celebrating Zach

Zach would have been 28 today. One year ago today, about 100 people gathered in San Francisco to celebrate his life. Every time I had to refer to the gatherings we had a year ago, I kind of choked on the word ‘celebrate’. We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate graduations, we celebrate weddings. We celebrate happy things, in my world. At least in my world before November 14th last year.

Now we gather to celebrate a life, but it’s a life that has ended. It doesn’t seem right.

I’ve said when I visit Rosalie, she shows me how to celebrate life. She lives life. The world is her oyster and she’s discovering something new every day. It was tremendously inspiring to be near her. (Remember, this is a grandparent that lives 3000 miles away talking. I don’t have to deal with the day to day hassles, the illnesses, the sulks.)

This blog is my celebration of Zach’s life. Like Rosalie, it is living. It’s not about Zach, per se, but inspired by Zach, by his discipline, and hopefully by his ability to see all sides of a point.

I remember when Zach told me he had been writing 75-80,000 word a year in a journal. I was impressed, but now that I’ve read much of it and I’ve tried myself to write on a regular basis, I’m in awe. I believe it was his housemate Jake who told me, back in the spring, that they had left his desk as it was as a testament to his work ethic and as an inspiration to him and Micah.

Through us, Zach lives. Happy birthday, son.

Shawn Allen speaks

I wanted to be sure of his name in the previous post so I looked it up in the police report. Here is his statement to the Baton Rouge Police:

I was coming down lee [sic] drive not sure of the speed limit but was not going over speed limit a truck was behind me riding my bumper trying to pass once the lane had merged into one there was a group of people on bikes in the road and the person I hit was crossing me I tried to swerve to the other lane but it was too late.

police-report-on-z-wood-death-complete-23

Zach’s journals

I read some of Zach’s journals today, after my ‘legacy’ post. I found I could read them without an inordinate amount of sadness. I’m a little more removed from the last time I was reading them seven or eight months ago. Today I wasn’t dwelling on the content so much as just appreciating that they’re there and marveling at the spirit that wrote them.

I’m not going to quote anything today. It’s either a lot or nothing and today will be nothing. I still think occasionally about the state of my apartment or bedroom when I go out for the day and wonder if I never come back what people might think about me. Those of us living have to go on living, though. We can’t always be thinking about our deaths. It will come when it comes.

I’ll call it the lesson of Rosalie. Live now!

Jeremy speaks

Jeremy sent me an email today and asked me to put this up on the blog. Here it is:

I’m having a tough day. It sounds disingenuous to say that I’m thinking about Zach today — I think of him every day, and I know lots of other people who love him do as well — but this week has been especially difficult.

Ashley, Rosalie and I were fortunate to travel to Michigan to celebrate my mother’s 65th birthday and my grandfather’s 90th. It was a nice (and too short) weekend spent in many places with many people familiar to Zach and filled with memories of him. Late in the day Sunday, as the festivities at camp wound down, I walked to the Outback by myself. Dad wrote a few days ago about how my relationship with Zach deepened in our teenage years and included a picture of the two of us standing by Stony Lake. After much discussion, I’ve figured out that the picture was taken in August of 2001 (the telltale sign is that ridiculous James Hetfield-style goatee I had at the time, which I remember trying to bleach that summer and sported for a few weeks as a freshman at college before cutting it off. Don’t act like you never made any bad grooming decisions at 18.)

Back to the Outback. I signed on to be a counselor in that particular teen camp program in the summer of 2002 after two successful years in the youth camp program. Zach made plans that summer to do a venture out trip at Storer that summer, but they fell through for some reason (possibly he wasn’t old enough to qualify for the trip??) so becoming an Outbacker was the fallback option. It was there that we truly grew close, bonded by the sharing of the program’s tremendous experience. He would return to the Outback the following summer, which would prove to be the final one at Storer for both of us. Last Sunday, I went out there alone thinking it would be a perfect time of reflection on my relationship with Zach and how much I miss him. It was weird…I sat in the fire circle, surrounded by the empty spaces where the hogans used to be, and all I could think about was my own experience at camp…the campers, the counselors, the trips, the laughs, the tears. After 15 minutes or so, I started the walk back to Ashley and Rosalie, feeling guilty because I didn’t spend the time intensely thinking of Zach. Am I moving on?

Fast-forward to Tuesday morning. I’m back at work at the fire station, and the first call of the day is a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. I’ll spare the gory details, but the only thing our crew could do for the victim was cover him with a sheet while police shut down Moreland Avenue for an investigation. It was way too familiar, right down to the pattern of the damage to the front of the pickup truck that hit him. This is the third time since Zach was killed that I’ve responded to a person struck by a vehicle, and it’s not getting easier. I keep my head down and work through it — I love my job, and emergencies don’t stop so I can recover from a personal tragedy. But I’ve spent the 24-odd hours since seeing that particular dead body in a state of numbness.

