a questionable life

by Luke Lively

  “What did you do?”

  “If I hadn’t had the help of Chi Mai, I would have died. I was ready to give up. He told me, ‘Father—not you. You’re alive—live now.’”

  “So you were mad at your father?” I asked.

  “I was until I realized my anger wouldn’t change anything. All those emotions did little except to deepen my depression. What I did have was an opportunity—to learn from his life and death.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “To live my life, not someone else’s,” he said.

  The life I had planned was built around goals, I thought. The goals were part of my attempt to bury the past, especially my father. “I don’t know how to do that,” I said.

  “You can’t plan it, because the world will keep changing. If you’re on the right path, you’ll still have challenges, but you’ll know you’re on course even when the winds of change blow you off course. You won’t look in the mirror and see a hypocrite.”

  Those words were like a bomb going off inside my head. How many times had I looked in the mirror and not recognized the person I saw? “I understand that,” I said. “But how do you find that right path?”

  “There’s no map. It’s always inside of us. We have to look inside to connect to who we really are.”

  “What if you’re afraid to look?”

  “Then you know you must look deeper—past your fears,” he said. After allowing me to think for a moment about his response, he said, “Let’s start back down the mountain. There’s another place I want you to see.”

  The distance between what you need and what you want is determined by how much you give and take.

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRICE

  35. What Are You Waiting For?

  “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Benny yelled. I could barely hear him.

  We had hiked downward for over one hour at a much faster pace than our ascent. I heard what I thought was rushing water.

  It was a waterfall.

  “C’mon, Jack, I’m getting wet!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. The path led us to what appeared to be a partial cavelike walkway that went under the waterfall. I was uncomfortable again.

  “Okay, give me a minute,” I said, doing my best to summon the courage to walk under the crashing water. I leaned over to avoid hitting my head on the rocks. Benny was almost doubled over, making his way in front of me to the other side. I carefully planted each foot on the wet, slippery rocks, afraid I would slip and spill toward the bottom of the falls.

  “See, it wasn’t so bad,” he said as I made my last few steps away from the falls.

  “You didn’t tell me I was going to hike under Niagara Falls today,” I said, taking off my backpack and wiping the water from my face and neck. The water actually felt refreshing after the brisk hike.

  “I told you it was different than the cliff,” he said. “You should see it after a hard rain. That’s even more fun.”

  “I’ll take your word on it,” I said. “That may be more fun than I could handle.”

  “Let’s walk over here, and you’ll have a better view of what you walked under,” he said. I followed him through some brush and suddenly found myself at the edge of the minigorge looking straight down into the churning pool of water at the base of the fall.

  “There is a cliff—I should’ve known,” I said, moving back from the edge slowly.

  “We used to jump off this when I was in college,” he said smiling, able to speak in a more normal tone. “As you can see, it’s a little ways down.”

  “That’s more than a little way,” I said. “I want to know who had the bright idea of jumping off in the first place.”

  “That was me,” he said, appearing proud of his youthful risk taking. “Someone had to go first—I guess it was up to me.”

  Looking at the falls I saw a small rainbow formed from the water’s mist as it struck the rocky slope of its vertical channel. I remembered seeing something like this. “You have a photograph of the falls in the cabin,” I said.

  “Yes, but I think right now would be an ever better picture,” he said. The backdrop of the blue sky and miniature rainbow looked like something from a Hollywood special effects studio.

  I had been thinking for the entire trek down the mountain about who I really was. But there was a part of Benny’s story I hadn’t heard yet. I thought it might help me understand where I had gone wrong. “I was wondering. How did you get out of Vietnam?”

  “They traded me. I was fortunate.”

  It couldn’t have been that simple, I thought to myself. There had to be more. “You never gave them any confessions?” I asked.

  “No, but they did their best to persuade me.”

  “Torture.”

  “Yes, but I was already free at that point—at least inside,” he said. “I also tried some torture of my own.” Benny stopped and picked up a rock and tossed it down into the pool below. “When I understood they were going to photograph me, even without a confessional for propaganda, I decided to make myself a little less photogenic.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I beat my head on the side of the cell and scratched my face. I’m sure I looked worse than anything they had done to me. It worked. I was never photographed.”

  “Why did they let you go?”

  “I was part of a prisoner swap, but I don’t know for sure why I was included. They may have thought I was crazy,” he said, allowing himself to chuckle after he spoke. “It may have been they realized I was very determined. But years later, I think I may have found the real reason. It was Chi Mai.”

  “Did he talk them into letting you go?”

  “No, but they knew we were friends. He had moved along with our group from one camp to the next. Once we were in Hanoi, he joined a protest against the North Vietnamese treatment of war prisoners.” Suddenly, he leaned his head forward. From my side angle, I could see his eyes were closed. “His only protest was his last, from what I learned.”

  “They killed him?”

