Rest In Peace My friend Daniel
Daniel Mingo, born October 12 1975, age 35 died of a "accidental overdose" this month of March (date is not yet known exactly)
I just found out today that Daniel is Dead.
To explain Daniel is a difficulet task, but I must try, while I am mourning him. I am still coming to terms that this has happened.
My mind is flooded with memories of him, and I have been thinking about his eyes, his laugh, his soul...all day.
I first met Daniel about a year ago, in starbucks getting a coffee. I bumed a smoke off him> I was cutting back at the time and didn't want to buy a whole pack, otherwise i was prone to smoking them all at once, so i shamefully became a smoke beggar. The ironic part about that is Daniel was homeless at the time that I met him, and he was living out of his car. We talked outside on the patio for an hour....instantly we connected, and started talking about everything all at once and it felt as if we had known eachother for years. I could see that this man was no regular man, almost instantly.
I can still see him opening the door to the starbucks stumbling in, a million different things being juggled in his hands, as he's trying to co-ordinate what seems the whole world in his two hands. When he went to his car to get a smoke, he said "welcome to my house" and then said "excuse me its a little bit messy right now", and we both laughed. His car was blue, and his eyes were the brightest green, like emerald green, and they would shine like stars when he got excited about something.
There was lots to get excited about in the eyes of Daniel, the whole world opened up into this magical Oasis when around him. Daniel would always be pointing out the strangest details to me. His eyes were so sharp. He would notice the colours, shapes, sounds, insects, birds, movements, traffic patterns and a whole array of different things that most people would miss. I would spend hours and hours on end with him driving aimlessly and listening to music full blast. We would talk, and laugh, and cry. One time he played me this song by Jewel and she's trying to wake up her friend as a little girl, but he's in a coma or dead....she's saying something along the lines of "wake up, come outside so we can play" but he doesn't move. I can't remember the name of that song, but when he showed that to me in the car one summer day i wept. I had a lot of moments with daniel that were really profound, and really special. Being around him, was really entering into a whole nothing world, our world. I could see Daniel in a way that nobody else could, and I knew that Daniel saw the world like nobody else ever would! Such a purity to him, like I have never seen before in a man, ever. It's like Daniel was Peter Pan, never grew up, trapped eternally in boy-hood.
Daniel grew up as a jehovah's wittness, and unfortunatley lost his childhood to endless bible reading, study, and converting. No birthdays, No holidays, No movies, No cartoons, No fun.....No childhood. Daniel was a very very lonely, abused, and hurt child...His father beat him badly...and he would confide some very very painful parts of his childhood with me, that left me weak with emotional exhaution it was so excruciating. I've never met somebody so broken. I was living with my Mom at the time. This is only last year, really pathetic right, I'm 24 and I move back into my moms house. oh well. It was, shall we say, a very humbling time for me. During this time period, I would invite Daniel to sleep in my room in the basement at night. We didn't really sleep, we talked about everything, all night. I actually had to tell him that he couldn't sleep over anymore because we weren't sleeping and I was getting way too tired to work. Daniel would talk to me about his parents all the time. How he missed them, how he loved them, how he forgave his father for what he did to him. I don't think I'll ever forgive his father for what he did to him.
He loved everything. Everything. All things great and small. Daniel was the first person I ever met who truly appreicated the small delicate beautiful things, like a small flower, or the smile of a child, or a sunset, or a song. He loved writing poetry. His poetry didn't make sense to me but I loved it all the more because it did not. Although, sometimes his poems would line up exactly with things in my own life, and to a really uncanny degree. He read me this poem one time and, and it's describing a statue of this old woman outside of stanley park in Vancouver. She's sitting on the bench, and she looks so real you touch her face just to make sure she's not....the funny thing about her, is like most old women sitting on benches, you almost miss her, because you dont' even notice that she's there. Anyways, in this poem he is describing this very statue but in an abstract poetic kind of way, and I burst out loud " I know what statue your talking about" and then we talked for hours about that...When i first found her, the statue i mean, i spent half an hour just looking at her, totally mezmorized by the whole moment she seemed frozen into. She's searching in her purse for something, and she's pulling out the case for her glasses. The weirdest statue I have ever seen, she just looks so real.
I saved a poem that Daniel had written specially for me.
This is a Poem that I saved in my notebook written by Daniel:
White Rabbit Springtime
Reserrection white rabbit, hoppity, hoppity, hop.
Fantastic healing leaping. Upward.
