Florin told me it was a heart attack at home.
In such heart attacks, the artery ruptures. There are just a few seconds before the person passes away, and there is really nothing that can be done.
Adrian was a person who carefully thought about everything. All his plans, all his work, his marriage, his children, his family, he took care of everything, as far as I could tell. He even took care of me, the engineer that did his drawings. It wasn’t always easy. I did 4 sets for him, and the 2nd set was very slow. Apparently he lost out on one opportunity because of that. It was a couple of years later that we started work on Lamosie. He handled me very carefully, and I also was very careful to make sure I got those drawings done for him. He saw that I made an effort for him. And so did I. We were now friends. We had been through a few projects together now, as well as a few adventures.
Adrian never wasted my time, and was always careful about that, but at the same time, he would sometimes really explore all the details, considering numerous possibilities with me, on his own, then returning to see what I thought, then going off on his own again, and then coming back for more.
In between we would shoot the shit. I always felt I could really lay it on thick. I mean I could say the craziest things, and he understood them. I love language, I think, and I could say something very subtle – he always got it. He picked up on the sense of things. He knew where I was hurting, where I had been ignorant, where I was strident, where I was unsure about something, and if I didn’t agree with him, he got it. Sometimes, if I had to insult him, he could take it. He knew he wasn’t perfect, and he had faced his own failures before. He wasn’t going to deny his failures – he accepted that they were there. But he also understood where I was coming from. We used to joke that I was a spoiled child of an engineer. And I knew that was in contrast to him, he who had come from some kind of work-hardened upbringing in Transylvania. He would joke that he was not a great looking guy.
What kills me about this is just that. Adrian was not some fancy guy in a suit. He was a hard worker, wearing simple clothes. I’m sure he knew how to dress up and all that. But here was this noble, good man. Someone full of integrity, and so capable. He had all the plans in the world, and he was executing on them, one by one. When I learned he had died, my first thought was, ‘what the absolute fuck?’. But the next thought was OMG, why the hell did it have to be him? Then I started asking myself, would it have been better if I had been the one to die instead? My answer, was maybe. Adrian was more successful, he was in the middle of his big plan, he was 6 years younger than me, and he was absolutely providing for his family, and was a partner to many in this life. He was smarter, and had more integrity than me. I don’t think I’m worth any more than that, and I’m bloody fortunate. I’ve had all the gifts in life. But as usual for a person like me, I’ve also squandered much.
Adrian was a practical person, but full of insight, wisdom, and abstract thoughts also. I was fortunate to have had the privilege of sharing in so many of his ideas. Some of you may know that he could do it all, he could dance, (and I never got to see him dance ), he could draw and design, and he could manage projects, and he could build houses, every single part of them. We talked many a time about his ideas with robots, with airplanes, with dome structures, with wood working, automation, and with building a business, including all kinds of businesses, and the list goes on. He was ambitious, and he was broad minded, taking an interest in everything from ETFE plastics, to foundation design, to solar and mechanical designs, to automated wood carving, to building and flying an airplane.
I never ever considered that he would leave this world this year. We had known each other over 12 years now, and been through difficulties together, and laughed a thousand times together too. Despite this, we had not really joined our families together, and this was our next step. He had just recently, only days before he passed away, invited me to bring the family over and connect with theirs. At the time I was not on the best terms with Phi, and told him I would bring it up with her when that dark cloud passed. From some years back, he called me brother, and at first I used to find this endearing, but I hesitated to return the acknowledgement that we were close friends. His death has truly hit me so hard, I could not understand now, how I didn’t make so much better use of our relationship sooner. As everyone knows, we get so caught up in our lives, on this track, on that track.
You might know that I am a student of meditation. I used to share about this with Adrian, and for some years, I never expected that he would be interested in it. A lot of people do get repelled by the thought of meditation. In recent years, I would go on 10-day retreats, and I would tell him about these absent periods, because there is no way to get in touch for those 10 days. He never criticized them but he never seemed like he would take an interest in that kind of thing. But then, one day, out of the blue, he just told me, Lyndon, I’m totally hooked. I’m all for it. I watched this youtube video, and this guy was controlling his freakin’ BODY TEMPERATURE at will ! Dude ! That’s amazing ! Then he controlled his HEART RATE. Dude, I get it now. I know why you’re into meditation. Adrian fully intended to explore meditation one day, after his big house was done. And it was around this time also, that I found out he had done a lot of dancing in his youth. I could hardly believe that because I had also done a whole lot, and I still love to dance. Some of you might not get the gravity of this right away. I’m a 51 year old man, who is an engineer in construction. I also fix cars and trucks, I have hobbies in welding, and metal fabrication and machining, and, I’m a somewhat developed dancer ! That sounds a bit odd, but I’ve done a bunch of ballet, modern, folk, ballroom, square dancing and others. I’ve received formal education, and toured all over Ontario and the some of the US and Europe with a dance group. I’ve performed on stage hundreds, if not thousands of times. And I never thought I would find someone else with so many of these same interests….Imagine such a person, finding another person, who danced ! but then, this guy was even going to go into meditation. I could hardly believe I was learning these things about Adrian. And I told him recently that he was someone I really knew I had to hold on to. Socially, I’ve always found myself to be very independent. I love people, but it is so rare that I find myself having so much affinity with a person. It was a new experience for me, to be friends and brothers with a person who shared virtually all the same interests that I did.
And so, it is with such a heavy heart, and a sense of being awestruck at the ruthlessness of the human life, that I stand here now, trying to understand that this noble, good man (I think he may have been a great man), full of the energy of life, has actually departed this world. Its going to take me some time just to accept this new reality, just to imagine decades of living in this world, without this brother beside me.
The thing is, he would not have wanted anyone to waste their lives on mourning. Going about my work, I keep thinking of him, and I keep feeling that I, here in this moment, I must make best use of my time, make best use of the intellect I have been given, to do good things, fun things, beneficial things, just as though Adrian were beside me, sharing in all the work and the difficulties, exploring our foibles as well as successes, and laughing together at every turn. Boy we had some great jokes together. Missing you like hell, brother.