  “No, he set himself on fire in front of the military headquarters. He read a brief statement of protest, recited a poem, and then struck a match and burned himself alive in front of hundreds of people in the city square.” As he spoke I saw several tears fall from his eyes. “His death was probably why I’m here. I’ll never know, but it had to play a part in my release.”

  “My God,” I said aloud. “Why did he do that?”

  “He wasn’t the only monk to immolate himself as a protest to both the North and South Vietnamese. I would’ve never guessed that was what he was going to do, but he did tell me he was going to get their attention. He was the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

  “I would say so—dying like that for a cause.”

  “It wasn’t the way he died. It was the way he lived. He never held back! He risked everything to live his life. His last words to me were, ‘Live with no regrets. Forgive yourself.’ It takes more courage to live your own life, Jack. Chi Mai did.”

  His voice changed when he spoke of Chi Mai’s bravery. The thoughtful words and careful phrasing disappeared. His voice crackled with a youthful tenor. Even though the memory of the loss of his friend hurt, talking about him seemed to rejuvenate Benny.

  “I owe my life to a lot of people, some I’ve never even met,” he said. “You’re no different. You don’t have to be a POW to understand bravery and living a free life.”

  We stood on the precipice of the falls for a few moments in silence, and then we turned to walk back toward the trail. The path was wide and allowed me to walk at his side. As we continued our descent of the mountain, I thought about how Benny’s life appeared to be filled with major victories and terrible losses. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you’ve had some of the worst luck any person could ever have.”

  “There’s no luck, Jack. Everything has a purpose—a cause and effect. If you try to blame luck for things happening, it takes away what life is. Life is never going to b
e perfect. “

  “Maybe luck isn’t the best word. But you’ve had more than your share of bad experiences,” I said.

  “I’m here because I was there.” Benny said. “Everything in the world is connected. Everything is important. I learned that from experience—painful as it was, but I learned. You’ve learned the same way.”

  Thinking before I spoke, I told Benny about how I had ruined my marriage because of another woman. “I chose her over my children. I was selfish, thinking only of myself,” I said—frustration and self-pity shrouding my words.

  “I understand. I did the same thing.”

  Benny had already told me many things that surprised me, but nothing did more than this. “You didn’t . . .” I started to say that I had misinterpreted what he had said.

  “I told you we shared a lot of the same experiences,” he said. “I was living a life that wasn’t mine. I hated being me. There was no one to blame but me. I made bad choices. But I’ve learned from the experience.”

  Remaining in shock over his confession, I paid little attention to his words. How could he do that to Ann? But how could I do what I had done to Tina? “Does Ann know?” I asked.

  “Yes, I told her.”

  “Why?”

  “I had to, Jack. I loved her more than my pride and ego. We stayed together, stronger than before.”

  “That’s a miracle,” I said, thinking about my experience with Cassie and how it helped end my marriage.

  “No, it wasn’t a miracle. We loved each other enough to forgive.”

  “What do you want?” The question was bouncing inside of my head as we walked down a steep and winding portion of the path. We were now far enough away from the din of the waterfall that all I could hear was the sound of our feet moving along the path. We were deep in the forest. I was deep in thought about my past.

  I was recalling my last effort to reconnect with Tina. That evening, we had decided to visit all of the places in Philly that were special to us. We had walked through the town square, looking in at the shops littered with memorabilia for tourists. We ate at our favorite restaurant on the edge of the old district. We had always held hands in college, and as if by habit, Tina grasped mine as we walked back to the car. It felt uncomfortable for me. Tina sensed it, and released my hand at the corner before we crossed the street. I was doing my best to be as natural as possible, but the conditions felt wrong.

  The evening had been my idea, and now it was slipping away. We talked little while driving. The kids were staying with their friends. We were going to be home alone. After walking inside, we went upstairs. I had talked up the evening as a night for us to reconnect. She had believed me. When we entered the bedroom, she told me to wait while she changed. As I sat on the bed, I started to think about Cassie. I wondered what she was doing. I was with my wife but felt as though I were cheating. As I rubbed my hands over my face and through my thinning hair, the bathroom door opened. While it was Tina, it didn’t look like the woman I had fallen in love with. “I can’t do this,” I said, my honesty making a brief appearance.

  “What do you want?” Tina said. Tears poured down her face. “I thought you wanted to try and make it work?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable. It doesn’t feel right. I’m sorry.”

  Her words were intelligible. She threw a glass intended for champagne at me. I left, still hearing her angry cries. “How could I fix that?” I asked myself silently.

  Since that night Tina had lost the weight she had gained and she was prepping to run a marathon. I was fat and out of shape. I looked over at Benny and saw a man who could outrun me, even on his seventy-plus-year frame.

  Benny broke the silence with his own question.

  “What motivates you?”

  “Is this part of the job interview?” I asked.

  “Would it make any difference if it was?”

