August 14, 2010

I am engaged. I wear a diamond on my left ring finger. This is who I am now. I am a fiancee. I am someone who my brother can not see. I am something that he never knew. I don't define myself only by this, but this part of me my brother did not know.
I often think of my brother now that I am planning a wedding. I think about the times when I was growing up, like many little girls, I planned all the details of my future wedding. I always believed that my brother would be a groomsmen, and that he would read scripture. These were non-negotiable. Yet, in the reality of my brother's death, his role cannot happen. The wedding is not about my brother's death, nor is it about painfully remembering the fact that he is not with us. Yet I cannot bear letting my wedding day go by without remembering that my family is not complete without him. I cannot be whole in the celebration of my new life without remembering the life of my brother. Brian did exist for however short a time on earth, but my brother lived and breathed and I cannot forget that fact. I cannot cease to think that he was a live and that there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about him.
So, I ordered a vase and a floating candle. The vase is engraved with his name, and will sit on a small table in the front of the church. I'm hoping that my mother will light the candle as she is seated. I'm planning on putting something small in the bulletin. It's something small, but for me it will make all the difference.

Asking and admitting

Last week I e-mailed and requested information...and a few days ago a medium sized envelop came addressed to me in the mail. My name printed, from a computer, neatly on a label, a sticker in the upper left hand corner with the exact amount of postage needed. This sticker mostlikely from a business postage meter, which saves time, and I use to work at a company that had a similiar machine. In the upper right hand corner, the return address. This envelope contains information about The Compassionate Friends. Its been nearly two years since Brian died, and I thought it was the right time to start figuring things out.
Inside the evenlope is tons of information, a form letter, signed by a worker (who emailed me back) and a hand written note indicating the local chapter leader and phone number, a few brochures, copy of their most recent newsletter, a copy of a supplement for siblings, grief fact sheets, and a few pages of material for other people in grief.
There is a special section devoted to sibling loss among all this material. A supplemental photocopied stapled handout, and an article in the magazine. I find comfort knowing that I am not really alone. While somedays I know that there are many siblings out in the world who have lost a brother or sister, there are many more days when I feel utterly alone. I feel alone in part because there is no one around me, in my circle of friends, who has experienced a loss of a sibling. While losing an Aunt/Uncle, Grandparent etc. may be difficult, and grief still unexpected and hard to deal with, it is not the same as sibling loss. I do not discount the heartache and loss people feel. Everyone grieves in his/her own way. But there is a connection between siblings that is completely different, a way of understanding each other, and their parents that no one else in the world understands. My brother and I remembered certain things about my parents that would make us laugh--only us.
Is asking for help truly a sign of admitting that you do need help? I've been telling myself that I should find someone to talk to about my grief, but kept putting it off. I knew that the morning I woke up on August 5, 2008 that I needed help (the day after my brother died) but its taken me two years to move forward into the realization that I need help. Better yet, I need to talk with other siblings, I need to be around people who understand the random crying, understand the need for quiet alone time, understand the worry for and about my parents, understand the laughter and the anger.

Do you have any siblings?

To tell, or not to tell. That is the question.

I think that if push comes to shove I could write this in the vein of Hamlet, struggling with my inner thoughts, and my very life, as it hangs in the balance. But I will spare you the Shakespearean language, and explain.

There comes a point in every conversation I have with someone I meet for the first time when I'm asked if I have any siblings. When I can since this question forming in the person's mind; I cringe. (And yes I believe I can tell.) Sometimes the topic of siblings happens by mistake, sometimes I bring it up--unconsciously still thinking I have one--and sometimes it's just random.

I have two choices; lie or tell the truth.

The truth is that  my parents only have one child, but that doesn't seem to quite fit my situation. The truth is that I am now an only child, not by nature of my parent's inability to produce another child, but because of death. The lie, while quite easy to say, "I'm an only child," brings with it unexpected results. Either I have uncomfortable exchanges with people when they feel sorry I did not get to experience siblings. (I usually just smile and say I have a big family, which is at least true.) The lie can also produce a horrible result. A few months ago, I was sitting in the dinning hall at a table with a bunch of people and a person turned to me and asked if I had any siblings, and I said "no." He said, "Lucky."
It was in that moment when I realized that the lie, which I thought would be easy, cut deeper into me than anything else. Deeper than the thought of his death is my denial of my brother's life. I had a brother that died. It's a simple sentence. And I can be strong enough to endure people's polite "I'm sorry"'s  because at least I acknowledge Brian's existence, however short.
The insistence upon the truth also prevents me from trying to remember who knows and who doesn't know. If I tell someone I don't have any siblings and then the next day they hear me talking of growing up with a brother, what will they think? Yes, I do honestly think of that, and it bothers me.
Today, I shared the death of my brother with yet another person I met. She said "I'm so sorry." and I said "Thank you." And we went through the details, when, how, and how old. It's a formula that I'm use to. It's a formula that I'm sure will never end.

