“What is the Soul?
I cannot stop asking …
If I could taste but one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord
and I can’t leave that way …
Whoever brought me here,
will have to take me home.”

~ J. Rumi

 

Though I didn’t have much contact with Todd over the last ten years of his life, the manner & circumstances of his death seem to indicate that at least a few of my favorite “Todd traits” remained with him until the end — his immense Strength and his indomitable Courage being two of them.  It feels odd to mention these two traits in relation to a suicide, and yet by the end of this chapter you might very well understand what I intend to share — that Todd was, up until his dying breath, a man of great Power and a man of great Bravery.

His strength in the traditional sense was always very easy to see. He was indeed a “mountain of a man”.  With a body that was 6’5″, tan, lean & muscular, it really did appear as if Poseidon himself was rising from the surf whenever Todd would come in from a swim in the ocean.

He also had the ability to lift, move & accurately place very heavy stones. In 2006, we built a sandstone table, a massive rock garden (that Todd christened “Ithilian”, after a scene in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Two Towers”), and a number of large stone meditation benches. Please note that even though I say “we” here, it was Todd who did by far the majority of the lifting and the moving and the placing of those stones.  Frankly, to this day whenever I visit those sacred places, I still don’t know how “we’” managed to do any of it.

 

On top of his amazing physical, “external” strength, Todd possessed an immense mental, “internal” Strength as well — a deep-seated bravery that was just as astounding … The man simply seemed to know no fear.

He rafted the wildest of waters (literally drowning once — and being resuscitated on the adjacent shoreline, when his raft capsized in a monstrous Colorado white-water rapid that he knew was “beyond classification” before he rode it) … He body-surfed huge waves in Hawaii … He even braved “double black diamond” ski slopes — the first day after having taught himself to snowboard in only a few hours!

My parents have affirmed that this was typical Todd-behavior from a very early age. While I was always a somewhat timid child (I think “careful” is the polite euphemism), Todd would simply see a challenge and leap right into it.

 

While Todd was alive, he seemed to live life fully. He was a man who met his life head-on, and by all indications, he was a man who met his death head-on as well.  What little evidence we have shows that Todd, after struggling mightily with an extremely powerful psycho-spiritual foe for over two-decades, chose his departure from this world very Care-fully.

On the day in question, he apparently left his campsite and hiked over two miles to a peaceful mountain overlook — a location so beautiful that those who eventually found his remains simply knew without a doubt that his death had been no accident.  Todd only took one shotgun shell along for that last walk. His final act was carefully planned … It was conscious and it was deliberate … It was an act of great Strength, & it was an act of great Courage.

 

Todd faced the largest “wave” any of us will ever face.  Todd faced Death head-on, and he didn’t shy away.  He picked his time and he picked his place, and then he calmly walked out into the surf — and met that Great Wave head-on.  He met that Wave, and he dove into it.  He became one with it …

… and thereby, became ONE with all of us.

“For what is it to die, but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand… and seek God unencumbered.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

 

Filed under: A Tribute to Todd by Scaughdt