  “No, you’re right,” I said laughing. “I want to be happy.”

  “That sounds simple enough,” he said. “What makes you happy?”

  The question should have been easy to answer. My pause was noticeable. He knew I was having trouble giving an honest answer. Earlier he had asked me what made a person successful, and I had recited my resume—obviously not the answer to his question.

  “Can I give you an answer later?”

  “Sure, I wasn’t trying to impose—I was curious.”

  “What makes you happy?” I asked, hoping to find a light at the end of the tunnel of confusion I had built.

  “Being,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Being awake, being alive. Being me, at my best. That makes me happy,” he said.

  “That’s a large amount of territory you’re covering. It sounds like you could be happy almost anywhere.”

  “That’s the way life should be,” he said.

  “I thought you meant happy—like really happy,” I said, trying to clarify what happy meant to me. “I’ve reached goals, and that made me happy. Some of my accomplishments made me happy. But I’m still waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” he asked.

  “To be happy,” I said, repeating my earlier response. “I still have some things to do first.”

  “Don’t wait to be happy, Jack.”

  “Happy never really fit me,” I said, failing to hold back some rare honesty. “But I have learned this in the past couple of days—there is hope for me. I’ll get back with you on this, too.”

  “Okay, Jack,” he said laughing, “You’ll figure it out. Just keep on asking yourself the question.”

  Without feelings knowledge is wasted.

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRICE

  36. What Have I Learned?

  “WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?” Benny asked. Benny had asked me a lot of questions. “I’ve learned to not answer a question without thinking,” I said.

  Benny laughed. We were nearing the cabin at the lake. The hike had been an incredible experience. I was exhausted from both the physical and mental challenges the hours on the mountain had inflicted on me, and the drive back had been filled mostly with talk about banking and my background. “I ask myself that question constantly, so I was curious what you’ve learned today,” he said, smiling as he drove.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I’ve learned to think before I dive in and start talking. I had never realized how programmed I was for a quick response.”

  “That’s a great point,” he said with enthusiasm. “Programmed! I used to call it autopilot but I like your term better.”

  “I like it here,” I said, looking out the window as the sun was beginning its final drop behind the mountains. The red tint of the sky on the clouds was something I rarely saw in Philly. Or was it that I hadn’t taken the time to look up at sunsets?

  “That’s good,” he said. “That’s why I wanted you to visit in a less-structured manner. If we had had a normal job interview, what would we have really seen or learned?”

  “It’s been a great experience,” I said, leaning forward to look again at the fading sunset.

  “Knowing something without feeling it is worthless,” he said. “Knowledge must be felt for it to have value.”

  “How do you separate your emotions?” I asked.

  “You can’t,” he said. “It’s foolish to believe that you can think your way through life and keep your emotions at arm’s length. Knowing something without feeling is dead knowledge.”

  I thought back to his story about the POW camp. I asked, “Fear is an emotion. Didn’t Chi Mai try to teach you to remove your emotions so you wouldn’t be afraid?”

  “Fear is real if it’s real,” he said. “Fear without knowledge is the same as knowledge without feeling. You assume something without understanding. Chi Mai told me, ‘See it, feel it, know it.’ He was right. Reality is knowledge felt, not just understood.”

  Seeing the cabin ahead as we made our way down the dirt road I began to think about the possibilities and choices we both had in front of us. Would he o
ffer me the job? If he did, what should I do?

  After pulling the Jeep in front of the cabin, we carried our backpacks inside and began to prepare the second of Ann’s preplanned meals. As we ate dinner, I commented on the freshness of the tomatoes. Benny told me about the care and attention he gave his garden.

  “You can’t plant cabbage seeds and expect a tomato to pop out,” he said smiling, looking over at me. “When they say you reap what you sow, that’s true. Gardening is a process. Even if you get the intention right, planting the right seeds at the right time with the right nutrients, it still takes work to bring it to harvest.”

  “I guess I forgot to pay attention to what I was planting and nurturing.”

  “We all do, Jack,” he said.

  We had settled in by the fireplace to eat more peach cobbler. I wanted to know how I could prepare for the changes I needed to make to put my life in order. “Something’s missing in my life,” I said.

  “Jack, after spending time with you I know you’re a very intelligent, capable person. I say this in all honesty. There’s no secret to success or to living a remarkable life. Life all comes down to right now—this second. I know you read it in my book, and now you’ve heard me say it more than once. It’s a choice to be or not to be awake in the moment. If you’re living now, what’s more important?”

  “It’s easier said than done.”

  “Is it?” he asked. “Doesn’t it make more sense to live now instead of later?”

  “I know what you’re saying . . .” I said, but before I could finish my thought he interjected.

  “But do you feel it?” he said. “Once you feel the necessity to change you’ll see what you need to do to come alive. But that’s a choice you make. You create your destiny.”