I recently got a call from a woman in the far north Maine town of Caribou. She said her name was Dot and she was in her mid 80's, and it'd taken her some doing to find my phone number. Apparently, she's an avid reader and collector of obituaries, and through a network of like-minded folks, she came across the obit for my friend George out in Montana. She said it was one of the best she'd ever read, and she was curious about the fellow who'd written it.
We ended up talking for over 20 minutes; she was surprised that I lived in Maine, and she invited me up for a visit. Maybe someday.
Here where I live in downeast Maine, a few hours south of Dot in Caribou, the cold weather has hit. The lobster season has ended, and the ocean has quieted, save for its wintertime storms. On the stormless days, I've begun paddling my canoe out there once again. It's cold but most of my ocean canoeing has been in the winter months. It's when I have time. And paddling a canoe is a necessity for me; since two dear friends drowned while canoeing on Lake Winnipesaukee 25 years ago, solo canoeing has been my cartharsis.
Of course, paddling in frigid temperatures upon frigid waters, especially alone, means game-over if you fall out of the boat, but I know my boat and know my own abilities and I'm comfortable with the risk. And perhaps that nearness to mortality is part of what drives catharsis, steps me out of my daily bullshit mental banter and moves me deeper inward; life makes sense. All I have to do is hang my hand in the water to know that there's my own mortality, right there. I believe that such a nearness is vital, but it has been unfortunately and obsessively avoided in our culture.
Out there lately, there have been lots of thoughts and hopefully a bit of processing about the recent deaths of two close friends in Montana. George was killed when a tree fell on him while logging this September, two days before we were to go to Josh Miller's memorial service; Miller had died from ALS last spring, but his family had waited until September for his memorial--in part, so it would be a celebration, not a mourning; but George and his tree fucked that up.
So, thinking about them, and about that phone call from Dot, I thought I'd "reprint" this. It's not George's obituary proper, which Missoula friend Mike helped with, but it's quite similar--it's the handout I wrote for his memorial service.
Also, he was named Greg, not George. But look at him and tell me he wasn't meant to be a George.
Greg Seitz Memorial Service Hand-out
The roots: Seitz was born and raised in southern Maine; he had an older sister, Jennifer, older brother, Andrew; he attended North Yarmouth Academy; he skied at Sugarloaf. Then he went west.Fleeing or searching or both, no one knows but he came for snow and for the mountains on which that snow fell. He came for beauty and wildness and for many years snow was the pathway that guided him; snow allowed him to travel and play upon and within the mountains, and as he did so, the mountains—the steeps, the chutes, the cornices and snowfields—re-created him.
As his skis traced the terrain of the Rocky Mountains, that geography sculpted him into something new. He lived in Utah, then moved north to Montana. In Missoula, he found a home which he would never leave. He earned a BS and MBA from U.M. He purchased and operated an ice cream truck. He skied his ass off.
He loved East Missoula. He drank lots of coffee and more than a few beers. He discovered chainsaws. Tree felling. And the inward sculpting which had begun with skis on snow shifted, or perhaps continued further down some undefinable pathway. Either way, Seitz’s connection and love for the mountains became deeper and more unique, harder for others to understand and define—like the hunting of elk, the felling of trees was an act of love that even Seitz struggled to articulate.
So there it is: skis and chainsaws as tools leading him simultaneously inward and outward but ultimately toward unity. Intimacy. Oneness.
Around town, he knew most folks, from servers at coffee shops and eateries and bars to downtown passersby. He had a broad spectrum of friends, many of whom didn’t know each other. Different groups, like individual elk herds up and down the Rockies: loggers, skiers, academics, builders, mountain bikers, weirdos, whatevers. He opened his home to anyone needing it. All were welcome.
He eloped once, was married for a spell, got divorced. No kids, no more marriages. Perhaps his heart had a home, was simultaneously both occupied and embraced by mountains and friends, for there was no shortage of love given and received and fully felt.
Seitz was both a highly respected mountain skier and sawyer, known for his safety and skill, his endurance and relentless positivity in both fields.
His death came in the manner he would have chosen; he’d often said that he wanted to be buried beneath a tree, and that is what happened while felling trees high on the ski slopes above his beloved town—that final step that made him forever one with the mountains.
