Pat in Berlin 2005
Lib, Christian, and Joe on the way to Schloss Rheinsberg
Lib and Tobi in his medieval Lüneburg
Libby and I received an amazing gift on our return to Berlin in July. We were basically adopted by what I call Pat's German family. We were ferried to and from the airport, housed in a roomy apartment, chauffeured to Pat's favorite places, wined, dined, escorted, and generally tutored in all things Patrick and German for ten days. The result is that Pat's family has now become ours.
Return to Berlin
July 7, 2007
Dear German family and Pat People everywhere,
Libby and I re-entered the real world after a magical trip to Berlin--she to her apartment-and-graphic-arts-job search in San Francisco and I to my household chores. Bob took care of everything while we were away, including horses, dogs, cows, and one ancient lone chicken, so now it's our turn to help out. We came back in good repair thanks to walking much of Berlin and Paris, but mostly thanks to the five flights of stairs to Christian's apartment. Around the fourth floor, I really had to push myself, but that pushing made me five pounds lighter when I returned. Thank you, Christian, for the only weight loss plan that's ever worked for me. Now all I have to do is get my weeding and pitchfork arm back in shape.
It's hard to thank everyone who made the trip such a success. I know each of you said that our being there helped you as well. I think we were all curious about each other. We wanted to know where Pat came from. What was his family like? What were his friends like? With whom did he work? What was the school like? We wanted to know more about him because we are still trying to understand him. Were there any clues within his family, friends, school, or colleagues? Or maybe in the places he frequented--his apartments, job, restaurants, clubs, sightseeing attractions, friends' apartments? For me, the answer is yes. The trip confirmed what we already learned right after he died. Everything Pat could have wanted was there: loving friends, magnificent culture, a welcoming school, and highly regarded work place. The trip confirmed the evidence that I am gathering: Pat was painfully, terminally ill.
When I first began to search for Pat, I was looking for clues. What happened to him that would explain such an irreversible act? Was he rejected by his friends? Was he broke? Was he evicted? Was he failing at work? At school? At anything? We know that he was rejected by Oli, but does this alone explain his action? I think we know the answer, and if we don’t, we have a better idea since our trip. There is no explanation other than the fact that depression is a lethal disease, and it killed the least likely victim we could have imagined.
We shared a wonderful ten days and many conversations. We remembered the good and the bad but mostly the good because as Karen said, "He had a good life here." Our family never doubted that, but we needed to see it first hand. We needed to judge for ourselves the kind of people and places Pat knew, and we confirmed that those people and places were the finest on the planet. Although I do not absolve myself, I am a little closer to the premise that Pat's demise was not about me or us. Yes, we all could and should have done more, but in the final analysis, it was not the rejection that killed him. It was his level of frustration, his aggravation, driven out of proportion by a cancer of emotion. If you look at a picture of a severely depressed brain, as I have done with the help of my doctor, you will see a shrunken hypocampus, the area where emotion resides. Instead of robust tissue, the outline is flatter and smaller because stress has hindered nerve regeneration and damaged nerves have caused stress. The cycle feeds on itself, worsening and depleting with each depressive “episode.” According to Peter Kramer, whose book Against Depression explains the recently discovered anatomy of depression:
Chronic stress leads to the production of stress hormones. Stress hormones damage hippocampal (and other) brain cells, isolating them and pushing them to the brink of destruction. Further stressors push the cells over the edge. As damage progresses, feedback systems fail. Even minor adversity then causes the overproduction of stress hormones. What would otherwise be limited injuries extend, in the presence of stress hormones, into substantial brain damage. The hormones also dampen repair and regeneration functions, so that temporary injuries become permanent (p. 121)
Stated more simply, “Depression is characterized by frank abnormalities in the nervous system” (p.121).
While I was thinking Pat was better because he had been treated, statistics show exactly the opposite. Failed suicides are actually more likely to be completed, not less. This is where I went wrong. This is what I didn’t know. But these trends still repulse me. Pat was not a statistic. He was unique and soaring as the music he played. He defied quantification. If I knew everything then that I know now, I’m not sure it would have helped. I put him on a pedestal. He was above me, surely not susceptible to common vagaries…
Pat's good friend and roommate Andrew Nielson once told me, "He was his own man." I am still fighting to believe that. It's difficult to see him outside of my conversations with him. I cannot disconnect him from myself, but those words came back to me many times in Berlin. We saw evidence over and over that he was functioning and independent. Andrew Tompkins told us that, "He knew a lot of people,” that in Berlin's nightlife (by that I mean all night), he was constantly greeting people. He had no shortage of friends and people who liked being with him.