****

I remember a random conversation with Zach from one of the last times he came to visit us in Georgia. A song by The Airborne Toxic Event was playing on the radio, and he got really excited about the fact that the band name was a reference to a Don Delillo novel.
I brushed it off at the time, because I’d never heard of Don Delillo. Looking back, it’s one of many signs of how well-read and intelligent he was that I kind of ignored because we were too busy watching football or figuring out ways to integrate booze into cooking. It’s something I feel rather ashamed of.

Here’s a song and video that makes me think of him, not only in the lyrics but the words of singer Mikel Jollett on their inspiration:

“I feel very tied to this place and very resistant to its cliches. The SNL skit on Californians is funny and I wonder sometimes if that’s what the rest of the world thinks of us: dithering, spoiled people obsessed with their appearance. I understand it because most of what California exports (besides food) is the culture of white people who moved to Hollywood to get into films and yes many of those people are dithering, spoiled and obsessed with their appearance. But outside of maybe 10 square miles in the heart of Los Angeles, you don’t find many people like that here.”

By the way, if anyone has the time and skills to re-cut that video with scenes from the NorCal, that would be awesome.

Zach loved the state he grew up in, as did I. We talked a lot about how fortunate we were to grow up in Grass Valley; how that realization grew more and more stark as we built our adult lives in southern cities that we didn’t like.

TATE has become one of my favorite bands. I try to read more, to understand the world from an advanced perspective the way Zach did. I still have no idea who the hell Don Delillo is. But nothing makes me think of him and cry like these songs.

“i’ll write your name in stars across the sky/ And we’ll meet somewhere someday and I’ll ask you why…”

Zach speaks

Three posts in one day, wow! Well this isn’t really me, except for this intro. Jeremy called this afternoon and we had a nice Skype session. Rosalie was in high spirits, twirling around half undressed after a chocolate treat. At one point he mentioned the pictures in my first post of today and expanded on the North Carolina story. It struck me that the date was within the time frame of Zach’s diaries. After we finished our conversation, I looked up the September 2012 file and found this description of their holiday:

September 16, peaceful detachment

Yes, it has been a little while since I’ve been here but this time, I have a decent reason. Last weekend, I took my vacation to visit Jeremy, and it feels very very long ago. But I’m going to recap as best I can:
Thursday I got up very early and drove to the ATL. The only real highlight of the trip was taking the wrong exit and going through NOLA instead of bypassing the city. When I got there Thurs Jeremy and I played catch out front, watched TV, and then went up to Ted’s where he works and had extreme milkshakes. Basically, we just sat at the bar and discussed different milkshakes and booze combinations and then asked the bartender to blend them for us. They were fantastic and although I don’t think the booze added much, it was still pretty damn good. I would make the argument that they tasted so good because of the heavy cream included, LOL.
Friday, we got up and drove up about an hour and a half towards the South Carolina/GA border and rafted Section IV of the Chattooga; the river had been running pretty low and it was billed to have some class V rapids along with a lot of III and IV rapids. It was pretty damn fun, although the lack of water made it so that it wasn’t as heart pounding pulse thumping as it could have been. Jeremy made a good point that enjoyed big water more than technical rapids and I have to agree with him. But, with that in mind, it was a banner day: brilliant weather, water that felt good, hardly any actual paddling, and it was just me and him and couple guides in the boat so the conversation was much better than it would have been if we had any gringos. So that was nice. After rafting, we got back on the road for Greenville, with plans to meet Greg for dinner and to crash at his place. As we were driving, we realized we had some time to kill and we were driving right through Clemson, so we stopped for a little while and checked out the campus. It was gorgeous; a small town pretty much with nothing else except the university going on and it just felt peaceful, even with the buzz of a football game that was scheduled for the next day. I immediately loved it. After Clemson, we got into Greenville, met Greg, went out to Thai food and then pretty much passed out.
We got up the next morning (Saturday) with plans to meet Kevin Lausch and go to camp and Brevard. We ate at the Golden Corral breakfast buffet (heavy) and then drove up to Kevin’s camp, which is outside Traveler’s Rest. It was fantastic to see him and randomly Turbo was there as well, so it was a mini-camp reunion. Randomly, Katie Sidman texted me the night before, which was the first time we had talked in probably 2-3 years. After chatting with Kevin for a bit, we hugged him goodbye and went up to camp, where we spent a little while at Pretty Place paying our respects. When we were there, it was overcast so the views weren’t exactly tremendous but it was still a powerful experience to revisit a place that is so deeply entrenched in my heart. After Pretty Place, we drove down into Brevard and had lunch at Pescados, which Jeremy loves but I find pretty average. After Pescados, we drove out into Pisgah to Big East fork, where, for the first time in over five years, we hiked the same trail that I took campers backpacking on during that magical summer. We did the same exact route too and got up onto Shining Rock Ledge where the views are enormous and powerful. The mountain forest is as beautiful as ever. It was an intense hike when it was all said and done: about 7 miles and around 3,000 feet in elevation gain; I was sore. After Pisgah, we were trying to connect with Kelley Clifford and we didn’t really have any definite plans. We elected to go back into Brevard (rather than go towards Asheville) and made the decisions to buffet at Twin Dragons, since we were both ravenous after the hike. At this point, our day had pretty much gone according to plan and I was quite pleased. Then, Kelley decided to meet us in Brevard and got us an in to sleep at the Dill’s in Hendersonville, which was a huge upgrade over our plans to camp somewhere on the side of the road. So we crushed some Twin Dragons (as epic as ever) and then met Kelley at Dollies (a slightly overrated ice cream place but still deep in my heart) and then went out to the Dill’s, where Kelley also was staying. At the Dill’s we stayed up late and drank good IPA’s that Jeremy had brought and had big conversations with Mike Dill and Kelley. I was exhausted and looking forward to the big bed they had prepared but we still stayed up late and loved the conversation. As I write this now, I recall something else: when talking with Mike and Kelley: a feeling of kinship. I found myself saying the words: what we all do professionally, thus implying that we have similar missions. And we do! We are in the business of making people’s lives better. It was a cool moment and it made me realize the inter-connectedness of my camp connections and my rec sports connections.
Saturday was heavy and Sunday we got up, Kelley cooked us breakfast, and then we were on our way to Gorges State Park and Turtleback falls. We found it with a little difficulty, hiked the 1.5 miles down to the falls, and then spent a little while sunning ourselves on the rocks before taking some time to do the water slide over the falls. I hadn’t been there in over 4 years, when Jeremy and Ashley and I had all met there for a 4th of July weekend (that was transcendent in its own right. Also was the last time I had seen Kelley). Anyways, the sun was out, we were the ONLY ones there and it felt very special, as though were an exalted being for enjoying the majesty of those hidden waterfalls. After doing the slide 5 or 6 times, we hiked back out and got back to the car, where we then drove back to Atlanta. At this point, Jeremy and I were doggone tired but we had planned another Epic Mealtime fest for that evening, involving Tequila and mexican food. The problem, however, was that it didn’t flow as nicely as it did when we did it at xmas and Jeremy invited a bunch of really annoying work friends over and they pretty quickly put me out…so after he and I cooked, I basically hid away from the party and chatted with Ashley, who was also pretty annoyed. So it didn’t exactly go as epically as the first time but was still pretty damn fun, overall. It helped that the giants were on TV that night and beat the dodgers, so my mood was improved. I slept in the next morning and then left ATL around 930 and drove back to BR, where reality awaited.
It was an intense 4 days, which is how I like it. Although taking vacations like that don’t exactly make you rested, it was crammed full of good memories and happiness and we didn’t waste much time sleeping. My axiom of the short but crammed vacation still proves true.
One thing about this trip, perhaps above all else: the beauty of that region is still amazing. Although Jeremy is a big proponent of the West, where everything is bigger and more savage and in many cases, just as beautiful, there is something so magical to me about the forests and the waterfalls and the feeling that I’m in the middle of the jungle. And the air! The cold crisp mountain air, even at the beginning of September, just felt right.

Jeremy and Zach

Writing the last post started me thinking more about Jeremy and Zach together. I was originally thinking about the photo from Michigan along with the North Carolina one. I was a little surprised to find that it dated from 2002 because I the process got me thinking about our trip to London in 2000.

Neither boy was very happy about being in London where we spent way too much time going to museums. They were troopers, though, and didn’t complain much. They took solace in each other, I think. My enduring memory is of the two of them walking down the street ramming shoulders into each other. I don’t have any pictures of that but I do have this one:

At the end of the two weeks in London, Jeremy got on a plane for Michigan and his senior year in high school while the rest of us went back to California.

a special bond

While looking for the picture of Rosalie on my phone yesterday, I came across this one. It had no title or other indication of when and where it was taken. I emailed Jeremy and he filled me in.

