Elmer
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We recently received an email from someone in Berkeley whose life Elmer had touched:
My name is Mary, and I knew Elmer when I lived in Berkeley California. I met him though the Lulu Lemon Run Club that left from Berkeley campus every Wednesday evening, he was one of a group of thirty or so runners. He would come to run club with two of his friends, who I think were a couple. It was the woman who wrote his "Imperfect Eulogy", Shanthi Sekaran, and her husband. The three of them would come and jog with us. I remember also, his lace-up vibram running shoes, at the beginning of the barefoot running phase. We chatted about them.
What I remembered most about Elmer was his manner. His thoughtfulness, that he would be engaged, truly engaged in conversation, in a mid run chat, about any topic under the sun, with anyone. We would run in groups, and conversations would travel all over the map. His research, running shoes, my work, anything. He was bright, yet thoughtful, and able to engage with almost anyone about any manner of topic. In the Bay area, one meets all sorts of people, who are "about" all sorts of things, but Elmer did not seem that way. He was sincere with no pretense.
A week or two before the boating accident, I had the pleasure of working with Elmer for the day. I can't remember if he had volunteered before, but I know I already knew him and recognized a friendly face. I worked at Habitat for Humanity East Bay Silicon Valley. I was a Construction Site Superintendent, and he came to volunteer. I was excited to work with him because I had already met him, trusted his competence and intelligence, and was looking forward to his company for the day. We were cutting and installing window sills. I remember the houses. It's all we did all day (there are a lot of window sills in a house) and chatted. It was delightful, and he was, as always, delightful, engaging company.
A few weeks later, I found out that he had passed from one of his co workers who came out to volunteer. I asked after him, since I had last seen the two of them together. I saw his friends that same week at run-club, and though I did not know them, I embraced them. Elmer was a magical human being. He was bright, giving, compassionate and open to the world. And I knew him only very peripherally. What a treat it must have been to be his close friend.
I hope that the Dr. Elmer Morrissey Memorial Scholarship is able to inspire students who were as bright and compassionate as Elmer was. He was a good egg.
My very best wishes, and highest regards,
Mary McCall
Memories of Elmer
"I think he just loved learning, which opened him up to so many possibilities and why he resonated with just about everyone he met."
"Quite simply, Elmer was my best friend (as many of us will say!), from the time he first joined the UCC Men's Hockey Club. Jeremy and I noticed that he seemed to be very popular with the newest intake of ladies hockey players, so we took it upon ourselves to take him under our wing, to, eh, leverage this popularity!"
"I most fondly remember his constant good spirits, and ability to create fun out of anything. One time, we found ourselves in a gigantic traffic jam on a motorway in Switzerland, sweltering under the summer sun, with no end in sight to our ordeal. Elmer took it upon himself to entertain the rest of us with a hilariously random comedy sketch about the sun... you sort of had to be there, but it cheered everyone up pretty quickly!"
"I studied with Elmer during our B. Eng. degree. What great memories I have of him, from driving a packed car from Cissie's to the Mardyke with Elmer in the boot, to answering the door of our college house in the middle of the night to find Elmer just smiling and looking for a couch for the night!"
"My fondest memories of him are our conversations. We used to get really excited, childishly so, about how our research would change the world. We also had amazing conversations about life and how people connected with each other. He was the spiritualist and I was the scientist, so we often had very different theories. But we inevitably concluded that we were both correct and incredibly good looking."
"I think what I most cherished about our friendship was his loyalty, and that I could always trust him. He was there for his friends 24/7. There were times when I could go some time without speaking to him but if I picked up the phone for some advice he would be there for me, no questions asked."
"He had so much energy and loved taking on new challenges. I think that is probably the biggest lesson I have learnt from him: Live life to the full...don't be afraid to try new things... challenge yourself."
That Wrinkled Shirt
Eamon Dwyer
Eamon Dwyer
I wrote this song over the last few weeks. I was blown away by the swell of support for the creation of a legacy in the name of our good friend, the late Elmer Morrissey. You can tell a person by the company they keep, and his amigos, as I refer to them in the song, are doing phenomenal, selfless work in keeping his flame lit. I recorded the song in my living room through an iPad, so it’s very much a demo. It was all done in about an hour, but sometimes the songs that simply flow and you really enjoy playing come together the easiest. With a week to go before our big get-together in Cork to raise funds for the scholarship in Elmer’s name, it’s probably a great time to let this song loose on the web. Put it on and, hopefully, smile. Eamon.
