The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs (41 page)

It’s the best thing in the world to be looking forward to what she and the people of her generation will do over the next thirty to forty years.

POSTSCRIPT

On October 5, 2011, as I was driving down 280 north to Palo Alto, Lisa called to tell me that her dad had just died. Few words passed between us. There was a lot of space. I was glad her boyfriend was there with her since I couldn’t be. I turned into town to meet a friend in Menlo Park. The sky overhead was covered with the darkest charcoal-gray clouds imaginable. Yet there arched between Menlo Park and Palo Alto was a breathtakingly brilliant double rainbow. It floated like a prayer flag as if in recognition and honor of Steve’s death.

In Mona’s book
Anywhere But Here
she writes something to the effect that,
Everyone we know before the age of twenty-five, we know for life
. Steve was the first of my peers to die. He was my only child’s father, and someone, that despite it all, I truly loved. I was deeply shaken.

Lisa was with Steve the moment he died, and later that week she narrated his last moments to me. I replayed her words in my mind many times over the next months, working in finer and finer detail to take Steve’s death into my heart, to fully embrace and acknowledge that he was gone. But it was like that idea of infinity that my father had shown me at the kitchen table when I was young: with every increment of allowance of Steve’s death into my heart, I could only get halfway closer to what it meant to me.

I had been invited to Steve’s memorial service at Stanford because I had requested to be included. But then I was uninvited because I had given
Rolling Stone
permission to print a piece about Steve and our early years together. So it was only as a result of Lisa’s narration that I could see my way into my own experience of his death. I sat alone in Los Altos Hills overlooking Duveneck Ranch during the funeral and the memorial trying to fathom it all.

A few months later, I became aware that things had been written and said about me and my life with Steve that never had been checked with me. Things that were inaccurate and shameful. I felt like I had been skinned alive from the inside out. Was this Steve’s reach beyond the grave? Oh clever boy! One evening I was in so much pain that I called a friend to meet me for dinner because I could not bear it alone. That night, I drank a glass of red wine and ate red meat to numb myself. My friend studied me and then said, “I don’t think your pain is due to the libel. I think it is because of Steve’s death.” This was more than three months after he’d died. I had by this time recognized an enormous relief in myself that he was gone. Her words seemed kind but ridiculous.

The next evening, I walked around straightening my home because I could manage little else. Puttering. I was being made to look like a crazy person once again because it was easier for people to do this than to face Steve’s failure to do the right thing. I felt angry and distraught, but quiet. I looked at the facts: it was going to take me
at least
another year to finish writing my own story, and I couldn’t keep drinking red wine and eating meat to get through the days. And I couldn’t write in this much pain, either. In a calm and calculated way my thoughts turned toward suicide. I hated this world.

Yet my mind has a habit of flipping things around to find different ways to see. I’m a problem solver. And so, without intending to, my friend’s comment from the previous night came back to me. I asked myself if it could be Steve’s death and not the libelous humiliation that was causing the pain. It was just an idea. I didn’t expect much but once I’d posed the question, I was, to my great surprise, suddenly transported out of the acidlike pain and able to recognize my own true grief. It
was
about Steve’s death and I was grieving. This was the truth. Eventually I understood that the impossible level of pain was a confusion of the two conditions, but that Steve’s death was by far the stronger reality. Sorrow washed through me in waves that centered and grounded me. The truth I could live with.

When I went to bed that night I held close to my grief. I had to sleep but at the same time stay focused or I would go crazy trying to work out how I was going to deal with the libel. From within a deep emotional focus, I drifted in and out of a meditative state for about three hours. In it Steve came forward and showed me the truth of the love between us. He sort of merged into me, not as if we were one person but as if we were an intricate and complex kaleidoscope of interlocking yin and yang, fitting parts. He directed my awareness to a ball of light. It was like a brilliant sun the size of a small beach ball, hot white in the center that bled like liquid out to a rosy-, saffron-, and salmon-colored edge. In the dream we stood together at Duveneck Ranch under some trees watching the ball of light moving back and forth up a hillside like a printer stylus. It went back and forth, back and forth with a fifty-foot-wide swath as it climbed. Steve pointed out, to make sure that I saw that no matter where the ball of light was, no object cast a shadow. There wasn’t a tree or a rock or even a single blade of grass that wasn’t illuminated on all sides all at once, after the little sun had passed over. I studied in awe—delighted. Steve was sort of sobbing and simultaneously as sweet and happy as I had ever known him. We shared all states at once: peace and sorrow, joy, and love in the ache of truth and loss. And I kept refocusing as I rested through the hours so I could stay connected to him. Finally, after I could not focus anymore and started to fall off to sleep, I saw the ball of light move all the way up to the top of the mountain, become a setting sun, and then slip over the horizon as I finally dropped off into sleep.

Steve was right when he said he would lose his humanity in the business world. And yet the one and only true reality that we can be sure of is that despite all appearance to the contrary, everything is love. I track back to the glowing admiration I felt toward Steve at the very beginning, which is, among many things, that he had the strength to walk with who he was and would become. And though he came to lose sight of what was human and ethical all too often (and more and more as time passed), that he at one time knew the difference between who he was and the role he would play deepens my appreciation and love for him and all he carried.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are three things I never wanted to do in this life and one of them was to write a book. Nonetheless I have and without the following people, I truly could never have done it. The fact that “I” could write this book suggests anyone can do anything.

To my agent, Christine Tomasino: intelligent, funny, savvy, tireless, committed, detailed, hugely insightful, friend—a torchbearer for something bigger than words—she only stepped in when she was needed and she was needed
a lot.

