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I returned from the hospice unit of the hospital knowing I needed to
begin writing my eulogy for Jon. For nearly two years, since his initial
diagnosis of peritoneal cancer, a part of me has always believed he
would magically be cured of this illness. In searching for some poems
Jon had sent me via e-mail, I read a note sent that day from Mary
O'Dell, a close friend who had lost her husband to cancer. She wrote
"This is a most important time in your life. Hang on and push through
it. It will change you forever."
Here is a poem she wrote that seems especially appropriate for Jon,
given his love of geology:
The Evidence of Things Hoped For
I bring them a geode
see no glimmer in their eyes.
Am I the only one who knows?
I forget my own experience
is not the world's.
Not everyone had hefted a warty sphere
knocked it apart with a hammer
and caught breath in the sight of gleaming mica
or rose crystal glow.
Then one steps forward
smiling his worn smile
and takes the bulbous lump in tender hands.
Like an unhatched egg or a heart innocent of pain
the geode holds a miracle never seen
unless it be broken.
Many of us here today do not have hearts innocent of pain. The life of
Dr. Jon Michael Barnes had left a deep imprint on our hearts. Our hearts
are feeling wounded right now by his departure from a life that feels
too shortly lived for the potential it bore. And yet, after merely 49
(or seven squared as Jon liked to say) years of life, Jon was able to
astound us with the magnitude of the impact he left on each of us.
To borrow the words written in eulogy for Walt Whitman, I will share
that ". . . he was above all I have known, the poet of humanity, of
sympathy. . . He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit,
with sympathy for all. He sympathized with the imprisoned and despised,
and even on the brow of crime he was great enough to place the kiss of
human sympathy. He said, speaking of an outcast: 'Not until the sun
excludes you do I exclude you.' His charity was as wise as the sky, and
wherever there was human suffering, human misfortune, his sympathy bent
above it as the firmament bends above the earth. . . He was the poet of
Life. It was a joy simply to breathe. . . He was the poet of Death. He
accepted all life and all death. He was not afraid to live, not afraid
to die. . . I loved him living, and I love him still."
Though some of you may be adopting Jon's sense of modesty in thinking me
gauche to compare our friend, colleague, and family member to a man as
talented as Walt Whitman, I challenge you to consider whether Walt
Whitman could have scored a perfect 800 on the verbal section of the GRE
as Jon did.
Jon had a lifelong love of learning and may have set a record when
completing his undergraduate education by having the most number of
credits. It wasn't exactly that he was fickle. It was merely that so
much fascinated him. He completed a degree in linguistics, but had
numerous credits in chemical engineering as well as geology. Fluent in
numerous languages and an avid learner of many others, Jon was always
intrigued with language.
In the midst of his official education, Jon also found a love of
experiential learning, which he practiced by way of hitchhiking across
the country, traveling to numerous overseas destinations, playing bass
guitar in a band, and working in and managing several upscale
restaurants. A connoisseur of words, Jon enjoyed a good pun and even
made one with the hospice nurse when he was in a semi-lucid state just
days before his departure from this life.
Jon's sense of humor was evident to all who knew him. His close friends
Peggy and Rhonda love to recount the time Jon dressed in a cat gorilla
suit or as the grim reaper to celebrate each others' birthdays as they
jogged through Cherokee Park. Jon was also comfortable when the joke was
on him. When Peggy and Stan hosted a Halloween party and told Jon
everyone would be wearing a costume, he dressed in drag, complete with
heels and fishnet hose, and arrived at their home to find everyone
dressed in typical civilian street wear. He conversed with mentors and
supervisors in his field as if there were no emperor's new clothes game.
And speaking of the emperor's new clothes, Jon learned quickly through
an experiential graduate school course in the group counseling process
that always being diplomatic and rescuing others did little to further
the group's trust in him. He perfected the art of direct diplomacy
through this classroom insight and his 11 years as a psychologist with
sexual abuse perpetrators at the Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange.
He did not compromise compassion with what he gained in direct
communication. During a discussion time at meditation group, he shared
the anguish he experienced over deliberating about the conversation he
had with an inmate about his very low chances for parole due to the high
risk factor for recidivism, meaning that Jon had evaluated that this man
was at high risk for perpetrating similar violent crimes in the future.
His main concern was the he had shown human decency to this individual
through his discussion with him.
Jon identified himself as a pacifist, a label he did not take lightly.
In fact, Jon may be in a small minority of individuals who can have
compassion for such sentient beings as spiders, ants, and other creepy
crawlers who others of us would quickly scrunch under heavy sole without
a heavy soul. Another intriguing aspect of his pacifism was that he was
an avid student of war, reading numerous books and articles on the topic
and trying to subject even his violence squeamish friends like me to the
hours and hours of video his father had sent him on the band of
brothers, a world war two airborne unit known for its bravery in the
midst of battle.
