Amanda Coggin

My boyfriend, Bryce Broughton, took his own life on Thursday, January 25, 2007.

I know that I will need to write about this, about us, about him, in the future. In the meantime, I have decided to share what I wrote for his family as we gathered to honor Bryce’s 36 years underneath one of his beautiful timberframes in his parents’ home in Tetonia, Idaho. After that is what I wrote for the service for friends and the Teton Valley community that night at Bryce’s timberframe shop, Teton Timberframe, in Driggs, Idaho.

I’ve never lost someone close to me like this. The only analogy that I have been able to come up with is that navigating this death is like surfing. I thought many times that Bryce and I had caught a good wave, but then a tsunami came and knocked me over. Now it’s up to me to get back up and surf life again.

10:00 AM, Saturday, February 10th at The Broughton’s
Tetonia, Idaho

Who was there
Friends and loved ones: Chris, Kate, Mitt, Walt and Amanda
Family: Ann-Toy, Porter, Grandma Grace, David, Abby, Ros, Uncle Tim, Aunt Janet, Aunt Ellie, Mysta, Brook, Grace, Aunt Starr, Uncle Phil, Cousin Susan, Cousin Chris

I first met Bryce while he was in a cast recovering from surgery in Brook, David and Ros’ house where I was their roommate. Bryce was staying in the attic above my bedroom. Years and months before I met him, Bryce had to crawl to the bathroom because his achilles were in so much pain. Over time he began to heal.

I called my mom and whispered into my cellphone, “Mom, I have a crush on the brother who’s visiting.” I told her some things about him, how he was adventurous and masculine. She replied, “You should go downstairs and walk through the house with a snowboard on one shoulder and a kayak on the other.” We laughed. Instead, I took him on a personal tour of San Francisco and then he took me to lunch at a Vietnamese dive. He asked me what my sign was and I said, “Libra.” He laughed and said back, “My married friends just told me that I needed to find a Libra to match my Scorpio.”

The next three and a half years were filled with learning, growth, love and hard healing. Here are some of the wonderful things that I learned about my best friend and love, Bryce.

I loved the way he stopped to talk to homeless people in San Francisco. How he looked them in the eye when he spoke to them, and by doing so, he shared his humanity.

I admired his adventurous spirit and how he’d try just about anything.

He loved the passion and heart of Latin cultures.

He asked permission the first time he wanted to cuddle me that week I met him. He loved to cuddle for lengths at a time in order to reconnect.

He told me that he loved the sound of the child-like laugh from his little niece Grace and he became fascinated when she started to speak.

Some of his last emails to me were important and I wanted you to hear them.

I was just sitting remembering the day we spent on the beach in October.
Nice day. I think those are some of my fondest memories.
Just laying on the beach with you.

and some others…

Thanks for your supportive words in this extremely challenging time.
Know that I have a lot of love and care for you and everyone in this as well.

I guess I have been so fortunate to have had such a good life and that this fall
has really been the hardest it has ever gotten. It is still hard to understand though.
I think about how happy we were in Mexico and our trips to Canada and the nice walks
we had this summer in the canyon and I just am baffled by the turn life has now taken.
But it is so important to keep faith in the bigger scheme playing out as it should.
I am so thankful for your presence in my life right now. I have faith that this will
play out for the best. I am thinking of you all the time.
Love,
Bryce

My responses were love back.

I found some poems by Rumi in The Book of Love. This was one of the books that Bryce and I would trade back and forth to read to each other and share our favorite bits of wisdom.

A first favorite of ours was:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

and

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
6:00 PM, Saturday, February 10th at Teton Timberframe
Driggs, Idaho

Who was there
About 100 friends, loved ones and members of the community

Lately, whenever I have gotten sad or have had that moment where I remember the tragic reality, a miraculous thing has happened. I smile because I’ve recalled a moment with Bryce. I imagine we all have done this and will continue to do so for some time.

When I walked to baggage claim in the Salt Lake airport the other night, I looked for Bryce. Years ago, Bryce was living in Driggs and I was living in San Francisco. We had made a rendezvous plan at the Salt Lake airport to spend Halloween weekend together. We had made a deal to come dressed in costume and to keep our costumes secret until we saw each other.