He said: ‘Picture was taken in the Shining Rock Wilderness in NC. Zach and I went up to the mountains to go rafting, visit Greg McKee and some of our haunts in the Brevard area. September 2012.’

I sense some pain in Jeremy’s response. He and Zach had a special bond as brothers. Now there is a special kind of pain to think about times past with Zach. While they did all the usual things brothers do growing up, I don’t think I really recognized the special bond they had until I saw this picture, taken on the shore of Stony Lake in 2002:

jeremy-zach .

Jeremy was almost 19 and Zach was 13. It was the first indication to me of the adult relationship they had developed. As with the North Carolina picture, they are relaxed and happy to be in each others presence.

It’s kind of not my place to represent the relationship between Jeremy and Zach so I will stop here. I just wanted to share these pictures.

a happier Zach story

I thought I might have details on this in my own journals but a trip down memory lane found only a note that we went out for dinner. A dedicated journal writer I’m not, although in fairness who could have guessed how precious those encounters would become.

I was surprised to find out that I didn’t go to Louisiana to visit Zach for almost three years after I went with him down there in 2011 on his move from Oregon. Of course we saw each other once or twice each year in either Georgia or California.

So it was February 2014 and he was in the midst of trying to find a doctoral program. He had driven by himself to Lawrence, Kansas in January through snowstorms and now he was going to have an interview in Tallahassee at Florida State. I drove with him and we went on to Georgia to visit Jeremy afterwards.

Anyway, the night I arrived in Baton Rouge we went out for dinner to a sports bar he knew. They had an order counter near the front and after we ordered the girl asked Zach his name so they could call us when it was ready. He told her, ‘Roger’, and started walking to the table. I looked at him with a question and he said he just liked to use different names in those places.

A few minutes later they called out ‘Roger’ & we went and got our food. Zach’s quirky humor!

reality

Well I had a couple of doses of reality, as one might say, today. Why would one bit of reality be more significant than another? As one of my science fiction authors said in another context, reality is just a shared hallucination. True enough, but some things are more important than others.

Reality first came to my attention this morning about 6:45 when I woke up but that isn’t what I’m writing about. I had received an email yesterday from the Assistant District Attorney in Baton Rouge telling me that he had finished his investigation of Zach’s death and wanted to discuss his conclusions with me over the phone. I responded telling him that this morning was a good time and he called me about an hour ago.

I spent yesterday evening steeling myself for the news that there would be no criminal prosecution and that in fact is what the gentleman had to say. I do not use the word lightly. This man, who I will not here name, was a gentleman from start to finish. This in addition to being completely professional. He was very familiar in our conversation with all aspects of the evidence and circumstances.

Bottom line: he felt that the driver was ‘negligent’ but not ‘criminally negligent’, thus there would be no charges. I’m not going to go into all of his reasons now but they were all good enough.

The ADA was emphatic in telling me that he would be happy to talk to me at any time; answer any questions, etc. I told him how much of the rather fine points I was raising were on the basis of one reading of the police report months ago, that I haven’t been able to look at it with anything close to the objective eye needed for legalistic thinking. He reminded me that the statute of limitations for criminal action is 4 years so there is time.

Towards the end of our conversation he asked what I did for a living. This was after I commented that I could only admire people like him and the police Traffic Homicide Unit who faced death and other horrible things daily and didn’t go crazy. I told him worked at the Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He said how great it must be to work with such a good orchestra and I had to agree. Then I told him how Sarah has been playing with that orchestra as a sub since last fall and that really started the waterworks. I held most of it in until I got off the phone.

After I calmed down I got in the shower and got my second dose of reality. The shower drain was backing up! I choose to interpret this as Zach telling me that I have to press on.

killed

Killed. I haven’t looked it up in the dictionary. I’m pretty sure I know what it means. It’s a brutal word. It’s the word I use to describe what happened to Zach. He didn’t ‘die’, he didn’t ‘pass away’, he was killed.

We say he was killed instantly when he was hit by the pickup truck but in reality we don’t really know. The front right corner of the truck hit him while he was on his bike and he rolled up and hit the window. Julie says she saw him flying through the air so I guess that’s what happened next. When he hit the ground the right front wheel of the truck ran him over. I’d like to believe he was dead before that happened. The police say he was at fault for not yielding to oncoming traffic. They say he was drunk and therefore responsible. The driver, who was going 53 mph (estimated) in a 35 zone, got a speeding ticket.

I’ve seen the police pictures – some of them. When I got to the one that showed his broken face I started screaming and ran to my bed and assumed the fetal position. My neighbor Rose heard the noise and came over and just held me while I sobbed. Of course I can still see that image in my mind’s eye.

Killed.

Category Archives: Zach Stories