Lisa is a planner and she has a very good sense of right order. She can handle everything she’s been given. And one of the great pleasures of my life is to watch my daughter when she putters because she processes things in such gentle and thorough ways. It’s like she wheels around between heaven and earth, circling and landing, happy and intact in her perfect world of Lisa-ness. As an amalgam of her two parents, like all children, she is greater than the sum of the parts. I don’t think she knows how exquisite she is or how huge her capacity and opportunities are. But she reveals it when she speaks and writes. Her ideas and sentences come out whole and as astonishing as perfect gemstones.
It’s the best thing in the world to be looking forward to what she and the people of her generation will do over the next thirty to forty years.
POSTSCRIPT
On October 5, 2011, as I was driving down 280 north to Palo Alto, Lisa called to tell me that her dad had just died. Few words passed between us. There was a lot of space. I was glad her boyfriend was there with her since I couldn’t be. I turned into town to meet a friend in Menlo Park. The sky overhead was covered with the darkest charcoal-gray clouds imaginable. Yet there arched between Menlo Park and Palo Alto was a breathtakingly brilliant double rainbow. It floated like a prayer flag as if in recognition and honor of Steve’s death.
In Mona’s book Anywhere But Here she writes something to the effect that, Everyone we know before the age of twenty-five, we know for life. Steve was the first of my peers to die. He was my only child’s father, and someone, that despite it all, I truly loved. I was deeply shaken.
Lisa was with Steve the moment he died, and later that week she narrated his last moments to me. I replayed her words in my mind many times over the next months, working in finer and finer detail to take Steve’s death into my heart, to fully embrace and acknowledge that he was gone. But it was like that idea of infinity that my father had shown me at the kitchen table when I was young: with every increment of allowance of Steve’s death into my heart, I could only get halfway closer to what it meant to me.
I had been invited to Steve’s memorial service at Stanford because I had requested to be included. But then I was uninvited because I had given Rolling Stone permission to print a piece about Steve and our early years together. So it was only as a result of Lisa’s narration that I could see my way into my own experience of his death. I sat alone in Los Altos Hills overlooking Duveneck Ranch during the funeral and the memorial trying to fathom it all.
A few months later, I became aware that things had been written and said about me and my life with Steve that never had been checked with me. Things that were inaccurate and shameful. I felt like I had been skinned alive from the inside out. Was this Steve’s reach beyond the grave? Oh clever boy! One evening I was in so much pain that I called a friend to meet me for dinner because I could not bear it alone. That night, I drank a glass of red wine and ate red meat to numb myself. My friend studied me and then said, “I don’t think your pain is due to the libel. I think it is because of Steve’s death.” This was more than three months after he’d died. I had by this time recognized an enormous relief in myself that he was gone. Her words seemed kind but ridiculous.
The next evening, I walked around straightening my home because I could manage little else. Puttering. I was being made to look like a crazy person once again because it was easier for people to do this than to face Steve’s failure to do the right thing. I felt angry and distraught, but quiet. I looked at the facts: it was going to take me at least another year to finish writing my own story, and I couldn’t keep drinking red wine and eating meat to get through the days. And I couldn’t write in this much pain, either. In a calm and calculated way my thoughts turned toward suicide. I hated this world.
Yet my mind has a habit of flipping things around to find different ways to see. I’m a problem solver. And so, without intending to, my friend’s comment from the previous night came back to me. I asked myself if it could be Steve’s death and not the libelous humiliation that was causing the pain. It was just an idea. I didn’t expect much but once I’d posed the question, I was, to my great surprise, suddenly transported out of the acidlike pain and able to recognize my own true grief. It was about Steve’s death and I was grieving. This was the truth. Eventually I understood that the impossible level of pain was a confusion of the two conditions, but that Steve’s death was by far the stronger reality. Sorrow washed through me in waves that centered and grounded me. The truth I could live with.
When I went to bed that night I held close to my grief. I had to sleep but at the same time stay focused or I would go crazy trying to work out how I was going to deal with the libel. From within a deep emotional focus, I drifted in and out of a meditative state for about three hours. In it Steve came forward and showed me the truth of the love between us. He sort of merged into me, not as if we were one person but as if we were an intricate and complex kaleidoscope of interlocking yin and yang, fitting parts. He directed my awareness to a ball of light. It was like a brilliant sun the size of a small beach ball, hot white in the center that bled like liquid out to a rosy-, saffron-, and salmon-colored edge. In the dream we stood together at Duveneck Ranch under some trees watching the ball of light moving back and forth up a hillside like a printer stylus. It went back and forth, back and forth with a fifty-foot-wide swath as it climbed. Steve pointed out, to make sure that I saw that no matter where the ball of light was, no object cast a shadow. There wasn’t a tree or a rock or even a single blade of grass that wasn’t illuminated on all sides all at once, after the little sun had passed over. I studied in awe—delighted. Steve was sort of sobbing and simultaneously as sweet and happy as I had ever known him. We shared all states at once: peace and sorrow, joy, and love in the ache of truth and loss. And I kept refocusing as I rested through the hours so I could stay connected to him. Finally, after I could not focus anymore and started to fall off to sleep, I saw the ball of light move all the way up to the top of the mountain, become a setting sun, and then slip over the horizon as I finally dropped off into sleep.
