My friend Sam texted me out of the blue.  “Just heard a moment ago that Ben passed away.  I’m still processing this one.  Would you have time for lunch?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of this, so I’m still processing it, too.  The last time I saw him was in June, the last time we spoke by phone was October.  I’d heard he’d been in the hospital, and he never replied to any notes I sent him after that wishing him well.  So I guess I’m not shocked, just sad.”  Ben was 48.

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Sam, who is my age, introduced me to his brilliant young friend Ben about 20 years ago, and I knew they had remained good friends.  A few years later Ben took over a business relationship I’d had with Sam, and I became very fond of him.  He listened well to my needs, responded with creative solutions, and was always a pleasure to work with.

Several years back Ben shared that he was going through a divorce and asked if we could meet over coffee.  When we did, he said he was going into therapy to cope with this transition as well as to deal with some underlying depression that had plagued him for years.  Ben remained actively involved in his school-age kids’ lives after the divorce, and always shared joyously about them whenever we spoke, but that’s as far as our personal relationship ever went. 

When Ben’s business associate told me last fall that Ben had been hospitalized for two weeks and was easing back into work from home, I assumed he’d been treated for cancer and was recuperating from the ordeal.  After all, that seems to be the pattern with so many of my friends and family members these days.

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Sam and I met for lunch two weeks later.  Once we got our sandwiches, I raised the topic on both of our minds.  “I’ve already told you all I know about Ben, but you were much closer to him than I was.  I’m happy to listen to anything you feel like sharing, or simply to be here for you any way I can.”

“It’s just so sad.  It’s probably been a year since I last saw him, it was getting so crazy to be around him.”

“How so?  When I saw him in June he seemed fine.  I knew he had some mental health challenges, but it sounds like there was more.”

“Let me back up.  Ben was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.  Top of his class in school.  Could see things no one else saw.  I had another friend, Arnold, who was a similar kind of genius.  The three of us used to meet every month to discuss problems and opportunities, and I would watch these two feed off each other and just try to keep up.

“One evening I got a call from Arnold, who said, ‘I just got off the phone with Ben.  He sounded really drunk—dangerously drunk.  I’m worried.’  So I went over to Ben’s place.  He didn’t answer when I rang, but his door was unlocked and I found him passed out on the floor.  I told him I wasn’t leaving his side until he checked into a rehab facility.”

“I’m sorry, Sam, I had no idea.  I never saw him drink, but we were never in a setting to do so, either.”

“You wouldn’t have known—he never drank socially after rehab.  But he drank alone, a lot, and over time I could see it was killing him.  I confronted him about it but I could never get anywhere.  It was so hard to watch.  When they found his body there were 30 empty bottles beside him.”

“Ugh … that is so sad.”

“I’m sad, but I’m also angry, and I don’t even know what I’m angry at.  Ben?  Alcohol?”

“Honestly, both are fair game,” I offered.  “It’s so complicated.  Ben’s problem with alcohol was clearly a disease—a disease that kills lots of people.  But it can be hard to let go of the sense that if he’d handled it differently—or even if somehow you’d handled it differently—he’d still be alive.  I get it.”

“Then there was his depression.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I’ve watched as this lovely grown man cried out through tears, ‘It just hurts so much to be alive.’  I have no idea what it’s like to feel that way, but it helps me understand why he might turn to alcohol to numb that pain.”

Sam reflected quietly for a moment, then continued.  “I went to his memorial service last week.  Many people spoke about what a wonderful guy Ben was—loving father, kind friend, smart as all hell, great companion in the outdoors.  All true.  Finally I decided I had to share.  I affirmed all of what had been said, but I spoke about Ben’s struggles, too.  I tried to choose my words well, but any picture of Ben would be incomplete without his darker side.  Afterwards people came up to me and thanked me for saying what hadn’t been said.  They clearly knew, but no one wanted to say anything.  I find that sad, too.”

We emerged from the restaurant into the bright sunshine of a beautiful spring afternoon.  Sam returned home with a long process of grieving still ahead, leaving me to ponder my own feelings about the death of my friend Ben who, as it turns out, I barely knew.

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The tagline of Elder Chaplain is “practicing hope amid loss,” but sometimes hope can be hard to find.  It’s simply tragic to watch a beautiful, gifted person struggle with a disease that one feels powerless to combat, and which takes them from us far too soon.  It is especially tragic when that disease feels preventable but nonetheless proceeds inexorably, leaving behind a wake of broken relationships, grief, and longing for what might have been.  Life feels too precious for it to end this way, but too often it does.  For many of us, people like Ben occupy important places in our lives, and they break our hearts every day.

Practicing hope, though, doesn’t mean we achieve the outcome we hope for, only that we keep seeking a way forward.  Sam practiced hope by taking Ben to rehab, and by challenging him to maintain his sobriety.  This type of caring has helped people like Ben turn their lives around, even if it didn’t for Ben.  Sam never gave up hope for Ben, though, even if he needed to create space between them for the sake of his own well-being.  After Ben’s death, Sam continued to practice hope by sharing truthfully at Ben’s memorial, and by working to create meaning through the conversation he invited me into.  As we parted that day, Sam was still practicing hope.

I believe that practicing hope is best done in collaboration with others.  While suffering and death are inescapable parts of life, they are made more bearable when we accompany each other through them.  It’s tragic that Ben did not have the company of others in the midst of his suffering—whether he felt he couldn’t let anyone in or he could find no one he felt safe to invite in—and that he died alone.  But I’m grateful to Sam that he invited me to accompany him in his anger and grief—it has helped me to process my own similar feelings, and to continue to work toward practicing hope.