Another Angel is Born. Please be good to your neighbor…

As a documentary filmmaker, I am always interested in people. In fact, I have been known to frequently “sit at other people’s tables” while out to dinner with family and friends. Training, or I should say straining my ears to find out what other people are saying. Trying to get an insider’s perspective.

Upon our move to Culver City, I found a new subject to follow.  Dean with a withered body was bound to a wheel chair. Immediately I put myself in his shoes. How does he manage to manage his malfunctioning body? Cerebral Palsy had done a number on my soon to be good friend.

Our second floor window looks out over his front stoop which he would frequently sit at catching rays. You would often find me and the kids looking out our window calling “HI DEAN”, even times when he wasn’t there.

Our first introduction to Dean was on move in day. A simarily nosey soul, Dean came over to introduce himself and see what we were doing. Or later I found out he was curious as to what we were bringing in the house. Soon after we began having frequent conversations with him, which proved to be a true game of patience as his speech was slow and very difficult to decyfer.

I quickly found out that he wanted us to help him write his life story. Scared to death, for many reasons, I backed away and offered to put my lens on him instead. This was a much more comfortable place for me to be. But not for him. (Dean did not want to be remembered by what he looked like, but rather what he had to say.) He went on to tell me that too many people think he is a monster or retarded. And many would cross the street rather than have to possibly engage with him. Let me stop for a moment and say, Dean is one of the most intelligent people I have ever come across. Years of listening to the radio and stimulating conversations with friends made this guy sharp as a knife with opinions to match, and a great sense of humor

Dean passed away last night in his sleep at a young 74 years old. He had been complaining of chest pains. Sadly, his doctors appointment was today.

I am so sad to say that his history will die with him today. I was not able to help him find a writer to aid him with his book.  I was not able to convince him to let me turn my camera on him. I am so sorry Dean… I know you had amazing things to share.

But what I can do is share a tiny blip in his history… the mere four months that I have know him.

There is one day that I will never forget that speaks to his tenacity and will to survive.

One Tuesday afternoon I noticed out our front window that Dean was coming over for a visit. I went to wake Richard who was napping as the two of them got on like a house on fire and I was sure they would want to spend time together. As I got to the bedroom and looked out, I noticed that Dean was not coming up our driveway as he normally did, but was using his wheelchair to ram our green trashcan. Shit, I thought immediately, what has Richard said to piss him off.

Then I became still and I realized what was going on. Dean was coming over to help us!!! He patiently and precisely knocked the can around, got it up the lip of the drive and pushed it all the way up our driveway. No easy task at all. He would push it a bit one way, then rammed it a bit another. Almost tipped over, but stayed up. Slow and definitely methodical.

I stood at the window in awe at this otherwise unimaginable sight.  I ran outside with Finn on my hip and could feel his sense of pride run through me.

“Dean” I said, “that was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.”

“I try,” he said with a big grin, much like the one in the picture. And he continued to push it all the way to the end of our driveway.

I tell you, I get a  hangnail and cry about it for two days…

So as my husband and I sit here looking through his old picture album, trying still to get an insiders perspective on who Dean really was and what it could possibly be like to be trapped inside your own body, my heart tries to stay positive with the hope that Dean’s story will in fact live on. Maybe not the biography that he had hoped to finish before he died, but the story of one person’s persistence, patience and willingness to TRY.

God, Dean, I am going to miss you so much and wish I had just one more day to speak with you! For now, though, I will go with the peace that you are in a better place, you can now come and visit our second floor home and dance with sweet Ella. You will live in our hearts forever… HI DEAN!!! (Finn’s first few words)