Steve was right when he said he would lose his humanity in the business world. And yet the one and only true reality that we can be sure of is that despite all appearance to the contrary, everything is love. I track back to the glowing admiration I felt toward Steve at the very beginning, which is, among many things, that he had the strength to walk with who he was and would become. And though he came to lose sight of what was human and ethical all too often (and more and more as time passed), that he at one time knew the difference between who he was and the role he would play deepens my appreciation and love for him and all he carried.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are three things I never wanted to do in this life and one of them was to write a book. Nonetheless I have and without the following people, I truly could never have done it. The fact that “I” could write this book suggests anyone can do anything.
To my agent, Christine Tomasino: intelligent, funny, savvy, tireless, committed, detailed, hugely insightful, friend—a torchbearer for something bigger than words—she only stepped in when she was needed and she was needed a lot.
To St. Martin’s Press: George Witte, Matt Baldacci, and Sally Richardson for seeing the potential and caring about this story for all the right reasons. To Brenda Copeland: my editor at St. Martin’s Press; happy-go-lucky, intuitive, hilarious, genius—she got the questions right and very often went very far beyond the pale to care, meet, and to work with my content. To Laura Chasen—Brenda’s assistant behind the scenes; David Stanford Burr, production editor and copy editor; James Iacobelli, cover designer; Eric Rayman, attorney; Stephanie Hargadon, publicist. I bow to all your talents with my sincerest gratitude for your expert assistance.
To Norman Seeff for granting permission for the use of your photograph of Steve for the cover.
To Ciba Shanãe, and all others who have generously shared their research and teachings with me.
To Eric Case, who jus
t kept giving me computers as I burned through them writing drafts for over five years.
To the Suppes women: Deborah, Trisha, Anney, Christine, and Joanne, who I never had the privilege of meeting. You were pivotal in supporting, advancing, and preserving everything that was important in the development and completion of this book.
To Margo McAuliff and Rhadiante; you gave me a home to live in while I found my feet for both my health and my book.
To Jay Schaefer, Terri Beuthin, and Alan Briskin, Ph.D., for your kind and gifted assistance in the earlier edits.
To Damon Miller, M.D., for helping me keep body and soul together.
To Ruben Fuentez and Ann O’Hearn—you know what you did.
—Thank you!
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
abandonment
of Brennan, C., by Jobs, S.
Simpson, M., books on
abortion consideration for Brennan-Jobs
abusive childhood, of Brennan, C.
action paintings, of Pollard
adoption, of Brennan-Jobs, Brennan, C., consideration of
adoption, of Jobs, S.
biological father’s meeting with
biological parents’ marriage
feelings of loss from
grade-school bullying for
Jobs, C., recounting of
lawsuit on, by Simpson, J.
meeting with Simpson, J.
“All Along the Watchtower” by Dylan
All One Farm
Apple name from
Brennan, C., and
Jobs, S., at
meditation at
Mucusless Diet at
pickling and canning at
spiritual and nonspiritual people at
Allen, Woody
Anywhere But Here (Simpson, Mona)
Apple
All One Farm name and
Brennan, C., employment at
Brennan, C., on
event, Brennan-Jobs attendance at
going public
Jobs, S., removal from
Jobs, S., value change at
Kottke on history of
The Lisa Computer
logo
Art Center College of Design
art films
astrological charts
Atari
Atkinson, Bill
awkwardness, of Jobs, S.
Baez, Joan
Be Here Now (Ram Dass)
Beat Poets
birth control
Black, Jim (“Trout”)
at Duveneck Ranch
Black Panthers
blue box technology
description of
Bodhian, Steve
body chemistry, Jobs, S., on
Brennan, Chrisann. See also pregnancy, of Brennan, C.
abandonment, by Jobs, S.
abusive childhood of
All One Farm and
on Apple
Apple employment by
art award
Art Center application by
art films
Calhoun relationship with
California College of Arts and Crafts attendance by
color-based therapy system and
on computers
creativity of
death of Jobs, S., affect on
dream state of
employment of
family background of
father description by
first meeting with Jobs, S.
food interest timeline by
graduation trip
Haiku Zendo, Zen Buddhist community and
“Hampstead” award for
Holler as art teacher of
illustrations for Taipan
Karmapa meeting with
Kottke, Jobs, S., house with
letters, of Jobs, S., to
libel on
low profile of
meditation
meeting parents of Jobs, S.
