BYRON
Cambridge, Massachusetts—1971
I was living in Lexington, teaching gifted children and integrating into the real world after spending a year in the hospital recovering from injuries, when a young man from my past found me.
Byron was my brother’s best friend at Andover Academy….and when my brother went off to Princeton, Byron went to Dartmouth and they lost track of each other. Apparently he met a guru there. Four years earlier I had been invited to the Andover prom by another friend, resulting in a midnight romp in a graveyard which ended in disaster and Byron stepped up, saved me and swept me into loveliness…as a friend….a special friend…I was 16 at that time.
Now I was 20 and Byron was 22, and I had not seen him in all of these years. He left a message for me at the school where I worked, with, “Urgent, meet me in Harvard Square by the music store tomorrow at 4:00, this is Byron. I need to see you”. No phone number, no address, but I was giddy with the idea of seeing him after all these years.
I took a bus…and remember sitting across from the most beautiful, ancient Tibetan woman, with a faced carved with stories, deep lines everywhere and sparkling focused eyes. We smiled at each other for the entire ride.
The moment I crossed the square to the music shop, Byron hailed me and my heart leapt. He was 6’2’’, reddish jostled hair, chiseled handsome features, freckles, and wearing a plaid flannel shirt…looking like the Maine woodsman that he was, but his sparkle was gone. He hooked his arm through mine and led me to a bench to talk. No ‘Wow, how have you been…what are you up to…tell me about yourself…it’s wonderful to see you’…no. He sprang right into the following:
“I am not who I used to be. I have met a master. He is from India and I have devoted my life to him. My practice is restrictive and demanding. You keep appearing to me. I don’t know why, but we have searched for you because I keep getting messages about you.”
This is not what I had anticipated to put it mildly, but I was open. I trusted Byron as a kind good guy/man but his sweet, fun, lively generosity had been replaced by tension and upset. I listened and he talked:
“I need you to meet someone. Please don’t share this with anyone, go to this address tomorrow afternoon (he handed me a slip of paper), and I will be in touch with you afterwards.”
He hugged me….sort of….and left.
The next afternoon I took the bus and the MTA to Brookline and found the address. I knocked on the door and a tiny elderly woman with blue hair, and a fox stole around her shoulders answered. She said “Good, come with me.” My antennae were perked…I was not comfortable but felt safe. She led me around the house, down a stone path to a separate garden guest house in which all of the blinds pulled, incense was burning, and statues of Indian gods everywhere. Needless to say this was deja vu from my childhood in India and intriguing, but down the rabbit hole-ish, and I was on guard.
SO…this is what happened:
She said that as Byron kept mentioning me, she had done energetic investigation and my role was clear. She said that this was a religion of living masters…that the world was in crisis…that right now 6 masters were coming up, 2 of them being female, and I was one. She blew into all of the requirements that would be my next phase and that I was to come join them now.
WELL….I wanted to be respectful….and told her that I needed to think about it, which did not go well with her. She said that I would not ‘get away’, that they would find me, and that this was my destiny.
I left. A week later I was kidnapped, taken to a farmhouse, and my best friend rescued me.
I did not see Byron again, but he left messages for me that were more and more off kilter.
Byron…beautiful Byron…took his life a short time later.
The labyrinths that we all walk in search of belonging, acceptance, love and meaning.
We all do, and/but we must be true to our natures, always.