André died the day before Rosh Hashana. He wasn’t Jewish, but an American of Hispanic descent, born Catholic; although he delighted in displaying insider knowledge of the tribe.
I found out about his death on Facebook. It was a terrible déjà vu. About two years ago a childhood friend who had reconnected with me on the ubiquitous site died naturally and inexplicably, midway through her first pregnancy and deeply in love with her husband. The blunt message from her brother on her wall left me gaping, and then sobbing for days. I was angry at Facebook for making a terrible death seem so cold – until I realized I ought to thank Facebook for bringing us back together in the first place.
André and I got back in touch years after we left the polling firm where we were starting analysts together. By 2008 when we saw each other again, we were both independent polling consultants, and both of us were deeply committed to the political and social mission of our work.
André’s death will never be explained by medical science. In the early morning hours of September 27th, he jumped off a high bridge in Pasadena, California where he lived with his wife, who is equally socially committed, politically active and a professional star – not to mention sweet and beautiful.
Even if science could reveal chemical imbalances or faulty wiring of hormones and neurons in his brain, it will never be enough.
I’m not religious enough to say that God took André, and I’m not atheist enough to say there is no meaning in it.
So in the quiet days of holiday time turned sad, my mind cast about in crazy directions. I invented scenarios to make sense of the death. Pithy notions about life arose in my mind, like the self-help stuff I normally loathe. Feeling far away from the old contacts who knew him, I trolled his Facebook page regularly to find any scrap of information.
There was no clue. But the posts that just kept pouring out in those first few days did provide me some comfort. They were remarkably consistent: first shock, then overflowing words about his kind soul, his giving nature, his compassionate and supportive ear and his ongoing, daily connections with seemingly everyone.
You are a gift to all of us André. You are so missed…You were a brilliant and a beautiful soul that changed the world for the better, forever.
when I brought up how I loved guitar, you sent me about five links about guitar players that you liked. I miss that, and I miss you so much, everyday.
André filled all of us with happiness and inspiration.
…You left me with some kind words that I have never forgotten. So heart-breaking that your very interesting and purposeful life has come to a close. Reading these posts and seeing how much you have touched so many lives with your exceptional talent and generous spirit since is stunning.
You were always my sunshine and wise counsel …
He was a brilliant political mind but above all else, an incredible friend. He was the kind of person who would offer to help even before he knew you, which is in fact, how we met. I feel incredibly lucky and honored to have been his friend.
I’m still numb, from the news of my friend André’s death. He was one of the most thoughtful and caring persons I’ve ever had the opportunity to know and be friends with.
I added my own, explaining the word “lefargen,’ – joyous and active support for another – as the best description for André. The posts filled pages and pages. Eventually, one of the gloomier internal monologues that arose in my head was the question of whether the same could be said about me. I hated my own egocentric nature which drove me to wonder if could I ever symbolize so much goodness to so many, alive or (has ve’shalom) dead?
Sadly, I think the answer is no. I resolved to think about how to do more, to be better, not for the sake of my legacy but for the sake of my reality. It’s not entirely simple: Doing something for someone just out of guilt or fear of having an empty FB wall when you die is not the right reason, nor will it make the recipient feel very good; giving has to be whole-hearted and selfless.
But total selfless giving can also turn sinister, become self-effacing or even dangerous, as I learned from a sensitive and profound New York Times article about over-givers, that appeared a few days later:
Yet the spectral empaths will express no desires of their own. “They try to hide their needs or deny their needs or pretend their needs don’t exist,” Dr. Bachner-Melman went on. “They barely feel they have the right to exist themselves.” They apologize for themselves, for the hated, hollow self, by giving, ceaselessly giving.”
I don’t have the answer yet, but I know that I must never stop looking for the ways to be better and give more. The inspiration of André and his community renewed my commitment to that search. I wish and pray that André knew how powerful his impact was in life and that he didn’t need the outpouring triggered by his death to prove it.
Then late one humid night, a friend of mine made a comment that stuck. She had heard somewhere that one thing even the strongest people can’t live with is shame. That made me sad too – I fervently hope André did not die of shame.
But with Yom Kippur approaching, I began to wonder about this terrible feeling that kills, even if it had nothing to do with this specific case. I, of course, know shame.
I decided it is tragic and wrong for people to feel shame about something they can’t control, like a disease. But I think the thing that most commonly causes shame, is sin. And in my mind, the only kind of sin worth being ashamed of is hurting someone, which everyone on earth has done at some point. Moral relativism is bull – we all know when we are hurting someone. That knowledge is universal, no one can convince me otherwise.
We know that when we hurt someone, we hurt ourselves. That too is universal, no one can convince me otherwise.