Imperfect Eulogy for Elmer Morrissey
Elmer Morrissey, at the top of an 80-meter waterfall in San Gil, Colombia, in 2009 (photo by Rebecca Daunt)
April 14, 2012. On the 100th annivesary of the Titanic’s collision with an iceberg , the eight crew members of the Low Speed Chase set off on a day-long yacht race. When the 38-foot boat took a turn near the southern edge of the Farralon Islands, erratic and powerful waves threw the crew from their vessel, into the ocean beyond the San Francisco Bay. Three sailors made it onto the island, where the small yacht crashed, and were rescued. One was found dead in the water. Four are still missing.
I’ve been waking up in the earliest hours of the morning, before sunrise. From my window I can see the distant bay and the bridges that cut across it. It’s almost too dark to see the ocean, but I know it’s out there. And I know that somewhere in it is Elmer Morrissey.
I ask myself if the sea is less beautiful for having taken away my friend. I wonder if I have the energy to be angry at the Pacific Ocean. I try to think of what Elmer might say. I decide that Elmer would see the ocean for what it is: a roiling stage of life and death, a setting, not a being. I decide that Elmer would forgive.
I was a little bit in love with him, in the way you can be with someone you’re not romantically attracted to. Is that just love? It feels more like something in between love and in-love. I might have told Elmer this when he was alive. I might have said, “I’m a little bit in love with you, Elmer, in a platonic way that straddles the boundaries of love and in-love.” A simple “I love you” would also have sufficed. But how often do we really say this to our friends? I never throw out a casual “Love you!” at the end of a phone call. I might have said it to Elmer, though, and meant it fully. But I never did, because I’m too damn awkward with that sort of thing, and so I’m left saying it to my computer in a silent and rambling essay.
We found out on Sunday morning, the day after the accident, that Elmer was missing. Our two friends stepped through our gate and stood on our porch, red-eyed and shaking, to tell us the news. At that point, the search was still on. We measured the day in phone calls and Chronicle updates. We tried to act normal for our son. That evening, we stood on our balcony to watch the sun dim and the sky blush. “Stay with me”, my husband said. The search would continue until sunset. He would keep an eye on the horizon until the light was gone. Elmer was alone out there.
A vapor trail shot up beyond the Golden Gate. It rose vertically, burning orange and aiming for the sky. “It’s a flare,” we said. “Maybe he’s sent up a flare.” We waited for a phone call. We waited for the news. We stood on the balcony and watched it, our son playing quietly indoors. Nothing happened. What we saw was no more than a fiery finger of cloud, pointing heavenward. We stayed out on the balcony until the evening grew cold and vanished into night.
Part of me, the over-thinking part, thinks that this essay may be self-indulgent, that by focusing on my own experience, I exclude the grief of others. I call this an imperfect eulogy because most eulogies are written to capture a general sense of loss, to bid to the departed an elegant and public goodbye. This is not that. This is my personal and flawed goodbye.
Each of Elmer’s friends misses him in his or her own way. We aim our anger, our confusion, our disbelief in unique directions. When Elmer was alive,the group of us ate together, drank together, worked together, ran together, climbed together; but when Elmer left, we each took on a solitary cocoon of struggle. That’s why we gather for things like memorials and barbecues. Events organized around the death of a friend have an angle of the absurd to them, but they serve a purpose. Not only do they make it more likely that we manage to eat, but they give us a way to pile our sadnesses together. We gather because we understand each other’s long silences, because no one minds when we trail off mid-sentence, or talk endlessly about football because it’s the only thing that will prevent us from thinking about what we’re really thinking.
There’s also the matter of Elmer’s physical absence. Nobody’s found him. He’s missing, and somebody–the newspapers, the rescue crews, the rest of us–have presumed his fate. There’s a minuscule possibility that he’s still alive. Until we know for sure–if we ever know for sure–I’ve considered a few alternate endings. Option A: Elmer has found a hidden cave populated by feral spear-wielding cave children. He is their leader. Option B: Elmer has discovered a sparsely populated island, and founded a city-state of the New-New World. He is learning to cultivate a delicious and highly nutritious fungus. Option C: Elmer was rescued by a Soviet submarine. He’s told its inhabitants about the fall of communism, and they are not happy. To transition them to a new capitalist reality, he’s teaching them to make and play ukuleles. Option D: Elmer is the crown-prince of an underwater kingdom. He has forged an active sex life with a mer-woman in a cockle-shell brassiere, with whom he “feels a connection.” Option E: Elmer comes walking in. He’s alive. He wants to know why everyone looks so glum. We feel foolish. How fantastic it would be to feel like a fool.
