the last time I was here...

change.

I've been meaning to update this blog for a long time. My life has been filled with change over the last two months. Happy change, welcomed change. I met my now husband in October of 2009, became engaged in August of 2010 and we were married on May 22, 2011. In less than two years my life changed.
When I began planning our wedding I wanted to remember Brian in some type of way. I wanted it to be a small gesture - nothing big. As a child and teenager I often would dream about my wedding and my brother always played a role. I wanted him to read scripture and maybe be a groomsman This dream died with my brother. It was a reminder of similar dreams that died that night. I decided upon a floating candle in a vase that had his name and dates etched into the glass. I also put a small mention of the candle in the bulletin. I am happy with these choices.
Now in the months after our wedding I can't help but realize where I am. I've moved to a different state, and changed my name. I wear a diamond and a simple band on my left hand ring finger. I call a house without my parents my home. There is little in my new life that connects me to my brother. For a while I've felt something missing and I have finally been able to name it. Would my brother recognize me now? Would he know where to find me?  These questions have sustained me throughout the last three years and now I'm not sure of the answers.

Three years.

Last Thursday was the three year anniversary of Brian's death. I didn't plan anything to do except dinner out with my husband. I never really thought about it. I thought maybe if I ignored it - it would go away. This didn't help. I've become weepy at bedtime and stay up late crying - waking up in the morning with puffy eyelids. Last night I found a picture of my brother and studied his face. I looked into his eyes, looked at his nose and mouth - the shape of his check bones and chin. I'm so worried I'll forget what he looks like. I'm so worried I'll forget the stories of him or the memories I have of him.

Fear.

Tomorrow we leave for my parent's house. This weekend there is a family camp out up in the beautiful hills of western Mass at our family owned small camp. It's a tradition in my family for the last ten or so years. Every second weekend in August we gather - except for the year my brother died. His funeral was held on the second Saturday in August. The last time I was at this camp my brother was alive. You see the camp holds treasures for a boy and young adult man - woods, dirt, fire. My brother loved being at camp. He always set up his tent in the same location, would take walks in the woods with my younger cousins and was always messing with the camp fire pit. He'd sit for hours in front of it, poking it and adding branches. Our young male cousins would sit next to him and learn from his wisdom of fire. After dinner, and once it became dark we'd roast marshmallows, but Brian would try to get the jiffy pop popcorn to pop. The small alluminium pan which was not meant to be used on open flame would sizzle and pop. One year he caught it on fire but still ate the twenty or so semi popped kernels inside. He got better at popping it though, and would sit and eat his popcorn happy to have mastered it.
One year I slept in the small camp building and woke in the middle of the night to squeaky noises of mice. Against my better judgement I had agreed to sleep in the building and not in a tent. However, in the middle of the night, and even though I was afraid of bears or other animals outside (which were unfounded fears) I gathered up my blanket, grabbed my flashlight and walked across the small camp towards my brother's tent. As I unzipped it he woke with a jolt and I told him I was sleeping there because there were mice in the camp. He fell asleep and so did I. I know he wasn't happy about me sleeping in the tent with him, but he dealt with it. I knew his tent offered me safety and protection. I knew he was the one I could turn to in the small crisis. These are the memories that I'm fearful  of reliving when my husband and I camp out this weekend.
Even though I'm fearful I need to go. I need to camp out this weekend and be with my family. I need to go back to the place where my brother and I once went together. I need to make new memories there and invite my husband to do the same. I can't run away forever.

Maybe this sudden sadness is fleeting and will pass just as suddenly as it came about. Is this the new grief of my heart? Is this the new pattern that will continue for the rest of my life. Or could this be more serious? Questions abound without answers and the only thing I know for certain is that my eyelids are puffy, my eyes hurt and there is no one left to call me sister.

in a dream

Last night I had a dream. I was at a bridal shower or party at my grandparent's old house. There were bits and pieces of weirdness. I was traveling in a car at one point, left my purse in another car and somehow ended up missing a teddy bear from my childhood. However, the part I remember most was hugging my brother. He was at the party at my grandparent's house and in the dream I hadn't seen him in a while. I walked towards him and he asked if I had grown taller. I slipped my shoes off and then he gave me a hug. I remember feeling happy because it had been so long since I saw him. He was smiling and happy.
When I woke up, hugging my brother was not the most odd part of my dream. I didn't even process that I couldn't really hug my brother until I told my fiance about the dream. That is when it all became real. I don't forget that my brother died, but sometimes it's not always consciously present in my mind.
Even though the dream makes me sad, I am happy. I'm happy that in my dream I got to hug my brother and tell him how much I miss him.