To St. Martin’s Press: George Witte, Matt Baldacci, and Sally Richardson for seeing the potential and caring about this story for all the right reasons. To Brenda Copeland: my editor at St. Martin’s Press; happy-go-lucky, intuitive, hilarious, genius—she got the questions right and very often went very far beyond the pale to care, meet, and to work with my content. To Laura Chasen—Brenda’s assistant behind the scenes; David Stanford Burr, production editor and copy editor; James Iacobelli, cover designer; Eric Rayman, attorney; Stephanie Hargadon, publicist. I bow to all your talents with my sincerest gratitude for your expert assistance.

To Norman Seeff for granting permission for the use of your photograph of Steve for the cover.

To Ciba Shanãe, and all others who have generously shared their research and teachings with me.

To Eric Case, who just kept giving me computers as I burned through them writing drafts for over five years.

To the Suppes women: Deborah, Trisha, Anney, Christine, and Joanne, who I never had the privilege of meeting. You were pivotal in supporting, advancing, and preserving everything that was important in the development and completion of this book.

To Margo McAuliff and Rhadiante; you gave me a home to live in while I found my feet for both my health and my book.

To Jay Schaefer, Terri Beuthin, and Alan Briskin, Ph.D., for your kind and gifted assistance in the earlier edits.

To Damon Miller, M.D., for helping me keep body and soul together.

To Ruben Fuentez and Ann O’Hearn—you know what you did.

—Thank you!

INDEX

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

abandonment

of Brennan, C., by Jobs, S.

Simpson, M., books on

abortion consideration for Brennan-Jobs

abusive childhood, of Brennan, C.

action paintings, of Pollard

adoption, of Brennan-Jobs, Brennan, C., consideration of

adoption, of Jobs, S.

biological father’s meeting with

biological parents’ marriage

feelings of loss from

grade-school bullying for

Jobs, C., recounting of

lawsuit on, by Simpson, J.

meeting with Simpson, J.

“All Along the Watchtower” by Dylan

All One Farm

Apple name from

Brennan, C., and

Jobs, S., at

meditation at

Mucusless Diet at

pickling and canning at

spiritual and nonspiritual people at

Allen, Woody

Anywhere But Here
(Simpson, Mona)

Apple

All One Farm name and

Brennan, C., employment at

Brennan, C., on

event, Brennan-Jobs attendance at

going public

Jobs, S., removal from

Jobs, S., value change at

Kottke on history of

The Lisa Computer

logo

Art Center College of Design

art films

astrological charts

Atari

Atkinson, Bill

awkwardness, of Jobs, S.

Baez, Joan

Be Here Now
(Ram Dass)

Beat Poets

birth control

Black, Jim (“Trout”)

at Duveneck Ranch

Black Panthers

blue box technology

description of

Bodhian, Steve

body chemistry, Jobs, S., on

Brennan, Chrisann.
See also
pregnancy, of Brennan, C.

abandonment, by Jobs, S.

abusive childhood of

All One Farm and

on Apple

Apple employment by

art award

Art Center application by

art films

Calhoun relationship with

California College of Arts and Crafts attendance by

color-based therapy system and

on computers

creativity of

death of Jobs, S., affect on

dream state of

employment of

family background of

father description by

first meeting with Jobs, S.

food interest timeline by

graduation trip

Haiku Zendo, Zen Buddhist community and

“Hampstead” award for

Holler as art teacher of

illustrations for
Taipan

Karmapa meeting with

Kottke, Jobs, S., house with

letters, of Jobs, S., to

libel on

low profile of

meditation

meeting parents of Jobs, S.

on men

mural design and painting by

Redse relationship with

Reed College visit

relationship with infant daughter, Lisa

reporter interviews with

San Francisco Art Institute attendance by

Simpson, M., relationship with

sister, Kathy

skating outings

summer cabin with Jobs, S.

at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center

Time
magazine article and

unkindness of Jobs, S., toward

welfare receipt by

writing of

Brennan, James Richard

Brennan, C., view of

as Brennan, C.’s father

on Brennan, C.’s, creativity

Brennan-Jobs, Lisa Nichole

abortion consideration for

adoption consideration for

Apple event attendance by

Brennan, C., relationship with infant

child support, by Jobs, S.

Claire name consideration for

competitive nature of

Friedlands, at birth of

Jobs, P., rejection of

Jobs, S., relationship with

as Jobs, S.’s, daughter

Kottke on

The Lisa Computer

as magical child

The Nueva School attendance by

paternity denial by Jobs, S.

Simpson, M., relationship with

therapy for

Waldorf school attendance by

Brilliant, Girija

Brilliant, Larry

Bruce, Lenny

Buddhism.
See also
Haiku Zendo Zen Buddhist community

Japanese

Calhoun, Gregor (“Greg”)

Brennan, C., relationship with

graphic facilitation of

India trip

Karmapa meeting with

California College of Arts and Crafts

Canfil, Art

Carlisle, Tom

Carné, Marcel

Carnegie, Andrew

Chabay, Ilan

Chaplin, Charlie

child support, for Brennan-Jobs

Children of Paradise
film

Chino, Harriet

Chino, Kobun.
See also
Haiku Zendo Zen Buddhist community

Brennan, C., relationship with

death of

Jobs, S., influence by

at Jobs, S.’s, Woodside house

marijuana and

power abuse of

pregnancy advice of

unaccountability of

on women

City Arts and Lectures,
NPR

Claymation

finishing project of

Cohen, Leonard

Cold War mentality

college, Jobs, S., class auditing

color-based therapy system