I think that there will always be a part of me that wants to lie and not share the deep pain that accompanies sibling loss with a possible stranger. It is much better than tearing apart my heart to appease someone's weird fascination with asking questions about a deceased person. I often wonder if I said my brother was an infant, if people would think of it as less of a loss. Or if I said it happened 20 years ago, if they'd believe that is an acceptable time period and I should be over it. And if they catalog the death stories they hear and believe that some means of death don't need sympathy. I know people mean well, but all of this coupled with my grief make it just so tempting to lie.

Our lovely bones

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections -- sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-- that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.

I recently reread the book The Lovely Bones, and the quotation above is from that novel. I had read the novel during my senior year in college and enjoyed it deeply. However, the experience of my brother's death has shaped by opinion and reaction to the novel in a different way. I view Susie as I'd like to think of my brother, looking down on earth from heaven. While my brother was not murdered, his death was sudden, unexpected and he had no chance of saying goodbye, and in turn we could not say goodbye to him. This unexpectedness leads to many questions. The question of not knowing, and sometimes not wanting to know, how his final moments on earth were spent.
I think, though, the part of the book I find hardest, is the understanding Susie gains while watching her friends and family on earth. She finally realizes that their lives continue, and continue without her. Experiences are had that she herself can never experience and that moving forward without her is natural, expected and uncontrollable. Its hard for me to think of my brother coming to this same realization. Yet I know that if like Susie he's been watching, then he's most likely turned away from earth and moved into heaven. My greatest fear is that one day I'll go many days, weeks or months without thinking about my brother. My fear is that one day I won't remember how his voice sounded or be able to close my eyes and see his face, his height. Like Susie's sister in the book I find myself in a healthy loving relationship, planning with him vacations and class schedules. There are days when I forget I have a brother that died. I am part of the lovely bones that have sprung up since my brother's death. Along with my parents, close family and friends we have attempted to figure out life, the life we live without his presence Life had to continue. It couldn't stop at my brother's death, and however painful and unbearable his death I cannot change anything. I'd like to think of my brother in his heaven; riding a motorcycle on a bright sunny summer day. The roads empty of other traffic, just him and the loud hum of the distinct Harley Davidson motor, and because of it being his heaven the breeze would be just cool enough to not make him sweat. The open road before him, and no care in the world. He'd ride to the beach, and walk down the shore, watching the waves, and tides pushing towards shore. And maybe that is the night he'd understand the world without him, and that everything will be okay.

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. 

what dreams may come

This is my new necklace. I've been wearing it for at least two months. I use to wear a simple gold cross that my grandmother bought me. You might think that I've abandoned the cross because I'm questioning my faith because of events in my life. However, I've found that it simply doesn't represent me at this moment in my life. This is a labyrinth pendant, which I bought, in June, at the Annual conference for my church. I bought it from a gentleman from Israel. He was selling a whole bunch of items from Jerusalem and the surrounding area. I picked this up and was instantly drawn to it, for its simplicity. It is silver and on the back has a notation engraved "Chartres Labyrinth Chartres, France"

I feel like I am walking around inside a labyrinth. Its odd though, because I can go days without feeling sad-almost like I'm close to some sort of "normal." Then, one day, I wake up and my chest begins to heave and I feel the weight of the lost all over again, or I am walking through a super market and my whole body becomes flush and I realize my brother's dead. The worst though, honestly, is driving home from work, believing that miraculously my brother didn't die and is at home and this whole thing is a mistake. Throughout the month of August I would drive home from work as fast as I could, somehow believing that he was going to be there. This subsided for a while, but this past week I find myself feeling the same way. 

Christmas is fast approaching. I've been semi-lazy with my shopping. It's a very odd feeling.  A few people have approached me, I'm sure with the best intentions, and said "The holidays must be hard for you, because of what happened." I'm trying to be understanding of people who simply have no clue what to say to me. I understand, if situations were reverse I honestly wouldn't know what to say. But seriously, every single day that I open my eyes and breathe is hard. I hate to be trite, but every breath I take hurts with sadness. So I find before me two choices: to stay in bed, curled in the fetal position, drowning in my tears or to wake up every morning and survive the wicked world.

"The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wish'd." Hamlet - Shakespeare

his fingerprints

I looked at my brother's death certificate yesterday. he died august 4, 2008 at 8:04 p.m. there was some medical term written on the bottom, the reason he died. it's just so weird. the other day i found his birth certificate and yesterday I held his death certificate, you know like in grade school you get certificates for like reading 50 books or like running the fastest in gym. I mean those are the certificates my brother and I should have. and then there is his room. i've gone through it a few times. I sit in there and look around. the other day jessie and i went through the drawers of his dresser, and his entertainment system. I found things I thought didn't exist anymore, he saved so much. there is so much stuff in there and now we have to sort through it.

tonight after my parents went to bed I sat up for a moment I thought that he was coming home. for a moment I thought "hey I wonder when brian is coming home" And I hate that I even thought that. I hate that it even crossed my mind. You know I'm sitting at the computer desk, typing this on his laptop. Like two weeks ago he was sitting right here...it's just so hard to explain, so hard to express what it's like...

you know the worst part, s trying to be so strong...