Monday, March 14, 2005
A Winter of Discontent
Eight weeks ago, I burned my brother. I kissed him on the forehead and set him on fire. His body blazed within a metal cauldron, 2000 degrees of heat that reduced him to grey ash that I carried in a black Banana Republic duffel bag with me to India. And in the amber glow of Varanasi twilight, on an open boat with a priest and a stranger, I set him free on the Ganges. His passing and the grief that ensued in my family brought several things into focus—family, culture, and one completely unexpected surprise.
The early years
Years ago, when I told my parents that I wanted to come to the US after high school, they didn’t agree. It was only after my brother Hari argued for me, and promised that he’d look after me, that they let me apply to colleges, and make my way westward. Back then, he was a post-graduate researcher at Virginia Tech. He was a quality engineer, and I used to love his visits, because in addition to seeing him, he’d have taped hours of 97.3 The Coast FM for me, and I’d listen to them at night, under the covers, marveling at the variety of music, mimicing the DJs, and memorizing the commercials.
When I was in college, he’d call me every day, to figure out if I needed anything. He’d ask about classes, and grunt when I mentioned girls. He sold me my first car for a dollar, a 1986 Toyota Camry that had 180,000 miles on it. I drove it for three more years, and traded it in for my first new car, a Honda Accord. It had 240,000 miles on it when it left me, and hadn’t broken down once. He stayed in Virginia for years. I bounced around from South Dakota to Miami to San Francisco to New York to Minneapolis, and no matter what job he was in, he’d always find a way to come visit me, and take me out to dinner. I can’t remember a single week that we didn’t talk at least twice; even when we weren’t talking.
The disease
Four years ago, my brother was diagnosed with metastatic carcinoid tumor. They found a polyp in his lower intenstine, and after a section had been surgically removed and an intestinal anastomosis had been performed, we thought he was in the clear. Unfortunately, his lymph system had been affected, and the tumors started appearing elsewhere, most notably his liver. He underwent several treatments to curb their proliferation, but they kept growing, and multiplying. One of his treatment was particularly effective, however, and for a period of 18 months, he seemed to be status quo.
I was in London, at a conference, when my sister called to tell me that my brother was in the hospital again. I knew that he’d been tired, but he’d assured me it had been a case of dehydration. I told her that he’d be fine once he’d injested some fluids. She told me she had a bad feeling, and that I should get to Charlotte at once. I was reluctant at first, since I had just gotten to London a few hours before. I told her to keep me posted, and hoped for the best. My father called me within a couple of hours, and told me he was leaving for Charlotte from India, and that he’d been informed that my brother’s liver had given out. A week after I made it to Charlotte, my brother gave in to his cancer, and with the entire family gathered around him, finally stopped breathing.
The Holy Grail
Out of this tragedy, however, came the most unexpected surprise. Even in his death, my brother looked out for me, and as a parting gift, introduced me to the woman who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
As you may recall, I had talked in a previous entry about my search for love as an online marketing experiment. I had been communicating with someone I met through this process, (who I’ll call D,) who though based in New York, was visiting India at the time of my brother’s death. Having noone to really talk to or vent with because my family needed me to be strong, I ended up confiding in this relative stranger about how I was feeling, and the sadness that I had to hide from my immediate family. I’d steal away occasionally to the hospital cafeteria, and dial her number in India, and we’d spend some time talking about just about anything.
When it came time for me to take my brother’s ashes to Varanasi, my parents were too weak and forlorn to come with me. My sister had to go back to her kids in Dubai. Though we had never met in person, D offered to come with me to perform the last rites, and provide emotional support. We met in Delhi, and a couple of days later, took a strange, ethereal trip to Varanasi, where she stood by my side, and held my hand, as I said goodbye to Hari. The trip forged a bond that’s hard to describe; I felt connected to her from within. We grew inseparable quickly, and with velocity that neither of us were accustomed to, found ourselves becoming a couple. She proved to be an insightful, brilliant, strong, beautiful woman with just the right mix of East and West (remember my definition of Hybrind?) Well, she’s about as perfect as a Hybrind gets. To top it all, she’s a marketer herself, and works for one of the leading agency conglomerates in the world.
How does any of this relate to marketing? As marketers, we’re always looking for that perfect solution. The right message to the right person at the right time...right? We look for big ideas under small rocks, and small insights to fix big problems. We all search for that one umbrella concept that ties our campaigns and ideas together. One might even call it a search for our holy grail.
I recently sucked it up and finished the overexposed Da Vinci Code. If you’re the one person who hasn’t read it (spoiler alert,) it tells the story of a symbologist and a cryptographer who follow a maze of clues left in Da Vinci’s works that finally reveal that the Holy Grail was indeed not a chalice or a cup, but instead a woman, the eternal goddess. Man’s search for the Holy Grail, it hypothesizes, is the search for a woman who was the wife and companion of Jesus Christ, who bore his children. The secret of the grail, it says, is that His descendants now roam the earth. Da Vinci was supposed to be one of the earliest seekers of the truth, and one of the earliest proponets that the Holy Grail was, in fact, a woman.
After meeting D, I can tell you that Leonardo Da Vinci was right. The Holy Grail is a woman. And like the book says, you don’t find the grail.
The grail, my friend, finds you.