Maybe there two ways to keep the pain we cause others from hurting ourselves mortally. One is to believe in religious absolution. Most faiths have a mechanism for forgiving sin – we Jews do it this evening and tomorrow. The other is to protect ourselves from the pain of hurting others – by destroying ourselves. Call it Dorian Gray’s way. Salman Rushdie provides the most fearsome description of how shame kills, in his eponymous book:
…the fire was just gathering its strength…on the day of reckoning the judges are not exempt from judgment…the power of the Beast of shame cannot be held for long within any one frame of flesh and blood, because it grows, it feeds and swells, until the vessel bursts.”
Is this our fate, for those of us who are less than perfect believers? I’m secular, which means not that I don’t believe, but that I choose what to believe (and I accept the contradiction). I have always been skeptical that some kind of god I can’t really fathom is forgiving me. I fast on Yom Kippur more out of respect for my people, traditions and history, and I harbor an instinctive fear that ritualized repentance can shift imperceptibly from absolution to a permissive lowering of moral standards. Sin as you like – you can wipe it out one day a year, or in the confessional booth.
So when Leonard Cohen sang “When they said repent, repent, repent, repent I wonder what they meant,” I wonder what Leonard Cohen meant. The repetition of “repent” reminds me of “kadosh kadosh kadosh” (holy holy holy) in Jewish prayers, as one stands on his toes three times in search of the divine. Is repentance a holy step towards god? Do sin and justification live together in the moment of redemption, as Martin Luther believed: Simul justus et peccator?
Again, I’m stymied. But I guess I want to believe that shame has a purpose within life too, and is not just a cause of death. Maybe shame, in small dosages, can remind us to avoid doing harm or to do good works elsewhere to make up for the harm we inevitably will do sometimes, despite our efforts.
So as I think about Yom Kippur and a death for which I need to find meaning, I know I will never escape the things that have gone wrong up to now. The only way to save my spirit is to spend my life considering how not to repeat acts that hurt people, how to take responsibility once having done them, while doing good things wherever I can – while identifying and annulling shame over something that truly wasn’t my fault. I believe that people have the capacity to know the difference.
Since religion is public, I offer this thought to my communities, my friends, enemies (there’s no denying that they exist), and my chosen country too: deep down, we know exactly when we hurt people, including ourselves. Let’s not use Yom Kippur to repent only for the things we decide to notice, while denying the wrongs that are harder for us to admit. We cannot fool our own souls, we can only erase them. Yom Kippur is not just the end of a year of flaws but the beginning of a year of teshuva and tikkun – and I choose to believe in that.
Dedicated to André Pineda, 1965-2011
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Larry Derfner
Beautiful, Dahlia. You did what you said you wanted to do.
W A Zanghi
A heartfelt tribute to Andre and an edifying message.
Fay
Gmar hatima tova and shana tova, Dahlia. A beautiful tribute to your friend and a deeply moving and thought-provoking post for Yom Kippur.
Lino Otero
Andre was my cousin, son of my mother’s sister. Thank you for your thoughts, they are deeply human. I just learned about his death two days ago, after returning from Israel. I am also searching for meaning in his death. Both, Andre and Berry, his brother, have been exemplary cousins for the entire family. Even though not deeply religious, they have been great human beings. Barry is a great anthropologist. He has to continue looking after his children. Andre did not have any kids or anyone to be immediatly responsible for other than his wife. As a Catholic priest I am celibate and have no children of my own. Both Andre and I have been very idealistic. We have been deeply committed to causes, though not the same ones. However, as we grow older in life, we realize how impotent we are in making this world better. We tend to forget that all the while we have been touching the individual lives of so many. I believe that at the root of human needs is the need to be loved and to love. Loves means being responsible for someone. Hence, we feel the deep need inside for someone to be responsible for us and for us to be responsible for someone. Did Andre feel a void in his life? I do not know. We were never that close. As for the Jewish and Islamic communities in Israel, maybe we should balance the idealism with a realistic view of how responsible we are for the individual lives of so many who were created by God to love and be loved. God loves his people, the people he drew out of Egypt and promissed a land… I hold a great love for you Jewish people, for your traditions and rituals. As a child I grew up reading about the love of God for the people of Israel. I always considered that history as my own history as well. On the other hand, I try to understand the human plight of Palestinians. May we come to understand that we are responsible for each other. Am I my brother’s guardian? The Lord asked Cain. May we apply that question to ourselves.
Dahlia Scheindlin
Thanks folks.
Dahlia Scheindlin
Lino, thank you so much for what you wrote. My deepest, sincerest condolences.
Stephen Galens
Wonderfully written and articulated. I think all of us who knew Andre had the same bewilderment. You gave a very thoughtful discussion of the matter. I hadn’t spoken to Andre in over a year, and it saddens me to think he had such despair. He was one of my closest friends in college and one of the most remarkable people I have ever encountered.