Dr. Kuemmlee, the director of Pat's division at Siemens, told us that they didn't realize anything was wrong because he had a good social life. He was out at night with friends. After he died, Dr. Kuemmlee met with his colleagues and also the medical staff at Siemens to find out what they could have done better and to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. They could arrive at nothing to help them in the future. They said he showed no indication that he was lonely or depressed, signs that would have prompted them to do more. They, like me, have come to the hard realization that depression operates outside the realm of logic or reality. It strikes even the most successful indiscriminately. I did not understand this before Pat and neither did Siemens. If nothing else, at least our meeting, accompanied by Joe and Tibor on the day of our departure, exposed this discovery: depression is a disease of the brain. It's like cancer only without the painkillers that enable terminal cancer patients to endure. During the last few weeks before my father's death in February, he was taking such high levels of OxyContin that he could barely concentrate. Pat needed medical intervention. Yet the very ability to seek that intervention was, itself, under siege and therefore inoperable.
Our meeting with Dr. Kuemmlee at Siemens was one of many important revelations. What did all of the other "Pat People" in Germany show us? Their magnanimous support and generous time. I often said that I didn't know what to expect when we got there. We had a few meetings lined up, but I didn't know how it would really play out. It was a bad time of year for almost everybody. Karen was away most of the ten days we were there and returned with a bad back and a calendar full of doctors' appointments. Jutta was in the tail end of a move after 18 years in the same apartment and now had bronchitis; plus she was getting her daughter ready for camp in Sweden. Christian was leaving for a week in Vienna the day after we arrived. Tobi was preparing for exams. Ryan and Steve were undertaking the most complicated move ever. Two years' worth of treasurers had to be sorted into four, maybe more, piles at least two of which were limited by weight. Joe and Tibor had no unusual constraints, just the constant classes and jobs balancing act. Andrew was moving back to the states to begin his doctorate and more immediately, contemplating the small matter of a major paper due. He had been researching social movements in Germany. Ask him anything about modern history in Germany and he'll fascinate you, but the actual writing of the paper is, "one of those difficult questions."
Into these already frothing lives we arrived and were made to feel as though everyone couldn't wait to see us. Karen managed to pull off a miracle of scheduling and take Lib and me to see her horse perform haute école dressage and then drive through Potsdamm on the way to a doctor's appointment. She limped back to the Stanford Center on crutches in time for Pat's bench and plaque dedication. Jutta could barely talk for all her coughing but had dinner with us and hosted me at her new apartment. Ryan and Steve broke away from their upheaval to have dinner, and take us on another Pat Tour. And this was preceded by the initial task of picking up two exhausted travelers at Tegel, cramming their embarrassingly oversized suitcases into Ryan's normal sized car, and then lugging those suitcases up the five flights of stairs I mentioned in the beginning. We will always owe you for that, Steve. Tobi hosted us for a full day in his pristine medieval town of Lüneberg, 2 1/2 hours north by train from Berlin. We were transformed by his gentle conversation, marathon listening, and his unblemished village, where the houses and streets sag from underground salt mining during the middle ages. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a treat. You can stop at Malzer, the same ancient and lovely restaurant where Tobi brought Pat for dinner, and you can sit at their table, just like we did thanks to Tobi's reservation.
In the beginning of the trip, along with Steve, Christian had the duty of acclimating his non-German speaking houseguests. Lib and I were exhausted from the trip, partly because we missed the connection in Paris (they don't let you get on the plane even if it's five minutes to takeoff), but also because we don't sleep well on planes. We made up for it immediately after Steve delivered us and woke up to get our first in-service with Christian. He showed us the apartment, madly cleaning, folding laundry, and making beds along the way. He even showed me how to put on the quilt covers which are less common here but which Pat preferred and also had in his apartment. He then walked us to a good Thai restaurant next to the Internet café, which he used to expertly track down train tickets far enough in advance to get major discounts. We met him back at his apartment, tickets purchased and madly packing for Vienna while on the phone. He did not escape to his other apartment until 1:00 AM even though his flight to Vienna left six hours later. After thanking him profusely, he said it's no problem. He had hosted 35 people already that year.
Joe and Tibor gently commandeered us toward the end of the trip. Their Pat Day, also known as "The Project," began with brunch at Berio's, Pat's favorite restaurant, at the same table where they first met him. The story goes that one of them, Tibor I think, noticed Pat eating breakfast around 5:00 in the afternoon in the spring of '04 while reading a guide book (probably the one I gave him for Christmas that year). He offered to help him learn about Berlin, and a friendship began. Berio's was key. Even though other restaurants had better buffets, food was not the criteria. That day, every event revolved around Pat.