Birthday, Anger and Lost

My brother's birthday is fast approaching. For the past two years I've made a Facebook event to have people celebrate his birthday by paying it forward. I like the idea of celebrating on this day, and it excites me to think of people remembering my brother. I'm toying with the idea of making a page for this annual event. I like the idea of April 3rd becoming a day when people intentionally do a good deed. It's like a gift.
Often I think about what my brother would think about this crazy idea. But when I start to think like that I realize how long it's been since I've heard his voice or watched him roll his eyes at me. This August will mark three years since his death. It's been three years since I began my struggle with understanding his death. I still remember sitting at Friendly's with my Pastor as she told me it was okay to be angry with/at God. I never bothered to ask her how long was it okay.
I find myself upset when I read happy psalms praising God for looking out for people, and guarding them. I'm angry that the psalmist felt that way. I'm angry that I felt like that once. The problem is that this is transferred anger. I'm not really angry at the Psalmist for composing a beautiful Psalm praising God. I'm not  angry at myself because I use to praise God for the amazing things God does. I'm angry because my brother died. I've realized that the steps of grief, or whatever, are not linear, and that there are no time limits associated with the steps. I'm still angry. I've just pushed it onto things that have nothing to do with my brother's death.
I'm currently writing a paper about Psalm 121. The beginning the psalmist looks up to the hills, for that is where their help comes. The help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. I can't read this Psalm without thinking about my brother. I can't help but think of his death and that God, the God who made heaven and earth, not helping. In the following verses, the psalmist talks about God as one who guards. The protect of God is praised. When I read that God protects and guards I want to fully embrace those words. I want to run with those words, wrap up inside those words and embrace them: but I cannot.
Where was God when my brother died? Why did God not protect or guard my brother? Can I believe that God guards over me? How can I reconcile this?
Honestly, I don't know. I know that the idea of God protecting me is something I can't completely wrap my head around theologically. Sometimes bad things happen. Does God control these bad things? I'd like to think that God isn't pulling strings and that God allows us some type of free will. Therefore it would follow that God doesn't cause bad things to happen. If God does not cause bad things to happen then where is God? Surely God could protect us, and guard us from these bad things that God does not make happen. I guess I don't know what God is really up to. I guess I can't answer why bad things happen. And I don't know why God did not guard my brother as he drove his motorcycle home from work that clear, beautiful August evening that quickly turned into a nightmare.
I continue to be in awe of God, even though I'm angry. I continue to give my praise, even though my voice is not so strong. I continue to live, even though sometimes it's hard. I continue to cry, a lot, for the brother I've lost.

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.

years

today will mark the two year anniversary since my brother's death...

last year I drove to Florida with his friend Jessie, and spent the day with her and family friends, who my brother lived with for a few months while he was in Florida.

today, this year, I am going to the beach and camping one night, with my boyfriend.

just wish that today could be normal...but now I don't think I could ever let this day, or any day really, pass without thinking about my brother.

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.