Carolyn Pajor Ford
Dahlia, I cannot thank you enough for this. Like Steve Galens, I too was a close friend of Andre’s from our college days. He was beloved to me for many years. Up until he got married I would just randomly get presents from him, books he’d think I would like and such. I only found out about his death from a google search a week ago. Andre and I lost touch about a year ago too. I am going to look more into “spectral empathic”–what you wrote there resonates the most to me. He was such a problem-solver for others that it became an enormous part of his identity. I know people speak of those who die in grandiose terms–Andre is no exception. But he *really* was all those things. He *was* so much larger than life. And so I think there *had* to be a crack in that somewhere–how can someone really be so much larger than life? How can someone wish to solve the problems of all his friends and loved ones without at some point carrying far too much emotional weight?
A few nights ago I had a long dream about him about the time that he was thinking of killing himself. He had killed himself once, yet somehow “came back” and I convinced him to relive those last days and try to live it differently. I told him everything I wanted to tell him and how much he shouldn’t do it. But the days passed and in the dream he did it again. I watched and screamed in the distance as he jumped from the bridge. Before I woke up I thought to myself, “You did everything you could, and still it didn’t change anything. He was going to do this and nothing would change that.”
I feel so deeply for Andre’s family and wife. He was such a big, big person in my life for many years (and at a critical juncture in my developing adulthood). Dahlia, I would love to think and write more on this–and him. If you do too, please contact me at any point in the future! Could we write out the questions and complexities?
Dahlia, thank you again. This was a lovely, fitting, thoughtful tribute. In the interim between the blessings and tragedies we receive, we just live our lives, and I have had such a hard time of it since I found out about Andre’s death. Your words have helped me so much.
Dahlia Scheindlin
Carolyn, I’m so sorry – I was so shocked and paralyzed when I found out, that I know exactly what you are going through. Those first few days were awful, before the details were known and everyone who knew him was simply catatonic and we all felt helpless for the lack of understanding. It is deeply meaningful to me to think that this essay helped you in some way – re-reading it now, i realize how much confusion was racing around inside during those days.
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Oddly, like you, I also had a dream about Andre, that he turned up and hadn’t died at all, but that he knew that everyone thought he had. I tried to ask him why but the scene was murky, not clear like yours. I suppose it’s natural to dream things like that.
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I think that as the days and weeks and now months went by, the flames of confusion settled down to slow-burning notions, and the one flickering ember that stayed with me all this time was the very clear realization that I have to accept never knowing the full story, there will never be resolution and understanding. This will probably be the hardest thing – that this one mystery will remain forever unsolved – perhaps that’s why i had to work so hard to fill up the empty riddle with my own meaning, in this article. Thank you so much for your thoughts – I learned from them, too.
Alexandria
Do not ever write about shame and Andre Pineda again. I really know him I well always know him. I spoke to him everyday I know who he is. Do not pretend you know him for your blogging popularity. If you only meet him a couple of times you only home him from those times. Alexandria
anonymous
Alexandria,
I can feel the pain underneath your words. I knew Andre very well. I do not know Dahlia, however, he spoke many times of his deep respect for her intelligence, passion, and commitment. He called her his friend. In the months before his death, he visited Dahlia in Israel and declared it one of the best parts of his trip. Dahlia is not speaking from her platform but from her heart. Alexandria, it is clear that you did not know all of Andre’s friends despite what you see as your closeness. So, please be open to the fact that there was much you and everyone else did not know. The fact that Andre experienced shame does not speak against how wonderful he was, it just goes to the reality of the situation.
Dahlia, Andre loved you.
Dahlia Scheindlin
Alexandria, Anonymous – I don’t know if you’ll revisit this page to see this reply. I didn’t answer Alexandria originally b/c I felt she had a right to any feeling at all. I tried to explain in the essay that I have no idea what was going on for Andre. This essay was my own struggle, casting about for answers, knowing there aren’t any, by looking for themes related to people’s unhappiness. Shame was one that resonated with me particularly at that time b/c I connected it to the approaching holiday, sin and repentance, and semi-consciously, to the political level. I have no idea if this was relevant to Andre specifically (just as I don’t know if he was the “spectral empathetic” type mentioned also), but I feel sure he would have appreciated the public/political implications, even if they are subtle. My main point about shame is that it’s something every single person will experience, and shouldn’t become a source of disaster, but a source for constructive thoughts and behavior.
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But the other reason i didn’t answer Alexandria b/c I acknowledge that I might have gotten it wrong – how can anyone get it right, unless they were inside his head? I am terribly sorry if this upset Alexandria.
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Anonymous, thank you so much for your words, which are very meaningful to me.