Happy Birthday, Brian: February 10, 2013
Today Brian would have turned 38 years old. My tradition for his birthday is to watch his favorite movie, Gladiator, and eat pizza-- his favorite food!
I remember the first time I saw Gladiator. Brian and I were living together in an apartment and were going to be hosting Thanksgiving at our place back in November of 2000. We watched it together as the turkey was cooking and of course I cried like a baby at the end. He loved that movie so much! He even was nuts about the soundtrack which I thought was just so fascinating; he typically was listening to Pantera, White Zombie, Metallica, etc. But he used to put the Gladiator Soundtrack on in his car (a black, Honda Civic hatchback he lovingly named "Blackula"), roll down the windows and just rock out to that stuff. Totally made me smile.
But looking back I can totally see why he really connected with the movie. Maximus was a man of great honor and strong, moral character and so was Brian. Maximus fought for things he felt were right and so did Brian. In fact one of the things that ended up pushing Brian over the edge was having so much trouble, in his own words, "watching the world continue to undo itself." He was so deeply affected seeing all the hate and unrest in the world and felt powerless to do anything about it.
There is a scene in the movie where just prior to his final battle in the colosseum Commodus stabs him in the back, deeply wounding him. They bandage him up and put on his armor to cover the injury so the crowd would know nothing of this "imbalance" in the fairness of the battle. Maximus spoke of it to no one; he went into the battle and fought the best he could though gravely injured.
While not the same, it reminds me of something that happened to Brian at work. He was working so very hard and was given a great deal of extra work to do to help make up for another member of his team that rarely showed up to work but made a lot more money than Brian did. His manager continuously bombarded Brian with not only his own projects, but the projects of his absent, higher-paid co-worker.
When management caught wind of the work that Brian was doing, they approached him and asked him why he was doing those projects that were not his responsibility. Brian told them his manager asked him to do so. However, when his boss was approached about it, she completely threw him under the bus! She told the management team that she gave "no such instructions" and that Brian took it upon himself to involve himself in those projects all on his own. As a result, he was reprimanded and it was suggested that he "resign."
While Brian had all the requests from his manager documented and could have presented that to management to defend himself, he chose not to do so. He told me the job didn't make him very happy to begin with and his manager was a single mom-- he didn't want her to get fired when he knew she had a child to support. He chose to instead give his notice and bow out gracefully without having cleared his own name. That's just the way Brian was. He often put others before himself even if they didn't deserve it.
I have often thought that Maximus, like Brian, chose to keep the "back stabbing" to himself because he had nothing more to lose-- he had already, in essence, given up. That incident at work was less than one year before he died.
Maximus once said to his comrades, "Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity." I think Brian's kindness continues to live on!
Tonight I will be joined by my amazing friend Leashya and we will watch Gladiator, enjoy some pizza and toast a glass of wine to the memory of a worthy soul.