Eventually, the concept that Elmer really is gone will settle into my head and stay there. Over the past few days, the idea that he’s died has come and gone and come back again. The immediacy of it can recede for hours, and then, as I’m rummaging for my keys or putting a head of lettuce back in the fridge, it hits me. I brace myself for months of this, for the realization to come at me in sudden, unstoppable waves. I also dread the day when the reality will start to feel comfortable, when the thought of Elmer’s death will not yank my heart into my throat. Before that day comes, I’ll make a mental record of the things I must never forget about him. And because I don’t trust my mental records, I will write these things down.[1]
Since I found out that Elmer was missing, my days have slowed down considerably. Unable to work, unable to think of much else but him, I’ve started to notice things I haven’t before. I notice people’s ages. I divide people I see on the street into those who’ve lived longer than Elmer, and those who are still catching up. In the garden, I notice a worm with a tapered head. In the kitchen, the cap on a bottle of canola oil pops right off, all by itself, and plinks onto the stovetop. In bed, my cat chews on the knuckles of my left hand–first the pinky finger, then the ring finger. He gnaws gently, like he’s trying to communicate rather than attack.
I look up a picture of the southernmost Farallon Island, the one that holds the remains of the boat that Elmer and his seven crew-mates sailed. I notice that it looks like an upside-down left hand. And I wonder if Elmer was speaking to me through my cat, telling me where to find him. I wonder if Elmer rests at the northeast corner of the southernmost island, between the pinky and ring fingers of rugged brown rock. But then I remember that Elmer was terribly allergic to cats, and I question whether he’d really choose Toady as his medium. I don’t think it’s odd that I’m searching for signals and significance wherever I can find them, to explain a reality that doesn’t make sense.
As the days pass and my sorrow becomes less urgent, I find myself trying to recapture the moment when I found out about the accident, from two friends who stood at my door. I try to feel again the transitional seconds when Elmer went from being unquestionably alive to incomprehensibly lost. This was when I felt most acutely connected to him. Now, just a week later, my memory of Elmer begins to let go, surrenders to the tides, grows smaller and quieter.
As I write this, I look up at my mug of tea. I notice, for the first time, the way the steam curls up and into the room, tending left at first, and then right, pulling itself into mushroom-shapes and jellyfish. On a normal day, a happy day, I would have swigged my tea and seen nothing but the screen before me. I would have missed watching the way steam dances. Elmer talked a lot about living in the present. The idea connected with his meditation practice, but also with his own life story.
The final time I saw him, for lunch at the Epicurious Garden, he said this: “The only thing to do is live for the moment, and make the best of it you can.” The logic of this comes back to me now, and hauls into its orbit the gut-walloping truth of Elmer’s death. I think he would like it best if I focused on life post-Elmer, on the things and people who remain. He’d prefer me to push on through the heavy sands of sadness, until pushing on becomes less of a struggle, until the day when the thought of him brings more joy than grief.
Still, when I see an email titled “In Memory of Elmer Morrissey” the words sound ludicrous. They are of another dimension, a farcical dark fantasy. But is it possible that Elmer himself has accepted his reality? What happened the other day at his memorial barbecue, when the dense evening cloud cover gave way to rays of sudden sunshine, and a spray of rain-pellets fell down upon us? This could have been Elmer’s doing. It could have been Elmer telling us that he’s made it to a good place, after all. It could have just been the weather. We take from the moment what we need, and we push on.
Elmer, I love you. Goodbye.
Shanthi Sekaran is the author of The Prayer Room (2009). Her short fiction appears inBest New American Voices, The Chattahoochee Review, The Asian American Literary Review and Canteen (forthcoming). She’s a member of the Portuguese Artists Colony and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She teaches writing at California College of the Arts, and lives in Berkeley.
13 things not to forget about Elmer
I’ve been waking up in the earliest hours of the morning, before sunrise. From my window I can see the distant bay and the bridges that cut across it. It’s almost too dark to see the ocean, but I know it’s out there. And I know that somewhere in it is Elmer Morrissey.
