The picture above was both a good and bad day. David was really struggling the week that we took this: He would not come out of his apartment, and the hospital was doing a less-than-stellar job in helping out… each day was a struggle for us both.
A friend of mine named Steve Caine owns a boat called “Shooting Star” that I have the privilege of racing on from time to time. They had recently placed in the “Around Long Island” race and were planning on heading back to the yacht club that hosts to collect some “metal.” Steve invited me and some guests along to join in on the festivities. It was a gorgeous day. Perfect in every way.
David, as I recall, was in my living room with me and Erica when I got the e-mail from Steve asking if anybody would like to join. David was not for it, but after some cajoling, Erica and I were able to get him to just come along with us. We went and grabbed David’s car, snagged some stuff for the boat ride, and made our way down to the boat. David initially drove, but I had to take over and drive when we both noticed he was driving extremely erratically.
His brain was on overload: probably replaying the same series of events that was keeping him in the funk that eventually overwhelmed him and took his life.
We made it to the boat. We all agreed the wind was from the wrong place, and it was easier to just motor over. In my mind, I was actually like, “Great!” because every experience with David on a boat (to that point) included a lot of lines, more sails, and, more often than not, rain and shitty conditions.
It was the complete opposite. Perfect blue skies and a good day to just cruise about.
David met the crew for the day… he was still keeping to himself amid-ship, but I could tell the air was doing some good, and he had me and Erica close-by if he needed anything at all. When we got to the yacht club there was food and drinks and some relatively happy people. David ate a good amount of food. This was also good, as many times when I am low, I forget to eat and end up shedding pounds and nutrition that is needed to come out of the funk.
The highlight of the day was when we saw the Harken Coffee Grinder setup. For those of you who don’t sail, it’s the thing you think of when you think about sailing: those people going crazy spinning a thing that is like a bike pedal that you use your hands on.
It was a game of sorts in which you had to spin the pedals with your hands as fast as you can, and it would simulate a certain amount of line (or “rope” to you all) that would be wound up. On big boats, you use these to adjust the sails because they are so big and powerful; you need mechanical assistance to “trim.”
Anyway, David watched this a few times, and I could see that little competitive spirit in him pipe up. So we waited our turns and had at it. I had never played with a coffee grinder before, so this was also very cool to me. So David and I went back and forth, and I could see him focusing all his efforts on trying to be faster, how to stand. For that moment in time, we were having some friendly competition: We had a boat to go to and from, and life for a moment seemed good, regardless of earlier in the day.
It shifted a little bit when I had a fluke awesome time on the grinders, and while not award winning by any means, it was respectable and had incidentally beat David’s best time. (He was whooping my ass until then, which was par for the course in most things athletic.)
All of a sudden, I could see him changing. He would step up to the grinder, hit the reset button, and go at it. Over and over and over again. Each time not hitting the mark. All of a sudden the failure button came back on, and I could see him shrinking back into himself. This is a very obvious thing to anybody who knew David, as he was bigger than life at all times.
I was bummed out because I hadn’t intended on pulling the time I did, and I was holding back a touch once he and I started stabilizing because I wanted to avoid just this. It’s like when you are playing checkers with a kid and skip the double jump or set one up to help build ’em back up.
He never was able to hit that time, and the harder he tried, his performance actually went down. I could tell he was only focusing on the defeat and not on adjusting his approach to improve his performance. In fact, he was just trying the same thing over and over again with the same result.
In my opinion, he needed to either step a little closer to give himself a little purchase on the handles and have more power on the downstroke, but I didn’t want to say anything at this point because in reality, I had no clue… it was just a guess.
So then we gave up on the grinder game after sweating profusely and burning our arms out. I saw my buddy George and his wife Kristen (who told me they were having a baby), Steve, and the team snagged a nice silver ashtray with some yacht club names on it, and we took this mellow sail back to the Shooting Stars yacht club.
I was happy my brother had come out with us. Regardless, it was better than sitting in the apartment stewing, but I am bummed I had this little win on the grinder. Under any other Price Bros’ competitiveness, it would have been a big victory for me… but it turned out to be this giant loss: As quickly as DP was there was as quick as he was gone.
A snap of the finger was all it took. Depression is tricky like that. Having experienced that and anxiety myself, I know how the greatest day can be defeated by the smallest little hiccup. You HAVE to get back up, you HAVE to learn how to compartmentalize and not let a tiny thing defeat your progress forward.
It sounds so simple when you see it from the outside, but it tore my heart out watching my little brother suffer, knowing I had felt similarly in times past.
