David Lerner

I've been offline for a few days, so I don't know if anyone else has posted this. If not, I am extremely sad to (again) report the loss of a local fine musician and wonderful human being, David Lerner David died staggeringly quickly and young a few days ago. As he played often at the Coffee Catz open mic, (among other venues), we are holding a memorial there for him on Monday evening (Feb, 4th; same night as Chris Caswell's!) at 6:30. I, personally, am very affected by the loss of David, and I know that others are too. The only silver lining is that when the rest of us leave this place, we'll be in great company.

We're very sad to hear that David has died. Does anyone know what happened? Does he have family here in the Sonoma County area? I think he was also connected with the Unitarian Universalist church. . . He used to drive a paratransit bus for Southwest Community Health Center's Adult Day Services at Friends House, here in Santa Rosa. He was a fine human being, and we'll miss him dearly.

Dear DougToniC,

https://static.lulu.com/browse/produ...resolution=320

I am a good friend of David's and will be in attendance at the Coffee Catz memorial this evening. He he passed away of a sudden heart attack while on the job. Fortunately, he was not driving the Paratransit vehicle at the time. I've heard before that the first sign of a heart attack is often death, and tragically, this appears to be the true in David's case. His father lives in his native state of Maryland (I know a friend spoke with him on the phone last week, so the family has been notified), and his mother lives in Arizona.

I just finished helping David get his first book of poetry published, of which he was so proud and excited. I'm so sorry to see he won't be able to share it with more people, but I know his legacy will live on not only in his writing and music, but in our hearts. He will be dearly missed.

Allison

He collapsed Tuesday morning after delivering some paratransit passengers to Guerneville. There is a remembrance at Coffee Catz tonight (Monday) at 6:30 pm.

He has been a dear friend for the past nine years, and a collaborator with the Pomo Project and his book, Precious Mettle: Poems, Questions, Aphorisms, Mantras and Meditations. He chose one of my paintings for the cover.

His own music and his support of shy, budding musicians at open mics were unique, sweet, wise, and profoundly kind.

I would write more about this extraordinary human being, but I'm off to Coffee Catz to grieve and celebrate with his many friends.

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Posted in reply to the post by DougToniC:

We're very sad to hear that David has died. Does anyone know what happened? Does he have family here in the Sonoma County area? I think he was also connected with the Unitarian Universalist church. . . He used to drive a paratransit bus for Southwest Community Health Center's Adult Day Services at Friends House, here in Santa Rosa. He was a fine human being, and we'll miss him dearly.

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Last night a musical memorial for David Lerner was held at Coffee Catz. Many thanks to owner Debby Meagher, organizer Irene Durham, his band members Terry Ann Gillette, Brian Foster, and Peter Tracy, and the dozens of beautiful souls who played, sang, and spoke their feelings and memories, softening this hard time.

I met David Lerner 9 years ago, when I ventured to the open mic at Coffee Catz. I’d been writing a lot of songs, but hadn’t the nerve to play the guitar and sing them. David came to my house and practiced my songs, played and sang them with me at open mic, until I was able to do it on my own. Many, many other shy musicians, songwriters, and poets have their own version of this story of empathic generosity.

I once spoke about David to a Buddhist friend. So he would know what I meant, I called David a Bodhisattva. I wasn’t kidding or exaggerating. I can’t think of a better way to describe the unique quality David brought to everyone, everywhere he went. I’m sticking to my story: David Lerner, Bodhisattva.

When my friend Janey Hirsh was developing WEYA, the wonderful play she wrote for Sebastopol’s second Pomo Honoring Month, she told me she needed someone to write the music. I gave her David’s number, and he stepped into the project whole-heartedly. He wrote wonderful songs, encouraged all the cast to sing along, and brought another dimension of kindness to the whole production and the audience.

I’m deeply grateful that he had this opportunity to work with Janey, especially on a project intended to create healing for our indigenous people, for our land, for our own perspective on life. I believe it was one of the precious legs of his journey.

Last April David asked to pay me to use one of my paintings as the cover for his poetry book. I was overjoyed: money, the honor of visually holding his ideas, the pleasure of being part of a project that was central to his being. He left me a notebook of poems and I sent a jpeg to Allison Doyle, his book designer. Every couple of weeks David showed up at my door with a new clutch of poems, instructions for where to insert them in the notebook, and a half hour or so of Bodhisattva talk.

The excitement we both felt when the proofs of Precious Mettle arrived was glorious. He came regularly to Sher Christian’s Third Sunday Poetry Reading, and the day he could read from his beautiful book, rather than his snowdrift of handwritten notebook paper, was beautiful indeed. A happy time.

David and I used to sit together on the cushioned side bench during Coffee Catz open mic, close, leaning into each other, maybe holding hands or with my head on his shoulder or his on mine. Nothing romantic or charged, just innocent and deeply comforting. Like two old dogs curled up in the sun.

Last night as I sat on the side bench while Allison’s stunning voice carried us through “Hallelujah,” David sat with me again, as warm and loving as ever, whispering, “I want you to think about death differently, and help others to think about death differently.”

So here’s another gift from David: It’s time to heal the fear, horror and sorrow we’ve learned about death.

Eckhart Tolle said, “The opposite of life is not death. The opposite of death is birth. Life has no opposite.”

Or as Sweet Honey in the Rock sang many years ago, “Those who have died, have never never left/The Dead are not under the earth.”

Or as I learned from Sitting Bull in meditation: Our dead loved ones continue to be available with love and guidance.

Or as my daughter Tina said when she was 6 years old and her sister’s favorite duck had been killed: “When you really love someone, you never really lose them.”

I, who have always been inordinately afraid of death, urge you to heed this advice from David: change your orientation to death. How you feel about death affects your ability to live, because they are of a piece. When you know that death is just a change in life, you are free to inhabit every day, every moment, every pleasant or unpleasant event fully, in a way far richer than you can imagine.

When Tina was 15, she said this when I learned an old friend in India had died: “Now you can talk to him whenever you want.” That’s what I hear from David. We can miss him the way we did when he drove to Indiana, and talking is easier and clearer than telephone or internet.

He says that our fear of death comes through being asleep to how profoundly, terrifyingly, joyously, achingly mysterious life is. If you can wake up to that MYSTERY, death will just be more of the same.

Well, I’ve done my duty, writing his wild vision, and some of the time I rest in the peace of believing it. At other times grief knocks me to exhaustion. Either way, I try to stay in what’s happening, without judgment. Sometimes I can. David doesn’t ask any more than that from any of us.

Wow Thanks Sandy for sharing all this!!! I'm having a hard day today missing him...

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Posted in reply to the post by sandoak:

Last night a musical memorial for David Lerner was held at Coffee Catz. Many thanks to owner Debby Meagher, organizer Irene Durham, his band members Terry Ann Gillette, Brian Foster, and Peter Tracy, and the dozens of beautiful souls who played, sang, and spoke their feelings and memories, softening this hard time.
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Posted in reply to the post by american dream:

I've been offline for a few days, so I don't know if anyone else has posted this. If not, I am extremely sad to (again) report the loss of a local fine musician and wonderful human being, David Lerner David died staggeringly quickly and young a few days ago. As he played often at the Coffee Catz

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we have lost (or moved inside!) an amazing guy, seems from his lyrics he knew he was here just to test out love!
So do it ! BE it ! Dance it !SING it!
That's all he asked of us! ,that's what he gave us unflinchingly for a beautiful life ! THANKS DAVID!


always wishin' for more! (rumi says that wishin' IS the more)

"Deep in your eyes, is where the stars rise and tell me where I want to be.."

David Learner
When coyotes pass through fences

You will not be forgotten David, you will be deeply missed.