I went as the tooth fairy since I worked at a school. I flew as the only one in costume in both airports on Southwest Airlines. In a pink gown, a white wig and a tooth wand, I wowed little girls in airports and made passengers and airline employees laugh. After landing, I walked to the Salt Lake baggage claim and looked for Bryce. I couldn’t find him. He called out my name and I turned around. When I finally searched long enough and focused, Bryce stood with slicked-back hair, a dark suit, a tie and a name tag that read “Elder Broughton”. I had finally spotted him in a sea of suit-wearing Mormons. He said he had tried to find a backpack to complete his outfit. He had stopped at every Deseret Industries (the Mormon thrift stores) from Driggs to Salt Lake, and even at a Kinko’s in order to make the nametag. I laughed because Bryce never half-assed anything. I knew in that moment how much I loved both him and his clever mind.

Here are some other things that I learned, loved and appreciated about Bryce.

He was happiest when he was creating a new design, whether it be a structure without ninety degrees or a line of pants for men.

He was also happiest when he was on a river, a road trip, flying his plane, sailing his boat, or traveling on his own terms to discover a foreign land.

He could speak for hours in Spanish to locals and found pleasure in learning about their lives.

He was interested in and fascinated by worm holes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm_holes), string theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory) and other universes (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/5mysteries_universes_020205-1.html)

He considered being a researcher for NASA and once told me that if he was ever given the opportunity to leave Earth to go live on another planet, he would do so in a heartbeat.

He wanted to climb Everest.

He could make one hell of a campsite and string up a tarp and create stellar shelter within minutes.

He loved the ruggedness of Idaho, all of its natural beauty and hidden secrets. He fondly recalled the days when he would drive from Driggs to Victor in Teton Valley and only pass one car. He cherished how everyone did “the steering wheel wave” when passing each other on the road.

His favorite beer? Bud in a can.

He knew the lyrics to most songs by The Police.

He had a blast rebuilding a Japanese motor from the ground up for his 1986 Toyota Van that he bought for $100 on Craigslist. We drove the van from San Francisco, through mainland Mexico and on through the Southeast and Eastern United States back to Idaho. The trip equated halfway around the world. We only broke down once and it wasn’t because of the engine.

He liked to mentor others on his timberframe craftsmenship, but only when they had the drive to learn it right.

He would stay on site or on AutoCAD until the design or the cut of the timber was just right.

He wanted to fly a plane with Mitt and me above Africa. We talked about the idea for transporting mail or refugees who had been displaced by war.

One his recent emails reflected this dream, he wrote:

I just had a dream about Africa. I don’t know why or where it came from but you
were part of it and you had this idea to build a community for travelers that
was on a bluff overlooking the African Serengeti. You/we were planning to
open up a section of the bush that was up on a plateau overlooking the plains.
A really beautiful location but very remote. You would drive in thru this willow-like
thicket that was cleared; (sort of like Katherine and Duncan’s Driggs land) with a mix
of grass and bushes but opened up to a view looking down on the plains where all the
wild animals lived. There would be all sorts of little cabins and a main building where
everyone could gather and look out on the animals. Dreams are fun.

I loved the above image. I feel fortunate to have loved Bryce.

I found more Rumi poems that were perfect to share with both Bryce, wherever he is, and with you, his friends.

You may be planning departure,
as a human soul leaves the world
taking almost all of its sweetness with it.
You saddle your horse. You must be going.
Remember, you have friends here as faithful as grass and sky.

and

My work is to carry this love as comfort for those who long for you.

The information below is part of the obituary that Bryce’s mom, Ann-Toy, wrote (with some additional details by me). It also gives donation information in memoriam for Bryce.