Our Champaign brunch was followed by an air-conditioned ride to Rheinsberg about an hour north. Air-conditioning is not common in Germany, so we reveled in Joe and Tibor's VW until we got to our destination--Frederick the Great's castle. In addition to rich artifacts, it housed a museum of Kurt Tulcholsky, Pat's favorite poet the last six months of his life. Ryan and Steve had taken him there for his twenty-third birthday, October 29, 2005. Five of us, Libby, Christian, Joe, Tibor, and I wandered around the grounds, bought tickets, and headed for the Tulcholsky exhibit. We were greeted by a docent who handed out strips of paper with a Tulcholsky poem on it, the same poem with which Pat signed his emails and which I include to impart the same epiphany we felt at discovering the source of his inspiration. Pat must have gotten the same slip of paper when he came for his birthday.
Und immer sind da Spuren,
und immer ist einer dagewesen,
und immer ist einer noch höher geklettert
als du es je gekonnt hast, noch viel höher.
Das darf dich nicht entmutigen.
Klettere, steige, steige.
Aber es gibt keine Spitze.
Und es gibt keinen Neuschnee.
Yet always there are traces,
and always somebody else was there,
and always somebody climbed even higher than you ever could, much higher.
Let that not discourage you.
Ascend, climb, climb.
Yet there is no peak. And there is no untrodden snow.
Kurt Tucholsky (aka Kaspar Hauser)
“The World Stage” April 7,1931. Vol. 14. p. 515. (Rowohlt Publisher)
The Schloss Rheinsberg audio tour was followed by ice coffee at the Tulcholsky Café, an underwhelming little building, preparing for some equally underwhelming kareoke music. But it quenched our thirst until we got back to Berlin. We had dinner at Pat's favorite Indian restaurant even though other Indian restaurants had since become better, according to Joe and Tibor. Nevertheless, we went for authenticity, and authentic is what we got. On the way, Joe and Tibor described one of the regulars of the restaurant, a wizened, older gentlemen who worked on mathematical formulas, which he hoped, would someday quantify social movements. He brought bulging bags of papers to which he referred while he wrote at his table. The curious thing about him was that his name was Einstein and he looked like him as well. Most importantly to me, he had been at the cafe when Pat came with Joe and Tibor. They were really hoping he would be there that night. We sat at the same table, which they had shared with Pat, but no Einstein look-alike was there. We ordered the same drink as Pat, a frothy unique-to-Indian-restaurants milk shake, which could be served either sweet or salty. Sweet got my vote, along with the puréed mango that was optional.
When we were well into reminiscing, along came Einstein to his usual table next to ours. He spoke easily about his project, mostly in German but some in English. I asked if he knew why we were here and proceeded to tell him. He nodded his head in understanding, said a few more pleasantries, and then gathered his bags. He hung them, like sacks of grain, off the back of his bike, and rode out of sight. He could have been mistaken for a bag lady, his load was so great, but there was one difference. He had an email address, which he shared with us before he left.
Such was the magic of that day. It seemed as if Joe and Tibor had announced a re-creation of a day in the life of Patrick, and everyone showed up on cue, including the mysterious Einstein, who, like Pat, lived in a world of ideas. Everyone came on stage to show us what Pat would have seen and heard. But the night wasn't over. Actually, "The Project" was just heating up. The dinner was followed by a stop at a sort of gay help social center near the restaurant which had a bulletin board with pictures and notices. Someone had placed Pat’s Siemens picture on it, the one that Joe and Tibor had published in Siegasseule, Berlin’s gay scene magazine. We could barely see it through the closed blinds, but we will return, someday, when the center is open and hopefully find out who admired him enough to publicly display his picture. Joe and Tibor did not know, but they wanted us to see it as one more example of Pat’s extended Berlin following.
We drove in silence contemplating the extent that others reached out. It was a small gesture, but it was on the heels of an already full day of learning about Pat’s life. It added to the mystery. In addition to the constant attention by Pat’s friends, there were still others out there, who we might never know, others who had such a friendship that they honored him in places we had yet to see. And then I realized, as finite as his life was, I would never know all of it.
We drove to Joe and Tibor's apartment where Pat had visited many times. They even had pictures of him there, which I had not yet seen. They showed us a DVD of a hilarious British comedy called Little Britain, which Pat had seen from the same couch where we sat. Full of off-color, outrageous humor, it was vintage Pat. A new comedy series. What could be better? We were still learning from him.