Skybound. Beijing Bride. Your destined on height.
Your lowliness caused me to cry. I wept to hear of the balance in extremities.
Hand on a little heart. Alive Again.
WE live with surprise. You are present. Be Free.
Hoppity happily.
Over with unseen eyes.
I just had a sudden realization. Daniel was born in the Year of the Rabbit, and Daniel Died this year, which is the year of the Rabbit. Reading this over fills my heart with joy, because daniel is the rabbit, and he's freed by death. Over with unseen eyes. I can see Daniels eyes so clearly in my mind.
There were so many things that daniel loved and appreciated, amoung things like full moons, musicals, disney movies, reading, and writing, Daniel was obsessed with music: collecting records, tapes, and cd's whenever and where-ever he could, and he was also a genius when it came to sound, and stereo's. He could get emersed for hours on fixing the balance of a sound system, connecting the wires properly etc. He was also a professional at installing stereo systems into cars. Daniel would always be collecting random parts for stereo's, and all that other stuff, i really have no idea about.
There were so many things that he was good at, but he was the best with people. Everyone loved him. Where-ever he went he would be yelling and hollaring "hello's" to people all over town. At first it made me embaressed, but I learned to get over a lot of my shyness while around Daniel. He had the ability to break me out of my shell. I felt like I could be like a child around him, he was gifted in bringing out the child in other people. Daniel once told me about an ex girlfriend of his who just couldn't resist kicking a rock, or clump of dirt every time she saw one, and he just loved this about her, because it was such a child-like impulse to do...and because he told me this, every time I kick a rock, or clump of dirt, I think of that...I remember Daniel.
So many memories.. Uh. I lived with Daniel for a Month. After I came back from San Francisco, I found out that my Mom couldn't keep me at her house any longer. Luckily Daniel had just found an apartment,and he offered me to live with him until further plans. I was nervous about the decision at first, but I had no where else to go, so I accepted. Knowing that Daniel had struggled with druggs in the past, and that he was permanently changed a little bit from them was something that always made me have to be cautious with him. It was a hard situation to be in sometimes, becaues Daniel was falling in love with me, while I wanted only his friendship, and also knowing that he was not able to be in a relationship with me at the time. It was a very tricky time...a very delicate situation. But I kept boundaries, and we were able to be on living terms, as friends, and room-mates for a while. It was during this time that Daniel found a wounded bird and brought it home for us to take care of. We took care of this baby bird for about three days, and then it died in my hands, and I will never forget that day, like I will never forget today.
Daniel called while the bird was dying, and I was crying, overly emotional, explaining to him what was happening, and he said just really calmly " oh, thats ok, it's a good thing, it won't be in any pain any longer"...something along those lines, and then shorlty after I hung up the phone, the bird died. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I had lots of experiences with Daniel that taught me about life and death. I'm so greatful for the things that I experienced and learned with him. I can't trade those memories for this entire world. I have so many memories that I can't even write enough about it. I could keep writing on and on and on, a whole book maybe even, about what Daniel and I discovered together. Thinking about the bird dying in my hand makes me think about Daniel. That experience taught me how simple death is. Life and Death are so fragile, such a fine line. What I felt when the bird died was that we are all the bird, held in the hands of life, and we will all go, in exactly the same way, as I wittnessed with the bird, we will go. The funny thing is that when the bird died, and it's body went stiff, it stretched out it's feet and wings and neck went forward into a position that made it look like it was taking fleight. Daniel is Dead. Daniel's Dead.
Daniel is alive. I can't see him, but He's alives somewhere out there. I know he is. Because around the same time he must have overdosed on heroine, I was staring at the ocean for a couple of hours, and I felt a presence there with me, and I'm sure it was him. I was noticing strange things that I don't normally n otice too. Like this eagle that flew over my head, it had just caught some food and was carrying it in it's claws over to were it could put it down. Seeing things like this always makes me think of Daniel, because it was these sorts of things that he would get so excited about. I feel now that Daniel was with me there, sitting with me, looking at the ocean, saying goodbye in a strange sort of invisible way.
I'm so so so so so very grateful that I got to know him for the amount of time that I did. I'm so grateful for the parts of himself that he shared with me. Daniel is forever alive in my heart, my mind, and my soul.
My heart is broken because, Daniel is not in the world anymore...well daniel never really was in the world though, He was one of the rare few that are In the world but not Of the World...to make the phrase the most true...
Daniel, I loved you.
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