When Jon was first diagnosed with late stage cancer nearly two years ago
and given six months to live if untreated, Jon was burdened most by the
impact of suffering this would have on others. Much later, as the
disease had progressed, he and I were talking about his prognosis while
he was in the hospital. He shared that he had recently conducted an
assessment for work with a man who had lost his wife to cancer. He said
the man could obviously tell that Jon was also battling the illness. Jon
found himself identifying with this man's grief and loss and
anticipating the grief and loss that Claire, his close friends, and
family would continue to experience after his suffering had ended. He
said he had the easy job.
I remarked to him once that he was the most patient patient I could ever
imagine meeting. He said there are many things in life which we can
control and some we couldn't and that he was choosing how he responded
to his illness, which I knew included a moment by moment battle with
pain, nausea, fatigue, and inability to consume and digest solid foods
for the past four months.
His Hospice RN, Melissa Payne, visited him recently and said "Jon is a
peaceful, wonderful, gentle man. I could have listened to him talk for
hours. It was calming to me to hear him speak.
A close friend said of Jon that he approached his battle with cancer
with more strength and grace than anyone he had known.
He brought an air of lightness and acceptance to the meditation group
where Jon and I met and became friends. There he added the grounding of
ritual to our weekly practice. One of my favorite memories of his
facilitation was the day he taught us, again experientially, about
practicing maitri, the Buddhist word for loving kindness, with
ourselves. He gave us each a feather he had collected in his travels and
had us pair up, with one person of the pair sitting with eyes closed and
ringing a bell when they had a thought to distract them. When the bell
rang, the other of the pair was to tickle his or her partner's nose with
the feather to remind them to practice loving kindness towards oneself.
The group was at once transformed into Pavlovian dogs for loving
kindness. I placed my feather near the command center in my car,
unwittingly blocking my view from the gas gauge, something I discovered
when my car wouldn't start after staying quite late at a friend's party.
Jon's ability to teach transcended his physical presence.
One of Jon's dreams was to be a university professor. He put hours into
developing the syllabus for an introductory psychology course at IU
Southeast and spent even more time preparing each class lecture, which
he provided for each student online. His first-time students were so
impressed with his teaching methods and moved by his capacity to teach
despite working all day and battling the horrendous side effects of the
first round of chemotherapy, that they wrote him a card and gave him a
stuffed bear they had personally designed at the build a bear factory.
Jon was also a hopeless romantic. He had a poet's heart and wooed many a
young woman in his day with his tall, dark, and handsome appearance and
dreamy blue eyes. He made it a point to have fresh flowers for his fair
Claire each time she visited, making sure his able, witty, and devoted
caregiver and brother Tim made good on Jon's promise to himself when he
was confined to his trusty recliner, often with a book in hand to
continue to absorb as much knowledge as possible. He hired a barbershop
quartet to serenade Claire at her elementary school on Valentine's Day
with tunes like Danny Boy, that brought a tear to the lashes of his
Irish lass and to many onlookers or people to whom he retold the tale.
Jon told a fellow facilitator in the meditation group that the most
difficult part of his illness had been accepting the love others
continued to lavish on him. Tony asked him if he realized just how many
people loved him.
The words of Walt Whitman have been immortalized over a century after
his death. I believe that the maitri, the love that Jon, the gentle
spirt of bear heart, has shown to each of us will cause him to be
immortalized not only through our memories, but through the practices of
love we will continue to pass on to others throughout future generations.
A few months ago, Jon gave be a book as a gift. By Lama Surya Das, it is
called Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be. I wondered just why he'd
given me this book. Was my life in such great need of transformation? I
finally turned to it again when he had been admitted to the hospice unit
in his final days and found a chapter that let me know he was helping me
prepare for the grief and loss I was about to experience. Entitled
spiritual renewal- healing our wounded hearts, I found the following
quote: "Rebirth is one form of renewal and regeneration. This may happen
in the afterlife or in heaven, or it may happen through reinventing
oneself or one's career and relationships in this life. Or it can happen
moment by moment by taking a good deep breath and taking a fresh and
renewed look at life in the immediacy of the present moment. This
moment-by-moment rebirth is a practice of both love and freedom. It
allows us to embrace reality right now, as it is; it allows us to be as
we are without being burdened or conditioned by the past.
As my close friend advised, this is a most important time in your life.
Hang on and push through it. It will change you forever. And please
remember the teachings of a wise and gentle spirit and practice maitri,
loving kindness towards yourself in the midst of your heartbreaking grief.
