Obituary for Mr. PAUL ALEXANDER SECADA

Paul Alexander Secada’s (born July 15, 1989) friends called him “an instrument of chaos” in their lives. Much like a mythological trickster god, “no one tells Paul what to do.”  But he, on the other hand, convinced his friends to join him in the fun of school-aged students exploring the boundaries of their worlds because, in the words of a friend’s very perceptive mother, “anything else would be much too boring.”

The rules and consequences that most people calculate and consider were as foreign to Paul as water on Mars.  As a kindergarten trickster, Paul pretended not to know his name in order to bypass the school bus stop at his day-care center; but he did call out, loudly, when the bus driver passed the stop at the base of his home. That night, when she realized what Paul had done, Paul’s teacher remarked to his parents, “my, but he’s a bright child that you have there!” For months in middle school, Paul would take a carton of skim milk with his lunch. Upon completion, he would proceed to refold the box, take it back up to the counter, and loudly declare that he, “had really wanted a chocolate milk.” Adults were never the wiser; because, what 12 year old thinks to do that?

The same child whose favorite cartoon scene was that of Dumbo’s mother gently cradling and rocking her baby insisted that Gaston was the real hero of Beauty and the Beast. Paul was never callous or malicious; he often behaved in a manner of the purest of hearts. Many friends witnessed him scoop all his money out of his pockets, giving what he had to a random, yet homeless person who he encountered on the street.  This generosity of spirit stayed with him throughout his life, even after he presented with schizophrenia just before turning 22.

Paul wore his heart on his sleeve.  He famously boycotted a trip to England because his father had not taken him on a South African safari the year before. He would give you the shirt off his back; if he hadn’t lost it along with his house keys at a friend’s party. Such examples were the ‘minutia’ of life that Paul could rarely be bothered with.

It was almost as if Paul was from another dimension; some higher-order place where the nonsensical systems and schemas of the world failed to matter. He was adventuresome, joining three of his best friends on a trek through the Amazonian jungle at the age of 16. He was empirical, throwing a bowl full of popcorn into a school toilet bowl to settle a first-grade argument on whether popcorn floated. He and a middle school friend scorched his parents’ driveway in a failed effort to create a flame thrower, much as they had seen in a movie, somewhere. He was a thrill seeker, jumping from his bedroom window to the tree outside as a short cut to leaving and getting back into the house; and also, jumping from a tower into the Hawaiian Pacific so that he could go swimming. As if trampolining was not fun enough, he talked his middle school friends into allowing him to sit in his father’s office chair while they jumped to send him into the sky.

Paul loved music, especially techno, rap, urban, and hip hop. As a teen, Paul enjoyed travel. In addition to his Amazonian trek, Paul went glacier watching near Juneau Alaska; snorkeling and catamaraning off Oahu’s northern coast and Kuai’s Nā Pali Coast; snowboarding in Aspen CO, Salt Lake City UT, and the mountains of Idaho; biking in Tuscany; and sightseeing in Rome, Venice, and Shanghai.  But most of all, Paul loved physical fitness, training his cousin and adults around him. His high-school love of martial arts replaced his youthful enthusiasm for gymnastics. And he credited his mother for instilling in him a love of reading. He was fiercely loyal to his family and to his friends, though the stigma of his illness prevented him from telling them why he often acted the way and said what he did.

Paul’s 13-year struggle with schizophrenia brutally ended his nascent efforts at modeling to be replaced by numerous tasings, arrests, and visits to the hospital due to the failure of his medications, including a nearly two-year stint across three Florida based “forensic” psychiatric hospitals that sought to find an effective treatment that would manage his illness.  Only Clozapine, which requires careful monitoring and was proposed as a last-ditch treatment option, seemed to work.

During his transition from hospitalization into a group home, Paul finally acknowledged that he had schizophrenia; so great is the stigma attached to this illness. For a period, his illness was managed so that he could re-establish regular visits with his elderly paternal grandmother, who he adored, his parents, and his nearby family and friends.  He lived for his infrequent visits with/to his mother in Wisconsin who he also adored.

Paul lived independently for a couple of years.  Yet tragically, his uneven adherence to taking his medications resulted in a series of relapses that required hospitalization and that came to a head in October 2023.  His physical resistance to being hospitalized led to his first cardiac arrest, one that he never recovered from. A second event took place on Christmas Eve. Paul died on Thursday, July 18, 2024, as a result of his third cardiac arrest.

Paul Alexander Secada is survived by his mother (Julie Lynn Clark), his father (Walter), his older brother (Adam), aunts (Irene Secada, Rose Marie Secada, and Stacy Schranz), uncles (Frank Secada, Martin Secada, and Phil Secada), as well as numerous cousins (Andreas, Cassie, Claudia, Dante, Giselle, Kristine, Mark, Paco, Phillip, and Yasmin Guadalupe) and an extended family numbering into the hundreds if not thousands.  In lieu of flowers or other mementos, Paul’s family ask that we commit ourselves to removing the stigma that is attached to schizophrenia and to other forms of mental illness. His fear of that stigma was the biggest barrier to his ability to maintain the healthy friendships that characterized his early life.