1.16.2007
Today was the weirdest day...I felt like I was in a cloud. I could hear everything happening around me, but it was such a disjointed, out-of-sync feeling that I have trouble describing. It was the first day of a new semester of college, my last semester. I was running late for my first class, and typically if you're late, you're S.O.L. and locked out of the lecture hall. I stood with one hand on the doorknob to the classroom, and the other hand on my cellphone, searching for your number because I knew you were home, healing from your recent knee surgery. "If I'm too late to get into class, I'll just go see how Bri's doing."
I don't know what made me change my mind. I don't know... I don't know why I went to class that day, instead of going to your house, instead of maybe helping you find some grounding, some peace in a time when you felt none...or maybe you felt total and complete peace, for the first time in a long time. My heart still bleeds for that decision. I know it wasn't up to me; I know I'm being egotistical to believe that I am important enough to change the fate of a life or the decisions of anyone. And I don't pretend to know if you had even made this your decision or not. But dammit I wish I had called you just then. Instead, I tried the doorknob of the lecture hall, and amazingly enough, it wasn't locked. So I went to class. I sat through a day of lectures, feeling numb and disconnected, like everything was white noise except the blood pounding in my head. I should have known you had decided to leave this world. A part of me, a visceral, pulsing, sibling bond, real-as-life piece of my soul went missing that day.
I get the kids at daycare and get home to start supper, and just as we are ready to eat, I see a call on my cellphone from Kristi. I never answer my phone during mealtime, it's our sacred 'catch-up on the day' time, I focus on the kids and their chatter, so I made a note to call her back and put my phone in my coat pocket. Then a few minutes later, Carl gets a phone call. I don't know who it is or what has happened, I just know it's horrible. I can hear it in his voice. Before he even gets off the phone, I've told Zakk (who is 12 at this time) to keep an eye on his brothers and sisters, and we'll be back soon. I've got my shoes on and am sitting in the van by the time Carl gets off the phone. He tells me it's my brother. Kristi got home from work and found him lying in the garage, he's not breathing. We''re going to Brian and Kristi's. I realize on our way there, I haven't even been to my brother's new house yet. What is wrong with me? What kind of sister am I? Rushing to your house and I don't even know where we're going. It turns out, I did know; by the airport, in the Planets, and we just followed the ambulance. I screamed your name, brother, the whole way there. I knew you were gone, and with you, your love, your smile, your warmth and kind words, your hugs. Your insight when your nephews were stressing me out. You always knew what to say to make me feel better when life was throwing daggers. Who would catch them now? "I will," I silently promised you, at that moment. "I will catch them now."
As we get to your house, it's snowing. I cannot stand. My legs leave me, I'm almost collapsing in the snowy street as I see the ambulance and the EMT's everywhere. I can't do this. This is not happening. I am not here. Where is my sister-in-law? Where is my nephew? Where are you?? No, I can't see you. I can't see you like this. I need to remember your smile, the 'real' you that flashed in your eyes and the way you had about you so we always could see the beautiful truth in your heart, a quality that made everyone who knew you, love you so very much. How can this be happening?? My heart has never felt such wrenching pain, I literally felt the meat hook ripping through my body in the form of such grief, my ribcage hurt. My baby brother. How will we ever get through this? How will Kristi ever raise your son, your unborn twin girls, without you, her anchor? Her oak tree, her rock. You, my brother. It was always you.
In typical big sister fashion, I always begrudged you your wife. I really wanted her to prove she was good enough for you, the kindest and most loving man I knew, in an elite class of men with our father, grandfather and great-grandfather. :) Kristi made you happy, she loves you truly, and you were the best thing that had ever happened to her. And as she stands before me now, so raw and deflated and her heart seeping, broken, down her chest onto the belly that's growing with your twin baby girls...and I see her for all of the things you love in her, I see her through your eyes. Thank you for that. I silently make another promise to you then, I will love her as if she were my flesh and blood sister, and I will be there for her and your children, always. I promise. I'm sorry I didn't love her enough before, I'm sorry I didn't love you enough to keep you here, to help you and listen to you and encourage you and save you. I hope one day you can forgive me...I hope, one day, I can forgive myself. We only acknowledge true regret when someone's passing forces us to see where we could have been better. You've taught me to be better, now.
I don't remember my dad being there, I don't remember my sister being there, I only remember Kristi. Kristi and Aidyn, with his big, beautiful blue eyes, full of tears, questions and fears, looking up at me and asking, "why did Daddy die? Why are they taking him away in the red truck?" I don't know, baby boy, I don't know...Daddy is your angel now, he'll never really leave you, he's always with you in your heart. I don't know what to say. Every comforting phrase I've uttered to help hospice patients and families sounds so dry, generic and empty now. I am lost in those beautiful eyes that mirror my pain, and haunt me with my brother's shade of blue. How does a boy of three make sense of this? How does he process seeing his daddy lying there lifeless, while his mother desperately performs CPR and screams his daddy's name, begging him to breathe? How is this fair? I can't imagine a more horrible pain, although I know it exists in this beautiful, cruel world; it doesn't exist for me. Not for Aidyn, or his mama, or any of us who love you. Not in this moment. And I promise you again this day, Brother, and your son as I hug him tight, that I will always be here for him.
The chaplain wanted us to go to the police station to file reports. Let's put in black and white, the pain that we feel and the thoughts that we have, because until then, they aren't real enough. Mom meets us at the police station. She couldn't bear to see her boy like that, I couldn't blame her. What's the first thing she says? "I'm sorry I couldn't save him, I'm sorry I couldn't fix it this time, I always thought I could fix it." Collapses onto us, sobbing. Mom...it wasn't for you to fix...it wasn't your choice or doing or responsibility. And so begins our journey, our realization that we are solely responsible for our own lives, our own happiness, our own peace, and ultimately, our own physical death.
I could feel your presence all around us...every time we'd hug and cry, cry and hug some more, playing games with Aidyn and trying to make him giggle, I felt you around us. I felt how in awe you were, that all of us were this devastated by the fact that you were gone...did you really have no idea? Were you really unsure of how very precious you are to us, how very much we loved you, and still do? Then we've failed you, my brother. Because your shining thread of our life fabric was so much more than you ever knew.
I think in this moment, as I'm trying to find sleep this night, in a silent room filled with my own screaming grief and fear, somehow I have this knowing, this comforting voice in the back of my mind, in my heart...I know it's you. I know you're at peace. I know we will survive. Your strength is still alive in us, I know it always will be. Somehow this strength detaches me from the grief sometimes, I'd observe others in their sadness and pain, and the tug in my heart was always your voice, reminding me that this really was going to be ok one day. That somehow, this does make sense in the Big Picture. I've always tried to trust in that. Even in your passing, you have been our anchor, our comfort, an example of kindness and steadfast love. You are perfect now, immortalized in our memories, your humanity that drove you to frustration and despair has been shed, and you are finally able to see yourself through love, as we've always seen you. I fall asleep thinking this; I wake up from dreams of you, happy and surrounded by all of us who love you...and then the dread and blackness of grief crash down upon me, as the realization hits again, that you're really gone. Days and days and days of this turn into months, as we try to make sense of what our base human forms can't fathom. (Somehow, this will be ok one day.) Today, I can't imagine it.