To my astonishment, it was 1:00 AM already. Perfect for clubbing. Café Moskau would be hitting full throttle. The night was still warm and inside was even warmer. We breezed past the front desk. Tibor had put us on the guest list. That meant no 10 euros per person charge. Remember, this is the same Tibor who got Pat back stage after a Blue Man Group concert, where food and schmoozing lasted into the next day. He is a master at free clubbing. According to Tobi, Tibor could get anybody in anywhere. It was as if he could open his jacket and display rows of tickets like a black market watch dealer. Tonight it was our turn to benefit. We walked up the stairs, I think the same on which Pat had sprained his ankle after he first arrived in April 2004. The music, considered moderately heavy on this level, throbbed, with video in the background and people dancing. We eased our way through the crowd past a bar and into a courtyard where cooler night air surrounded a relaxed crowed. It was one of the few places where men didn't look at women. And why should they when men like the one seated next to us dressed up more elegantly anyway? This striking beauty with a slightly deeper laugh was known for her shows, which we didn't get to see. That's even later, Tibor said. Beyond my endurance. Too bad. I'm sure it would have been hilarious. I could sense it from the crowd who were mostly there to yak. Everybody who knew anything about nightlife was there. This was the gay party for that night. Instead of having designated bars (like in Ft. Lauderdale, where I grew up, in the 60's. Remember the Student Prince on the beach?), Berlin has designated nights. The gay scene travels from club to club on different days of the week. Tonight it was Cafe Moskau, appropriately named for its location on Karl Marx Allee in East Berlin. Other nights it was Schwusz, another favorite of Pat's, next to the Schwules or Gay Museum in the Nollendorfplatz section of Berlin. We met Andrew there for a heart-to-heart dinner at the same table where he had dined with Pat. He told us he had considered Pat to be his best friend. He only knew him for six months but felt like it was longer and called him first whenever he went out. They met often. They had the same kind of humor--self-effacing and quirky--and Andrew was stunned over his death. Only weeks before, he had gotten a job lead for Pat. He couldn't understand. Pat seemed to be forward thinking, on a surge, and his death was inconceivable. Tears were shed that night. I told him Pat was lucky to have known him, and now, so were we. I paid for our bill after dinner at Schwusz, glanced at the receipt, laughed out loud, and imagined Pat doing the same. It was more vintage Pat humor. At the bottom, after inexpensive charges for the three of us, it said “GUTEN SEX & BYE BYE.”
Back to Café Moskau. We hung around the open courtyard, watching the crowd of mostly men. Gay women, Tibor said, are way in the minority at these "parties." But they blended innocuously that night with a mostly 20's looking crowd who were chatting and smoking, much like I used to do at college. From what I could tell, not much had changed in 30 years. But I had to hold that thought because the next move was to go downstairs to the "muscle" room, the lower level where music was louder and the crowd sweatier. Definitely a few body builders down here, but, again, nothing more than what I saw on Ft. Lauderdale beaches. The music thumped, almost forcing me to thump with it, but lest I make a fool of myself, being the only 59-year-old mother there, I watched in silence. Well, not exactly silence. More like without talking because the music was too loud anyway. Unexpectedly, the deafening beat gave me a chance to think, to imagine Pat, to picture him bouncing around, yakking, sparkling as my therapist likes to say. And all I could imagine was that he must have had a blast.
Our ten days came to a close, fittingly, with a tribute to Pat at the Stanford Center in front of his tree to dedicate his bench and plaque. Ten or twelve of us gathered for a few words and moment of silence. Libby, the ever-faithful cinematographer, tried to capture the scene and the sounds with a movie camera, but may have been drowned out with the ambient traffic noise. I spoke above it as best I could and Karen read her lovely reflections on Pat and the location of his memorial. The Stanford Center in Berlin is an idyllic home away from home for students. It's true that they work madly, especially if they take Karen's course on German theater (Pat bowed out so he wouldn't have to hover over keyboards after clubbing). But there is an atmosphere of soft touches, which is best exemplified by Jutta's story of Pat registering with police as all students are required to do in Germany. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jutta, but I remember you describing how you explained to Pat what to do, and he was fine about it. His German was good enough, and there weren't any obvious reasons why he couldn't handle a trip to the police station. But you sensed something different about him. You sensed a levity about him, not in a funny way, but an airiness, a reverie which would have to descend to the gritty reality of a police station. You felt like you had to grab his legs and pull him down, and you did by taking him to the police station yourself. Oh, that I could have pulled him back when he called me last. Thank you, Berlin. Thank you Pat's, and now our, German family.
Lisette
Hillside
104 Deerfield Road
Pomfret Center, CT 06259
Home phone: 860 974 3361
Cell phone: 860 428 4084
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