looking for you in the clouds

Today is a sullen day for me. There is no reason for me to be weepy. My life is full and I had a wonderful Friday and Saturday. Tonight and tomorrow continue my full weekend. Yet there is a part of me that is weepy. There is a part of me that is feeling an immense sadness. 

I know that I will always have days like this. For the rest of my life I will always feel the weight of my brother's loss. What I'm trying to get use to is that it is not predictable. One would think that when I mention my brother to other people, then I would become sad. It doesn't work like that. I love telling people stories about my brother. I don't mind talking about him and prefer when people I know mention him by name. It is comforting. It makes him real. It reminds me that my brother did exist. 

So, in the midst of all my work, I am unable to focus clearly on one thing and I find myself thinking about my brother, his friends and the future he'll never live in. 

Today, instead of going to church, I walked down to the grocery store. The smell of autumn filled my nose and the warm sun was a welcome change from the dreary rain of the past two days. I looked up to the sky to see the multiple shades of blue that fill the sky. I looked around and found no clouds. When I was a child I use to image that family members who had died were looking down at me from clouds. As a young child I never actually knew any family member who died. The first person in my family who I knew that died, died when I was twelve. However, I of course was told stories of relatives and would look to the sky and point that a certain cloud was where my great great grandmother was. Even at twelve, when I lost my great grandfather, I would look up at the sky and point to a cloud and imagine him looking down at me from that puffy white perch. 

Today, the cloudless sky prevented me from imagining my brother looking down upon me, as I walked to the store. I longed for a white puffy cloud to trace itself across the sky and carry with it my brother, so I could imagine him leaning over the edge, hands pushing the white puff aside as he watched me, looking up at him. 

Yet I'm reminded of the one thing that does remind me of my brother. The color of an autumn sunset, with its richness against the black bare trees. It is such a sunset that painted the sky on the night he died. 

wrap around your dreams

I've been having dreams again. Vivid short dreams that I can still remember upon waking. There are periods when I don't remember a single dream I have, and then days, weeks, months where nearly every night there is a short clip I can replay. About two weeks ago I had a dream about my brother. It has been months since he appeared in a dream. Although, I'm not sure if he was actually in my dream, but he was mentioned. I was at home and my mother needed to get her tattoo removed, since she has a memorial tattoo of my brother on her shoulder. I remember it being very important because he was not dead, and the tattoo needed to go away. 

I knew, I think even in my dream, that this was just a dream. I didn't have the hard pit in the bottom of my stomach upon waking. Even my subconsciousness knew that my brother was dead. I'm not sure if that is a comfort. It makes me uncomfortable to think about it in a way that might be conceived as closure. Not when I am so easily swayed back to anger and denial. 

I recently took back down off my bookshelf the grief book that I started nearly a year ago. Although I know the benefits of reading the book far outweigh me not finishing it, I can't help but see the significance in finishing the book. If I finish it, every last word, then I've read the chapter on acceptance. I have finished the book. Where does that leave me? Am I in acceptance of my brother's death? Maybe that is an odd question because obviously my brother has been dead for the last 15 months, but somehow if I finish the book, then there is nothing more. 

I think maybe I need to stop over thinking and just finish the book. Nothing is going to change. Maybe I'll sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow or the next day. Maybe wait until I have another vivid dream. Sometimes before I close my eyes at night I wish that I'd have a dream about my brother, because I can still hear his voice, which actually is really comforting.