AstroGypsies

It’s been a little over a week since I had an extraordinary conversation with a boy/man I hadn’t seen, or spoken to in 50 years. His name is Lindsay Smith, I met him as a child on Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman. I had been building a sand castle.

It was a good way to meet tourists and tell them about my plight with poor allowances and a stingy parent. I was 11. Tourists stopped to take my picture. I sold a few shells (once to a tourist for $3! Sometimes they are dumb I wrote) and I made a few dollars rowing customers out to a small charter boat and on the beach, I met Lindsay, a seventeen-year-old from Fergus, Ontario, Canada vacationing with his parents.

We took Lindsay and his parents for a sail and it was settled, he was going to come with us as far as Panama, or maybe Tahiti. His parents had told Randy, my mother, that he was having drug problems (little did they know the den of iniquity they had sent him to!) and struggling in school and they just didn’t know what to do with him. I’m not sure they knew who they were leaving him with but he was very quiet and kind.

He became family after spending over a year with us from Cayman, to Panama, to the Galapagos and finally Tahiti. Always looking out for us, OK, getting into trouble with us as well;)

He called a bit more than a week ago and left a voicemail on my brother Shea’s phone. He found Shea’s number by looking up my mothers’ name. My brother forwarded it to me asking me if I thought this could be THE Lindsay we knew! I was sure it was. I texted my brother some photos and he sent them to the Alberta number that had called. On the voicemail his voice sounded rough, he didn’t sound well. I had looked for any sign of him but found nothing after his mother stopped writing me as a kid. I had to call the number…I had to know. So I did…

I learned his mother had passed away from Emphysema. He is also dying of it as well. In fact, told me he was making a decision with his family about medically assisted death. He was in British Columbia with his daughter. He was awaiting family to come Sunday he said.

He told me he wished he had never gotten off the boat…I told him I wish he had stayed as well, and that we had loved him as our brother. I was a bit floored. I have grappled with those words. Were these the amazing times of his life? Did he wish it had kept going? I don’t know, but he sounded so wistful. They were amazing times. It was a grand adventure with a wonderful group of people.

I sent him by text all the photos I could find of his adventures with us as kids, he was as well, still a kid at 17.

As I sat on the dock Sunday morning watching the sun come up I felt waves of sadness wash over me. I wish I’d been able to keep in touch after he left in Tahiti. But I was so happy to hear about his life, his loves, his kids, what he had done, until he was out of breath and was speaking in a hushed whisper. He asked me to call him the next day. I promised I would. I did. He was too tired and out of breath to talk, his wife Donna said when she answered the phone but said he’d seen the pictures I’d sent.

My mother didn’t take many pictures of people, mostly her boyfriend Dave, but I did take a few with my tiny instamatic Kodak camera. Usually Dave, my mother’s boyfriend was in them as well. He was like a big brother to Lindsay. Shea has spoken with Dave, a few years back when Dave’s son was Shea’s age. He’d reached out. Lindsay said Dave sent him a pound of pot in the mail once! Ha…always in trouble these guys! I was so glad he had had contact with Dave.

Life is fleeting, so short, so many things to do. I am so happy to have heard his voice, and know his time with us, was as wonderful as the time we had with him. Dave and he rode out in the Zigeuner’s zodiac to say goodbye to us as we left Papeete. They stayed, we moved on…it was very very sad for me. So many good times, it felt like I was leaving so much family behind, and the security of that family. The new crew that came on board knew nothing, it was hard starting all over again. They were good people but I don’t think it ever felt the same as my brothers three, Dave, Tim and Lindsay.

On Monday I got the text from Lindsay’s wife Donna that he had passed. I felt I knew it deep down. He said it was the day, Monday, that he’d decided to choose medically assisted dying. He asked me what I thought of that as we spoke earlier and I said only he could make that decision. I told him I loved him:) I always did. Below is a song I wrote when I was 13, it pretty much sums up how I felt, and still do, about this wonderful boy/man. I don’t know if he was a good husband, or father, but he looked after my brother and I with such love and compassion. It feels like it has been a very long sad week. Fly high my friend, fly high…