home

Today is the last day of my visit home. I've spent nearly three weeks in Massachusetts. Tomorrow I will be flying back to D.C.. My Florida trip has made me not scared of planes anymore. Thankfully.
It's an odd feeling being at home again. The last time I was here was January. Not much has changed in this small New England town. The house hasn't changed either. But little changes in my brother's room have started to happen.
The door to his room is no longer covered with the random assortment of buttons, pieces of paper and various printed versions of my brother's name. There are things taken down from the wall, and a box of random things on the tv stand where the eight-track player once lived. My boyfriend came to stay for a few days, and honestly before he came (and stayed in the room) it looked like my brother had just been home. The top of the dresser has his deodorant, random papers, mints, etc.. All signs of my brother's life. And now all pushed into the top drawers of the dresser, in hopes of presenting the room as empty. Although the wall still have posters, and if you really look around it is full of my brother's possessions. It at least no longer looks like my brother is simply gone away for the weekend.
It's a change that will be finalized soon. At least that is what my parents keep saying. My father remarked that its something he wants to do, clean the room, but every time he tries to, he cannot part with anything that once was my brother's. Its a double edge sword, because my brother is gone, and the things he once used does not bring us any closer to my brother now. Yet, its hard to hold something in your hand, and realize that Brian used this, or Brian use to play with this. It is especially hard to throw something away if you remember Brian using it.
My thoughts this afternoon have to do with home, and what it means to be home, and who makes up this "being home." After my brother died I use to wish him to just return home. I remember sitting up late at night on the computer waiting, hopelessly, for him to come home. When I moved to D.C. I was worried that my brother didn't know that I would have left home, so somehow he wouldn't be able to find me-if he was watching me.
I call my dorm in DC home. I call the house I am now staying in home. Depending upon the person I am speaking to, and where I am. Is my dorm really a home. Not really, but it where I live, and a person who I love lives a few dorm rooms down from me. But the house in Massachusetts will always be my home. Even years from now when this house is sold. This is the last place my brother lived, and regardless of the fact that my old house, with much more family history, that I moved out of when I was twelve, will always be the "true home" for me, this house holds much more memories. I hashed out the troubling times of my teenage years in this house. I spoke on the phone to my first boyfriend in my room, and last night I spoke with my current boyfriend, on my cell phone, in my room.
I miss my brother when I am home. When I am away, I always wish that when I return home, that maybe Brian would be home too. It's something that, after two years, I should know just cannot happen. It still catches me off guard when I realize that it has almost been two years since he died. And I'm growing into the realization that I will always be able to feel the weight of his death in the depths of my soul. And I am still trying to figure out what it means to truly be at home, or really go home. I hate the trite saying "you can never go home again" or some version of that idiom. Except that my home has so radically changed over the course of the last two years, that what remains is a working house, with the remains of a life, lived fast and ended too soon.

sense...since

I wish I had written a few weeks ago. I had woken up in the morning from a strange and oddly familiar dream. I dreamt of my brother. I cherish the nights when I'm able to be with him once again. Its an odd mixture of happiness and deep sadness that these dreams conjure up within me. When I'm awake, even if it is silent and I close my eyes, I cannot remember the sound of his voice speaking, but in my dreams, he speaks and it is so clear.

Five days ago would have been my brother's 23rd birthday. I made a facebook event and invited friends and family to join in celebrating his life by doing something wonderful for someone else. I let myself cry on his birthday. I try often not to cry because when I do it hurts too much. I cried though, hard, in the shower. I felt like I could double over in pain as the tears cascaded down my face. I realized something, and am slowly realizing it still today that this is never really going to go away. And honestly, I feel like if I don't think of Brian once a day, then I've forgotten him. The majority of the time I laugh when I think of him. I tell stories to friends of our crazy antics as children.

In less than two weeks I will be flying (for the first time!!!) to Florida to go on vacation at Disney with my boyfriend and his family. It will be such a wonderful experience. I think it will be good to get away from school and the dorm for a while. Escaping homework and classes right before exams and final projects will be a challenge, but well worth the stress relief that comes with vacations.

I am learning to live with the mixture that has become my life; hopeful expectations and painful sad memories, contentment and anxiety, happiness and longing. These and other wonderful dichotomies fill my life and are making me the person I have become....since my brother died.

on this Ash Wednesday

About four years ago was the first time I recieved ashes on Ash Wednesday. I am Methodist, and as a child I always thought ashes were a "Catholic thing." I had evidence, only my Catholic friends had ashes on their forehead at school, and only my Catholic friends got to leave school during various times to get ashes. So four years ago when I recieved the ashes I was thankful to now understand the significance. Although I look back and I don't think I fully understood.
My pastor, like the pastor tonight, said "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It is powerful, but tonight it hit me like a ton of bricks. I've held the very dust my body will return to in my hands. I've felt dust, and I will return to that very dust.
In a previous post I've mentioned handling my brother's ashes. And tonight during worship that memory persisted. I enter this season of Lent focused on the eventual cross that brings hope of new life, light that brings a new day and joy. Yet, before I can reach the cross I must look inward, and fully figure out the words spoken to me as a cross of ashes was drawn on my forehead. Remember...that...you...are...dust. I am nothing, I am flesh, I am mortal. And...to...dust...you...shall...return. I am nothing. I will be dust. "But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
When I try to internalize all of this my stomach turns and I feel sick and sad. I miss my brother. I can't plead for his return, because it is pointless. As I enter the season of Lent the grieving for my brother is renewed. I feel the same numbness that I felt the first night I had to close my eyes knowing my brother was no longer in the world. The realization of his loss sends shock waves throughout my body, a quiet reminder that his death is true. These forty days leading up to Easter will be for me a slow, steady, heart breaking, gut wrenching climb to finally see the glory of the cross, and the mystery and wonderful joy of the empty tomb. Believe me it is not easy, I want to run, I want to curl up in a ball and cry until my body ceases to produce tears. I fight against this urge every single moment of every single day.

today is not unlike yesterday

Last night I started crying and this morning again I find myself holding back tears. I'm not sure of the reason anymore. I know that I need to admit to myself that I can't figure this all out on my own and that maybe talking to a professional would help me. However, it is a lot easier to type it or even just think it. It is a lot hard to dial the phone number.

I think part of the hesitation is the New England culture in which I was raised. In my home I never saw my parents cry. I know now they both had much to actually cry about. I remember very vividly sitting in my great Aunt's house watching an old movie (that was recently transfered onto VHS tape) and seeing my mother's sister riding a horse. I watched as that scene caused my grandmother to begin to cry, a loud sobbing cry. She left the room and when I tried to follow her my grandfather told me to sit. I was never quite sure why I was not allowed to follow my crying grandmother, or why I was never fully explained her reaction to the video until years later. The pain, hurt and devastation was not known to me until I was a teenager. It was kept hidden. This is the model I was raised on. When I cry, I do so but only so long and then its back to business as normal. It is this very reason I think I can cry so easily. It is this very reason that when I look at a picture of my brother sometimes my stomach turns and I feel the rush of his loss new again.

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.

Jeremiah

Typically one finds themselves crying in a classroom due to either a bad grade or some other school related problem. Maybe some people cry in classrooms due to some subject matter covered that sparks something deep inside and the emotions rush forth and manifest as tears. I was in my Hebrew Bible class and I started to cry. Nothing noticeable. The professor didn't notice and neither did my friends. Small little tears that stay in your eyes were blurring my vision. I felt the small rush of heat that accompanies my tears.
As we read over the laments in the book of Jeremiah I found myself constantly thinking about August of 2008. I remember the numbness I felt towards God when I found out my brother died. I can still recall the feeling of my body, the feeling in my hands and toes when I heard the words from my father's mouth.
It is Jeremiah who calls out to the Lord. “I ate your words” Jeremiah accuses and yet I’m left here in despair. This is how I felt. In the moments and minutes and hours after my brother’s death sunk in. I lived in the world of deep joy and praise of God. Attending church every Sunday and realizing that God is a God who does great things in people’s lives. Although bad things happen, it was always something that I could either brush away or a question I just avoided.
Yet when my brother died it was a fast decent into numbing coldness. An empty place within my soul-my nephesh-my entire being. So in class as I read the words of Jeremiah, I felt a connection like never before to words in the Bible. These were not happy words, they were not words to comfort me, but finally they were words that encompassed my feeling, my emotions fully.
I wondered why I was never shown this verse in Jeremiah. I met with my pastor just once after my brother died. Yet never did she offer this as a verse that might comfort me. There is not blaming in this thought. I tried to keep things together emotionally. I think that people misunderstood that for me having moved on and/or accepted my brother’s death. Of course I accept it. There is nothing I can do to get him back. He is dead, there is no way I can refute that fact. But it doesn’t mean that I can move into the realm of acceptance. This comes only after dealing with all my emotions concerning his death. I’m still bouncing around the stages of grief. Somedays I’m angry, and others sad. Although sad doesn’t seem to fully cover the emotion I feel on that day. Sad is too simple. Sad to me in a throw away word. On days when I say I’m sad, I feel like there is a weight pressing against my chest, a numbness in my limbs and an overall feeling of tiredness, when I’m not actually tired. And some days I just want to be alone. And other days I feel happy.
Yet now that I’ve found the laments of Jeremiah, my feels have been unleashed. I have been quiet during the past week. I’ve been thinking. I know have a whole part of the Bible that I was never introduced to before and I’m loving it. I take comfort in Jeremiah’s words of anguish because they are so much like my own.

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. 

Laughter from beneath the leaves

It is fall. