David Manning Haney of Newton and Oak Bluffs died June 9, 2016, in Needham. It was exactly 13 months after the death of his mother Anne Haney. David had been ill for a very long time; he was ready to go. He was 54.
David was special. If he were of his niece and nephews’ generation, there would be more information about how and why, but what his family knew was just that: He was special. Part of that means that pieces of conventional success were, despite his intelligence, very difficult for him, but it was also the openness with which he met new people and how he would talk to strangers and regard them as friends.
David loved to read, particularly Shakespeare’s plays and Horatio Hornblower adventures. He loved puns, and thrilled at movies and the theater. As a boy, he could rub the bellies of toads until they slept and then carry them thus on the backs of his protruding ears. That is not a skill often called for in the workplace, nor is it one that serves one in many social environments. It was David, though. Uniquely, gently, purely David.
David enjoyed playing chess and cooking. He liked listening to the same two or three songs over and over and over again while dancing in big loping bounds across the front rooms of our parents’ house. He loved his friends Joan Patton and Paul Kiley through the decades after high school. He was more than a little surprised, and more than a little bit pleased, when Mr. Kiley became family through his partnership with David’s sister, what with never having thought to introduce them. Introductions of close friends to close family members is, apparently, what the Internet is for.
David lost a few years to the love of the game Dungeons and Dragons, a game none of his family understood, but which could hold his interest for hours as he cast the die and filled sheets with calculations of spells and weaponry. He lost much more to alcoholism. That isn’t talked about that much, and in popular culture we often see the disease’s devastation minimized. Alcoholism is an ugly, terrible destruction. David was a sweet, loving, generous man. He was also volatile, impetuous, and physical in his anger. Like an ouroboros, alcohol abuse enabled actions which earned guilt that was an excuse for more alcohol abuse. For David it was a terrible, malignant cycle from which he was unable to escape.
David was also a romantic, given to the presentation of single red roses and fervent wishes to help people, both close to him and around the world. He lacked practical skills, but no desire to do good. He wanted to come to the rescue, save the maiden in distress — or whole schools of maidens; in his last years he often obsessed on the desire to open a school in Cambodia for girls. He wanted to wear a cape and be known as a superhero, somebody’s superhero, anybody’s superhero. Instead, he was diagnosed with end-stage cirrhosis of the liver at just 42.
Alcohol did that. It derailed so much goodness.
David had a genetic condition that probably made him particularly vulnerable to cirrhosis, but drinking is why he developed it. His family is not asking for gifts to be made in David’s memory, but in the many calls they have made to inform friends and family of his passing, they’ve spoken to more than one person finding comfort, distraction, entertainment, or salvation at the emptying of a bottle. They ask one to remember that alcoholism is a disease that is dependent upon choices to unleash its destructive power. They hope that by telling David’s story with honesty and humility, perhaps someone can be helped to make a less destructive choice.
“Don’t you forget about me … as you walk on by, will you call my name?”
That was the song David danced to most frequently. His world was small, and in recent years his illness made it progressively smaller. Not many knew his name, but he won’t be forgotten. He was so very loved. Just because being a toad whisperer is not lucrative does not mean it is not a valid calling.
The world needs toad whisperers.
He leaves his father James Haney, sister Sarah Menchu and her partner Paul Kiley, nephew Charles (Adi) Uchendu,and niece Maggie Menchu of Oak Bluffs and Newton; and his sister Kate, brother-in-law Peter, and nephew Teddy Haney of Longmeadow.