Reflecting his many interests and his deep concern for others, donations in Bryce’s name can be made to Idaho Rivers United, P.O. Box 633, Boise, ID 83701-0633, The Coalition on Homelessness, 468 Turk St., San Francisco, CA 94102, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, Donor Services, P.O. Box 630577, Baltimore, MD 21263-0577. Their website, www.NAMI.org contains much information on the signs of severe depression, helping educate all of us to recognize this in loved ones and assist them in getting the help they need. Donations can also be made to Ananda Marga, Inc., 97-38 42nd Ave 1-F, Corona, NY 11368. Ananda Marga is the parent organization for Casa Ananda, where Bryce and Amanda spent their time in Mexico City using his woodworking skills and her scrubbing skills to help to prepare the first group home. Bryce talked about how rewarding that time was and how happy it made him. Those who want to donate to Casa Ananda please write the check in the name of Ananda Marga, Inc. with a note that the amount is a donation for Casa Ananda. Ananda Marga will send receipts which can be used for tax or other purposes. Ananda Marga will then forward the amount to Mexico City.

“The principal mission of Casa Ananda (www.casa-ananda.org) is to help street children and homeless young adults leave the streets, drugs, alcohol, crime and prostitution and give them the opportunity to finish their elementary, high school, preparatory and college studies so they can transform themselves into productive and exemplary citizens.”

Dada, the man who founded Casa Ananda, wrote me the following when I told him the news of Bryce.

Dear Amanda,

Best regards,
Dada Kalatiitananda

You can read about our time at Casa Ananda in my article entitled, Travel and the Art of Giving Back.

I made a list today of all of the places I’ve lived in my life so far. The amount of places I have lived equals how many years that I have been alive, and this disturbs me.

If I lived in a time where a tribal way of life was still the norm, where we had to move because of the changing winds or an impending fate, then probably I wouldn’t feel so strange about living in thirty-two places in thirty-three years. But I live in a country and in a time where making a home is the norm. Either it’s acquiring the land, or outbidding the other buyer. It’s about remodeling and low interest rates that will eventually rise. Or mortgages and jobs that pay you enough so that you can pay that mortgage. It’s about two-car garages, building green, views, neighborhoods, three TVs in every house, a dog or a cat and how many children. This is where I live and these are the people who surround me. These are the kinds of things that they worry about day-to-day. They know where they will be next month, they know where they’ll be next year, and they probably know that with the mortgage, they’ll be there for another twenty years if they can swing it.

But not me, because I don’t ever know where I’m going to be six months from writing this, and to be honest, that excites me, but it also scares me. I have the opportunity to see the world and live in as many places as I possibly can. When I think about this, I can actually visualize myself making friends with the village baker in a small town of Spain, or frequenting a bath house in Istanbul. I want to feel the fresh air of the Andes on my lungs and shake my currently perfecting round bubble butt in the streets of Brazil. But I also want a child, a dog to hike in the woods with and to see the smile that could cross my future husband’s lips, if he were ever to hold our first born child.

I’m torn.

“She’s not ready,” the three older people argued across the wooden table at the Alvarez Bravo Museo de Fotografia in Oaxaca.

I had written a piece about this very thing, being torn between travel and settling down. The term “settling down” made me think of being strapped to a recliner with a remote control for the rest of my life, which felt like prison.

I shared my feelings on my matter to the diverse group of fifteen sitting around the table, a retired photographer and his wife from Maryland, a beautiful single Argentine woman, and to a school teacher and her one-time student now in college. I read it to aging traveling hippies with children of their own and to young Mexican men just trying to make ends meet by being creative. And somehow, they all understood.

“She’s not ready,” they repeated in English and then in Spanish, which I understood.

We were learning how to write a self-portrait about ourselves and then we were to go out onto these ancient streets of Mexico and shoot photographs depicting our self portrait. It was a workshop taught by Wendy Ewald on how to teach writing and photography to children. In the workshop, we were her students, learning how to later teach the children. From my written self portrait, I shot a photo of my foot stepping off a curb to depict stepping off the edge. Next, I shot photos of children. Then others shot photos of me shooting photos of others, illustrating how I cherish my free time when traveling through observation.

“But how will I know when I’m ready?” I asked the two women in their fifties and sixties who were contemplating my fate.

“You’ll know when the time is right.” It’s what they all said. I just didn’t know if I believed them.

