d pop open a bottle of wine and stare at you with grave seriousness and say, Well…I guess we’re just gonna have to dance this out.  He called his friends Darlin and cared about something passionately or not at all.  He loved his friends and family with a beautiful and passionate loyalty.

But he’s not here anymore.  

Friends of his from around the world (He loved to travel, especially to Scotland) commented on his facebook wall…sharing stories and well wishes for his grieving family and friends.  Even George Takei had a few wonderful words to share. 

Jonny’s funeral was standing room only.  Even people who had never met him in person and only knew him from the Lord of the Rings message boards he liked to frequent came to pay their respects and share stories about this amazing young man.

All of this flashed through my mind as I said, People can remember you for being this amazing person, but in the end, who cares?  I just want my friend back. to New Guy who probably didn’t want all of this heaviness dumped on him.

Before Jonny died, he had started planning a cruise for our group of friends.  He had a shelf in his apartment with a big jar on it, labeled Cruise.  Any extra change he had at the end of the day went in that jar.  When we all decided to follow through with his plan, it felt preposterous.  Most of us weren’t beach people. Some of us didn’t even know how to swim.  Labadee, Cozumel, and Falmouth were nowhere near the top of our list of desired travel destinations.  But Jonny wanted us to do this together, and we would honor that.

The cruise was amazing, and we were all surprised by how much we enjoyed it and 7 days of each other’s company.  We had always been close, but Jonny’s death has brought us even closer.  We share a bond that will never be broken.  We aren’t just friends.  We’re a tribe.

  

On the last night of our cruise, Mark pulled out a bag filled with the coins Jonny had been saving.  

Now what?

We thought about throwing them into the ocean, but beyond seeming trite, this just didn’t feel right.  Jonny would never throw away perfectly good wine money.

We each took a handful of coins and separated.  We put each of our coins in a place on the boat that was meaningful to us.  The place where we all met up when we first arrived.  Our favorite bar.  Our favorite sun spot.  That place where one of us said something hilarious.  We put several along the kids’ scavenger hunt path.  We did all of this with the hope that people would find them, pick them up, and take them to foreign lands…unknowingly spreading tiny pieces of his memory around the world and traveling to places he couldn’t.  Once our task was completed, we met and gave a toast to this completely amazing person who still matters.

Maybe this is the kind of legacy we should all aspire to leave behind.

But I just want my friend back.