I ask myself if the sea is less beautiful for having taken away my friend. I wonder if I have the energy to be angry at the Pacific Ocean. I try to think of what Elmer might say. I decide that Elmer would see the ocean for what it is: a roiling stage of life and death, a setting, not a being. I decide that Elmer would forgive.
I was a little bit in love with him, in the way you can be with someone you’re not romantically attracted to. Is that just love? It feels more like something in between love and in-love. I might have told Elmer this when he was alive. I might have said, “I’m a little bit in love with you, Elmer, in a platonic way that straddles the boundaries of love and in-love.” A simple “I love you” would also have sufficed. But how often do we really say this to our friends? I never throw out a casual “Love you!” at the end of a phone call. I might have said it to Elmer, though, and meant it fully. But I never did, because I’m too damn awkward with that sort of thing, and so I’m left saying it to my computer in a silent and rambling essay.
We found out on Sunday morning, the day after the accident, that Elmer was missing. Our two friends stepped through our gate and stood on our porch, red-eyed and shaking, to tell us the news. At that point, the search was still on. We measured the day in phone calls and Chronicle updates. We tried to act normal for our son. That evening, we stood on our balcony to watch the sun dim and the sky blush. “Stay with me”, my husband said. The search would continue until sunset. He would keep an eye on the horizon until the light was gone. Elmer was alone out there.
A vapor trail shot up beyond the Golden Gate. It rose vertically, burning orange and aiming for the sky. “It’s a flare,” we said. “Maybe he’s sent up a flare.” We waited for a phone call. We waited for the news. We stood on the balcony and watched it, our son playing quietly indoors. Nothing happened. What we saw was no more than a fiery finger of cloud, pointing heavenward. We stayed out on the balcony until the evening grew cold and vanished into night.
Part of me, the over-thinking part, thinks that this essay may be self-indulgent, that by focusing on my own experience, I exclude the grief of others. I call this an imperfect eulogy because most eulogies are written to capture a general sense of loss, to bid to the departed an elegant and public goodbye. This is not that. This is my personal and flawed goodbye.
Each of Elmer’s friends misses him in his or her own way. We aim our anger, our confusion, our disbelief in unique directions. When Elmer was alive,the group of us ate together, drank together, worked together, ran together, climbed together; but when Elmer left, we each took on a solitary cocoon of struggle. That’s why we gather for things like memorials and barbecues. Events organized around the death of a friend have an angle of the absurd to them, but they serve a purpose. Not only do they make it more likely that we manage to eat, but they give us a way to pile our sadnesses together. We gather because we understand each other’s long silences, because no one minds when we trail off mid-sentence, or talk endlessly about football because it’s the only thing that will prevent us from thinking about what we’re really thinking.
There’s also the matter of Elmer’s physical absence. Nobody’s found him. He’s missing, and somebody–the newspapers, the rescue crews, the rest of us–have presumed his fate. There’s a minuscule possibility that he’s still alive. Until we know for sure–if we ever know for sure–I’ve considered a few alternate endings. Option A: Elmer has found a hidden cave populated by feral spear-wielding cave children. He is their leader. Option B: Elmer has discovered a sparsely populated island, and founded a city-state of the New-New World. He is learning to cultivate a delicious and highly nutritious fungus. Option C: Elmer was rescued by a Soviet submarine. He’s told its inhabitants about the fall of communism, and they are not happy. To transition them to a new capitalist reality, he’s teaching them to make and play ukuleles. Option D: Elmer is the crown-prince of an underwater kingdom. He has forged an active sex life with a mer-woman in a cockle-shell brassiere, with whom he “feels a connection.” Option E: Elmer comes walking in. He’s alive. He wants to know why everyone looks so glum. We feel foolish. How fantastic it would be to feel like a fool.
Eventually, the concept that Elmer really is gone will settle into my head and stay there. Over the past few days, the idea that he’s died has come and gone and come back again. The immediacy of it can recede for hours, and then, as I’m rummaging for my keys or putting a head of lettuce back in the fridge, it hits me. I brace myself for months of this, for the realization to come at me in sudden, unstoppable waves. I also dread the day when the reality will start to feel comfortable, when the thought of Elmer’s death will not yank my heart into my throat. Before that day comes, I’ll make a mental record of the things I must never forget about him. And because I don’t trust my mental records, I will write these things down.[1]
Since I found out that Elmer was missing, my days have slowed down considerably. Unable to work, unable to think of much else but him, I’ve started to notice things I haven’t before. I notice people’s ages. I divide people I see on the street into those who’ve lived longer than Elmer, and those who are still catching up. In the garden, I notice a worm with a tapered head. In the kitchen, the cap on a bottle of canola oil pops right off, all by itself, and plinks onto the stovetop. In bed, my cat chews on the knuckles of my left hand–first the pinky finger, then the ring finger. He gnaws gently, like he’s trying to communicate rather than attack.
