By Michael Leifer
Was grabbing a cup of joe at the San Anselmo Roastery and ran into Kelly, my dear friend and the owner. He was commanding the bean roasting machine, pulled a lever and a delicious wafting aroma of cooked coffee beans poured out. He turned to me with a warm smile, stringy blond hairs backlit by the steam.
“How was Oscar’s 1 year memorial?”, he inquired. The Oscar was the beloved Oscar Salabert, my brother-of-another-mother, who had taken his own life a little over a year ago. I gave Kelly the details of the turn-out and mentioned that around 20 of us turned out, mostly on ebikes to Alpine Lake, but somehow, we all forgot his ashes for the ceremony. We both chuckled that Oscar was prolly belly laughing at that.
There was a brief pause between us while the coffee beans popped and circled.
“You know,” I said, “Oscar saved my son’s life.”
“Really?” and gave me his total attention.
“Yea. Was about 10 years ago. We had hired him to lay the blue mountain flagstone in our gazebo out in the garden.”
“Aha.”
“Well, I wasn’t there, but this is what I heard from Oscar, which means it prolly had a wee bit of hyperbole in it. Anyways, my former wife had pulled in the driveway with the kids, returning from the park. And, the kids had a game where they’d open the car doors and race to our front door. But this time, my son tripped and his hand went through one of the plate glass panes on the door and sliced his wrist next to his artery. Blood was pouring out. My daughter screamed.
My wife came running, as did Oscar from the back of the house. He came up the steps, took in the situation, and calmly bent down to my son and took his wrist in his big mason vice-like grip and held off the bleeding and asked my wife to “call 911” without hysterics.
He asked my son to look at him trying to prevent him from going into shock. “Hey, you like numbers isn’t that right?” No response from my son. “Well I love math too.”
My son looked up into Oscar’s eyes. “What’s your favorite number?” Still no response.
Oscar then continued without missing a beat, “Well my favorite number is 9? Do you know why?”
“Why?,” my son said.
“Well, because 9 is magic.” He had my son’s full attention now and proceeded.
“Did you know that 1 and 8 equals 9, and 9 and 9 equals 18, which is 1 and 8 which equals 9, and 9 and 9 and 9 equals 27, which is 2 and 7 which equals 9, and ah what’s next?”
“9 times 4 is 36,” my son offered.
“Yep. Exactly, and 3 and 6 equals what.” “9”. On and on they went until discussing soothing math equations until the paramedics got there.
“Yea, he helped save his life,” I repeated to Kelly.
Kelly looked down and then back up into my being and said, “You know, some people just don’t know how amazing they are.”
With that sentiment, I instantly started tearing up, my body tensing and then was swept into a full blown cry. Kelly stepped forward and grabbed me in a hug and I wept onto his shoulder. He started to cry as well. We missed our friend.
Yep. Two men, each fathers of two 20 year olds, standing in the middle of a coffee house supporting each other and processing. Kind of special and goes against the conventional grain of men never being allowed to show their emotions, and must practice only rugged individualism, which is just poppycock.
After a few minutes, we separated and he said, “Yea, no one is going to come to my wake.” I told him I would if I outlived him and made him promise to do the same vice versa.
I grabbed my backpack and said, “but anyways….” and walked out the door.
(Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Or call: Marin Suicide Prevention Hotline: 415-499-1100.)
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