Later in the week, when we were leaving the art building that Francisco Toledo, the famous Mexican painter was restoring, Wendy Ewald told me a secret. She had grown up in the affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, where my father had also been as a child. She then told me about her adopted son from Colombia. Another older woman from my workshop that I had bonded with turned around. She had adopted a boy from Colombia as well, and explained how she put all three of her kids in school when they would travel to South America in the summers.

“It can be done. You just take them with you if you want to travel. They adjust. Plus, they learn another language.”

It sounded perfect. I could still do what I wanted to do with my life, and the child or children would be right there with me. They would be happy and adventurous and able to adapt when we moved places along the way.

I just hoped that they would be okay if they turned out like me, living in thirty-two places in thirty-three years. Somewhat boggled, yet thankful, to have had the experience.

We crossed the border into Mexico without a hitch. Nothing but smiles came from the locals and only Spanish flowed from our lips, as we bounced to what I decided would be our theme song from an old cassette tape in the tape drive. It must have belonged to the sweet couple who owned the twenty-year old Toyota van that we bought off of Craigslist for $100. Thanks to Bob from Madison, WI who we picked up along the quiet HWY 200 along Mexico’s coast, he informed us that the song was called “The Way” by an Austin, Texas band called Fastball. We like to sing the lyrics as they vibrate off the metal doors of our cargo van.

Don’t they see the road that they walk on is paved in gold.
It’s always summer, they’ll never get cold…
…They won’t make it home, but they really don’t care.
They’ll never be lonely, they’ll never get old and gray.

These words seem possible when you’re driving through Mexico without a home and all of your most needed possessions are sitting just behind you.

We started calling the van “the love van” after the man and I had our biggest blow-up to date, almost ending our three-year stint together. When we finally made up and I rejected the two jobs that I didn’t want but was grasping out of fear, we laid in the van, spooning, and cried,
“There is so much love in here,” I said feeling the straps that had been cinching my heart finally loosening.
“I know, I put so much love into this.”
He told me that his actions were louder than the nasty words we had been trading. And I finally felt his two months of hard work with greasy hands all over a new motor as I welcomed his strong arms back around me. It was if the van was the very thing bringing us back together.

So far, there is nowhere else where we’ve had such a good night’s rest. Not in the $70 a night hotel where Jim Morrison slept off his binges in Santa Monica, nor in my friend’s beachfront apartment overlooking the Pacific where waves crashed into the rocks of Laguna Beach. The love van keeps us warm and elevated. It helps that we have our favorite blue thing, a tri-fold blue foam mattress that we bought from Maria, the Mexican-American Jew who was a writer and spacey in her speech. It lived in the Mission apartment we were subletting from her, and so comfortable that many nights we chose the blue thing over our luxurious bed. Maria sold us the blue thing for $20 after she returned from Playa Azul in Michoacan from working on her book. It never occurred to me that a year later I would be finishing my first book, we would be sleeping on the blue thing in a roaving van, and driving to the very town where she had been in Mexico. It was as if she had laid out our next steps for us, but we weren’t ready to see.

And I’ve never felt more love for the man than I do now. And the same goes for the man toward me. We’ve been talking a lot, even when spending almost every moment side-to-side. In our talks we’ve remembered what drew us toward eachother in those first nervous weeks. It was our spirit for adventure and our innate desire to go out and see the world…as two. For three years we’ve been talking about doing that, and now we finally are. And everything is so easy now, it just flows. I’ve told girlfriends that our relationship has been about getting over a series of humps. Each hump feels a little bit higher and harder to get over, but when we do, it makes for more commitment, more truth, more love.

In Mexico, there are yellow signs for topos along the road showing three black humps. We have to slow the love van down to creep our way over the humps. When we do so we are treating the 20-year old van with respect. The same goes for our relationship. When we meditate twice a day, eat well, do a little yoga and share a Pacifico with a lime now and again. When we slow down, talk, and commit to what we really want out of life, the topos seem smaller. By doing this we’re more aware of the topos, and in turn, accept that they are a natural part of life, a natural part of relationship. What makes them different is our reaction to them. In that sense, we are in charge of our own destination, in life, in love and while in the van.