I look up a picture of the southernmost Farallon Island, the one that holds the remains of the boat that Elmer and his seven crew-mates sailed. I notice that it looks like an upside-down left hand. And I wonder if Elmer was speaking to me through my cat, telling me where to find him. I wonder if Elmer rests at the northeast corner of the southernmost island, between the pinky and ring fingers of rugged brown rock. But then I remember that Elmer was terribly allergic to cats, and I question whether he’d really choose Toady as his medium. I don’t think it’s odd that I’m searching for signals and significance wherever I can find them, to explain a reality that doesn’t make sense.
As the days pass and my sorrow becomes less urgent, I find myself trying to recapture the moment when I found out about the accident, from two friends who stood at my door. I try to feel again the transitional seconds when Elmer went from being unquestionably alive to incomprehensibly lost. This was when I felt most acutely connected to him. Now, just a week later, my memory of Elmer begins to let go, surrenders to the tides, grows smaller and quieter.
As I write this, I look up at my mug of tea. I notice, for the first time, the way the steam curls up and into the room, tending left at first, and then right, pulling itself into mushroom-shapes and jellyfish. On a normal day, a happy day, I would have swigged my tea and seen nothing but the screen before me. I would have missed watching the way steam dances. Elmer talked a lot about living in the present. The idea connected with his meditation practice, but also with his own life story.
The final time I saw him, for lunch at the Epicurious Garden, he said this: “The only thing to do is live for the moment, and make the best of it you can.” The logic of this comes back to me now, and hauls into its orbit the gut-walloping truth of Elmer’s death. I think he would like it best if I focused on life post-Elmer, on the things and people who remain. He’d prefer me to push on through the heavy sands of sadness, until pushing on becomes less of a struggle, until the day when the thought of him brings more joy than grief.
Still, when I see an email titled “In Memory of Elmer Morrissey” the words sound ludicrous. They are of another dimension, a farcical dark fantasy. But is it possible that Elmer himself has accepted his reality? What happened the other day at his memorial barbecue, when the dense evening cloud cover gave way to rays of sudden sunshine, and a spray of rain-pellets fell down upon us? This could have been Elmer’s doing. It could have been Elmer telling us that he’s made it to a good place, after all. It could have just been the weather. We take from the moment what we need, and we push on.
Elmer, I love you. Goodbye.
Shanthi Sekaran is the author of The Prayer Room (2009). Her short fiction appears inBest New American Voices, The Chattahoochee Review, The Asian American Literary Review and Canteen (forthcoming). She’s a member of the Portuguese Artists Colony and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She teaches writing at California College of the Arts, and lives in Berkeley.
13 things not to forget about Elmer
- The gap in his front teeth.
- The way he pushed the sleeves of his tracksuit jacket all the way up to his elbows, so that the fabric belled out over his forearms.
- His fear of touching his eyes.
- How his height never failed to surprise me.
- The fact that he owned a Groupon for trapeze lessons.
- The night he drank four bottles of ginger beer, and couldn't stop smiling.
- The fact that he read my novel–on his cell phone.
- The honest, woodsy timbre of his voice.
- How he thought his name sounded feminine.
- How he trained himself for a month to confront a boy at school who’d continually bullied him for crying, and then beat the shit out of him.
- How his singing voice was so much gentler than his speaking voice.
- How he wouldn’t have minded me saying that.
- The time I smashed my finger in my car door outside of Chester’s, just as he arrived. He hopped off his bike, examined the bloody, pulsating wound, and told Spencer I’d need a butterfly bandage. I dunked my finger in a cup of ice water, and the water turned immediately red, and kept getting redder, until it looked exactly like a vodka cranberry.
Elmer Singing "Molly Malone"
We will be adding as many stories and memories of Elmer here as we can, so if you have any that you would like to include please let us know on the Contact Us page.