You never had to wonder what Jake was thinking; he willingly and passionately shared his musings, beliefs, and reflections with any whose path crossed with his. You never had to wonder if Jake was listening; he was genuinely interested in what others had to say and approached conversations with the greatest sincerity. He approached life with a deep honesty of mind and soul that I always admired and have never witnessed in quite the same intensity as his.
When I learned of Jake’s February death, my first thought was of a night the year before. We had all been at an old friend’s house, cozied against the winter cold by our comfortable presence together. We cooked and we talked and we laughed and listened to music and were with each other and it wasn’t a night of exceptional depth but it yet it was and as we all reluctantly made the motions of departure, Jake said: “thank you.” He thanked us for working hard in our friendships to create such a space of welcoming comfort, and thanked us for embracing his presence among us. And he apologized, in the most sincere form I have ever heard; he cried and he acknowledged his mistakes and he put a voice to his regrets and he told us nights like those were what helped him to do the hard work of getting better.
That night I drove Jake the 45 minutes home across the middle-of-the-night, quiet and still Indianapolis interstate and he smoked a cigarette with his head out the window in the whipping wind because he knew I didn’t like the smell and we talked. I remember being slightly nervous about taking Jake home that night; small talk terrifies me and in many ways, Jake and I seemed to be entirely different people such that an extended, one-on-one conversation seemed daunting in its awkward lack of common ground.
But Jake pulled his head back into the car, rolled up the window and asked: “do you believe in god?” And I was rendered speechless for a few minutes as I reacted to the honesty of the question, the way in which it immediately shifted my mentality and erased my awkwardness, the way his lack of fear to ask the big questions removed my fear to answer them. What ensued in those 45 minutes home across the middle-of-the-night, quiet and still Indianapolis interstate was one of the most honest and true conversations I have ever held.
We shared our beliefs and the events in our lives both tragic and beautiful that led us to those beliefs. We shared our hopes and those things that sometimes made it difficult to hold onto optimism. We shared our fears and the parts of our self that are displayed by those fears. We shared the vulnerability that comes with belief and the vulnerability that comes with disbelief. And we shared common ground.
And when we pulled up to Jake’s house, he said: “this was good.” And it was.
I hold onto that memory and each time I reflect on it, it seems I learn something new from Jake. Jake has taught me about openness, he has taught me about acknowledgement, he has taught me about understanding and loving one’s self, he has taught me about vulnerability and he has taught me about honesty.
I have thought of Jake and used his many lessons so often here in Senegal.
There is nothing which forces one to learn about and acknowledge their self, their beliefs, their core, quite like being immersed in vulnerability. And there is nothing that produces such vulnerability quite like spending an extended period of time in a country, society, and culture seemingly entirely different than what is familiar and seeking out common ground.
And while I’ve done this before, while my time in Kenya taught me more about myself than I thought possible, my time in Senegal is doing the same. I am continually in a process of learning myself.
But what Jake taught me and continues to teach me is not just openness to what can be learned about one’s self, but also the courage of sharing that self with others and of asking the big questions to discover and be present to the self of others.
And that is not easy for me to do. I am shy, I am an introvert, I am not often someone who has the self-assurance to assert my presence in a conversation or relationship. I am often content to reflect on my own and even when I do share those reflections, most often in the form of writing such as this which allows me to remove myself from the vulnerability by a step, I am not asking the “do you believe in god?” questions of others.
And I am realizing how that is truly what created Jake’s beautiful spirit: his willingness and strength to not just be open to his vulnerability and to share that, but also his courage and compassion to listen to the vulnerability of others. And I am realizing that I desire so much to do so. And I am realizing that in these past two months in Senegal, I have been that person in a way that I never have before.
I still have so much learning to do; sometimes I deny and struggle to admit what I am discovering about myself; sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to voice my truth or to discover the truth of others; sometimes, when there is difficult work to be done to recreate a space of honesty that has been diminished, it takes the necessary wake up call of others to push me out of the easiness of solitude to re-forge common ground.
But I am working hard. I am voicing my thoughts and beliefs. I am acknowledging insecurities, fears, and shortcomings. I am displaying a truer self, in all of its forms. And I am listening to those truer selves of others. I am asking the questions which sometimes come in the form of “do you believe in god?” and sometimes in the form of “how are you today?” and I am being present to all of the answers. And I believe I am becoming a better person because of it.
And I believe I have Jake to thank for this.
callie daniels-howell 