It is said that Buddha was born and died on the same day, passing at exactly 80 years of age. This was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw that JL had slipped away just short of his 40th. JL was a vehement atheist, so he would have resented the comparison. In our myriad conversations as the only two workers in a small indie bottleshop, me as his manager, he hated my way of talking around a point. He would have hated this article in principle. For a man who had a lot of things to say, many of them very wise, he had a laconic, blunt delivery.
JL was a bull rider before I met him. He won a contract to ride bulls in the US. The night he signed the contract, he took his mates to the pub. At some point in the wee small hours of the morning, someone convinced him to ride a bull as a send off to his old life. He fell, and the bull stamped on his head. For the rest of his life, JL had a brain injury. He had a shuffling gait, he was sometimes very clumsy, and at other times you could see the words stuck on the stuttering tip of his tongue. I once asked him if he regretted that night. He said he didn’t. He said his life after that point was down to good fortune.
It was a terrible time in my life. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a similarly horrid time for JL, although that’s not my story to tell. He was a talkative man, and I sometimes had to remind him that we could talk while we worked. JL loved craft beer, in fact that may have been the love of his life, and he would spend Friday and Saturday nights camped out by the beer fridges. He was rapturous, prothesising about brewing processes and freshness and ingredients. We were like the cafe where the barista knows your name and your coffee.
That’s over now, and I’m poorer for it. That’s why I raised the birth and death of the Buddha in my infuriatingly slow way of making a point. We know about the life of the Buddha. We hear about the lives and deaths of great figures, of less-great politicians and celebrities, and we canonise them in obituaries when they’re gone. These people have profound impacts on our lives in one way or another. Most of you would never have met JL, a former bull rider from the bush, a cicerone, a father, an ex-husband and new fiance, a royal pain in my arse at times and a wonderful friend and co-worker always who, in the midst of my depression, gave me a reason to get out of bed. It seems unfair that JL’s passing goes unnoticed.
I first heard that JL had passed, it was on a post his fiance had made on the Facebook event for his 40th birthday. Snowed under with uni and a fair bit younger than him and his friends, I had been thinking of not attending, but three days out from the event he passed in his sleep and the event was cancelled.
It is said that Gautum Buddha was born and died on the same day, passing at exactly 80 years of age. This was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw that JL had fallen just short of his 40th. JL was a vehement atheist, that Richard Dawkins type that hates all organised religion, so he would have resented the comparison. In our myriad conversations, he hated my way of talking around a point, so he would have hated this article in principle. For a man who had a lot of things to say, many of them very wise, he had the laconic, blunt delivery that many older Australians wish they had.
JL was a bull rider before I met him. He won a contract to ride bulls in the US and the night he signed the contract, he took his mates to the pub. At some point in the wee small hours of the morning, someone convinced him to ride a bull as a send off to his old life. He fell, and the bull stamped on his head, breaking his skull in 17 places. For the rest of his life, JL had a brain injury. He had a slow shuffling gait, he was sometimes very clumsy, and at other times you could see the words stuck on the stuttering tip of his tongue.
I once asked him if he regretted that night. He said he didn’t. He said his life after that point was down to good fortune.
When I met JL I was managing a bottle shop for an independent chain. I had a guy working under me who JL once described as “as useful as tits on a bull.” JL was working in the same chain, at another store, where the GM would come downstairs and bully him everyday. When the fella at my store stopped showing up to work, they sent me JL, almost as a way of ridding themselves of deadwood. It was very mean spirited.
It was a terrible time in my life. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a similarly horrid time for JL. He was a talkative man, and I sometimes had to remind him that we could talk while we worked. Over the course of about nine months, we turned our underperforming little shop into the very best one in the entire chain. JL loved craft beer, in fact that may have been the love of his life, and he would spend Friday and Saturday nights camped out by the beer fridges. He was rapturous, prothesising about brewing processes and freshness and ingredients. Soon after he started working with me, our Friday evenings were punctuated with regular customers coming in just to hear JL’s recommendations, to say hello, to talk with a friend. We were like the cafe where the barista knows your name and your coffee.
More than that, JL made me want to get out of bed. I was in the throes of a deep depression and I’ve always found the mornings the hardest when that’s the case. JL was great in those days, with a kind word, or a joke, or a kick up the arse for me when he got in. Before him, I had been closing the shop for a couple of minutes everyday to hide out the back and have a little cry. I didn’t need to do that as much when JL worked with me.
Don’t get me wrong, JL didn’t cure me. I did a lot of very hard work on myself; therapy, healing, and changing habits in order to break the cycle of depression. It helps when people around you help facilitate that though. I can only hope that I had the same type of impact on JL’s life. He used to ring me every couple of months to check in and talk, so I think I might have.
That’s over now, and I’m poorer for it. That’s why I raised the birth and death of the Buddha in my infuriatingly slow way of making a point. We know about the life of the Buddha. We hear about the lives and deaths of great figures, of less-great politicians and celebrities, and we canonise them in obituaries when they’re gone. These people have profound impacts on our lives in one way or another. Most of you would never have met JL, a former bull rider from the bush, a cicerone, a father, an ex-husband and new fiance, a royal pain in my arse at times and a wonderful friend and co-worker always. It seems unfair that JL’s passing goes unnoticed.
Vale JL (1983 – 2023)