on men
mural design and painting by
Redse relationship with
Reed College visit
relationship with infant daughter, Lisa
reporter interviews with
San Francisco Art Institute attendance by
Simpson, M., relationship with
sister, Kathy
skating outings
summer cabin with Jobs, S.
at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center
Time magazine article and
unkindness of Jobs, S., toward
welfare receipt by
writing of
Brennan, James Richard
Brennan, C., view of
as Brennan, C.’s father
on Brennan, C.’s, creativity
Brennan-Jobs, Lisa Nichole
abortion consideration for
adoption consideration for
Apple event attendance by
Brennan, C., relationship with infant
child support, by Jobs, S.
Claire name consideration for
competitive nature of
Friedlands, at birth of
Jobs, P., rejection of
Jobs, S., relationship with
as Jobs, S.’s, daughter
Kottke on
The Lisa Computer
as magical child
The Nueva School attendance by
paternity denial by Jobs, S.
Simpson, M., relationship with
therapy for
Waldorf school attendance by
Brilliant, Girija
Brilliant, Larry
Bruce, Lenny
Buddhism. See also Haiku Zendo Zen Buddhist community
Japanese
Calhoun, Gregor (“Greg”)
Brennan, C., relationship with
graphic facilitation of
India trip
Karmapa meeting with
California College of Arts and Crafts
Canfil, Art
Carlisle, Tom
Carné, Marcel
Carnegie, Andrew
Chabay, Ilan
Chaplin, Charlie
child support, for Brennan-Jobs
Children of Paradise film
Chino, Harriet
Chino, Kobun. See also Haiku Zendo Zen Buddhist community
Brennan, C., relationship with
death of
Jobs, S., influence by
at Jobs, S.’s, Woodside house
marijuana and
power abuse of
pregnancy advice of
unaccountability of
on women
City Arts and Lectures, NPR
Claymation
finishing project of
Cohen, Leonard
Cold War mentality
college, Jobs, S., class auditing
color-based therapy system
competitive nature
of Brennan-Jobs
of Jobs, S.
computers. See also Apple
Brennan, C., on
casing prototype
The Lisa Computer
Count Basie
Creative Visualization (Gawain)
Creatives
creativity
of Brennan, C.
at Homestead High School
cruelty, of Jobs, S.
Dalai Lama
Darkness on the Edge of Town by Springsteen
Day for Night film, by Truffaut
death
of Chino, K.
Jobs, S., prediction of
of Jobs, S.
of Jobs, S., Brennan, C. effect on
deception, by Jobs, S.
Dial-A-Joke machine
The Diary (Nin)
Donovan
&nbs
p; Don’t Look Back documentary
Dorsey, Tommy
Draper, John (“Captain Crunch”)
dream state
of Brennan, C.
of Jobs, S.
drug use
LSD
marijuana
Dune (Herbert)
Duveneck, Frank
Duveneck, Josephine
Duveneck Ranch
Black at
Dylan, Bob
concert
Don’t Look Back documentary on
films about
Handbook of Becoming
Jobs, S., reworking of songs by
Eastern teaching
Eckstein, Steve
Ehret, Arnold
Elder, Muldoon
emotional blocks, Ehret’s diet for release of
empathy, of Jobs, S.
employment, of Brennan, C.
at Apple
cleaning house
at Duveneck
freelance work
mural design and painting
waitressing
encounter groups
The Enigma of Kasper Hauser film
enlightenment
Jobs, S., and
of Shakespeare
Erhard, Werner
EST
The Family of Man (Steichen)
Faust particle
feminist movement
Fenwick, William
Fernandez, Bill
food interest timeline, by Brennan, C.
Friedland, Abha
at All One Farm
Brennan-Jobs, birth and
Friedland, Robert (“Sita Ram”)
Brennan, C., India trip and
Brennan-Jobs birth and
Jobs, S., and
prison stay of
Future Shock (Toffler)
Gawain, Shakti
genius, of Jobs, S.
Goenka, S. N.
Goodell, Jeff
Goodman, Benny
graduation trip, of Brennan, C.
graphic facilitation
graphic recording
Grey Bridge
Gurdjieff, G. I.
Guthrie, Woody
Haiku Zendo Zen Buddhist community. See also Chino, Kobun
Jobs, S., at
meditation retreats of
Hair musical
“Hampstead” film
Brennan, C., award for
Handbook of Becoming Bob Dylan (Dylan)
Herbert, Frank
Herzfeld, Andy
Hidden Villa Ranch. See Duveneck Ranch
Hill, Napoleon
hitchhiking
Holler, Gordon
art events of
as Brennan, C., art teacher
The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs Page 32