I am amazed at my boyfriend. I can say this here because he doesn’t know that this site exists yet. The other night I did one of those late night female things, I watched him as he fell asleep. Winding myself up on two cups of coffee that day, at eleven at night., I was rearing to go. He wasn’t, he was sleeping like a baby, only stirring when wanting to cuddle me in some other position.

I like cuddling, but I like to do it for about ten minutes and then I like to break apart to our separate corners of the bed, like in a boxing match. Except when we’re in this certain position where I get to be somewhat flat on my back, that’s the only time I cuddle for about fifteen.

When I watched him the other night, it reminded me of the love one must feel when they have a child. It’s the purest form of love, free of frustration or angst. He looked so peaceful lying there, with his mouth slightly parted to keep the fresh air coming in. I could have watched him for hours, but instead I did some meditation and finally let the coffee buzz fall into the background as I drifted off to sleep.

Our relationship hasn’t been a smooth ride, whose is? But I can truly say now, at this very moment, that the work has paid off. I no longer have to follow that comment with qualifiers like, “Even if it doesn’t work out” or “I’m always okay being on my own.” Because the truth is, it is going to work out because I want it to. And I am okay on my own in my life, but it’s even better having him in it.

I’ve recently moved into a nice little one bedroom apartment on the last sweet alley where the Mission meets the Castro. I found a woman on Craigslist who was going to India for three weeks, and since I love India and we needed a home, I pitched her my story. She chose me and now we get to care for her two fat cats, Oscar and Herzog, for the next three weeks. When I moved in yesterday, I noticed that I started to make space for my boyfriend who will arrive back from the weekend in Portland. It was the first time that I took the time to consider him when he wasn’t even here for me to do so. It was a shift into a new thought process. But it was also similar, like the feeling I get when he comes into the kitchen to give me a squeeze and gives me that silly dinosaur sound because he always knows it will make me laugh. I lean up on my tippy toes, trying to reach his six foot oneness, and I could hug him like that forever.

We’re back in the city now after spending the last five months in Idaho so that I could work on my book and he could take on a partner to help run his business. Three months ago, I didn’t think we’d be back here together. I was certain that I’d be doing the roommate thing, again, at the ripe age of thirty-two. But we rode the wave again, and it feels like we’ve caught quite a nice one this time.

I walked around the city last night for the first time as a returning resident. I am enjoying this life we are trying to create, living in another place for some time, then travel, then returning to the city. As I walked along Market Street, I noticed that my head was up, my eyes were wide, and my heart grew at the sight of all of the diversity, the beautifully cheap produce and the sound of the aging rail cars that landed in San Francisco from somewhere else years ago. I marveled at their pastel paint jobs. I appreciated being able to walk again to get all of the things I needed.

As I walked, I looked people in the eyes and smiled. They smiled back. It was nice to feel new again in my old town.

This morning I was awakened by the speed freaks screaming at eachother over who would get which bottles in order to turn them in, to get their money, to get their fix. All of the city sounds were like a warm welcome home. Even the garbage trucks and the taco truck that just drove around the block honking it’s horn that played La Cucaracha. It’s all welcome.

But there is a goal here and that is to not get too attached. To the love I have for the city, or the crazy love I feel for the man. Because both feelings will change. I know this because everytime I get too excited about the good feelings I have for something, another item is right around the corner to knock me around a bit. But that’s okay, that’s what life does to keep us in balance.

The boyfriend and I will go through the brief adjustment stage, especially when it comes to living in an adorably small one bedroom apartment and living on new turf. We will have to make a decision, whether to take the risk and drive the newly purchased Toyota van to Mexico, or play it safe by getting the job and remaining in the city for now. The current question being if the real risk is to stay.

The speed freaks will get to me, the noise and the people who move fast with impatience will too, and I’ll long for the endless summer days and quiet walks beneath the Tetons back in Idaho.

But that is how it goes, everytime, on this ferris wheel of living life that goes around. The passengers change, as may my feelings, but the ride remains the same.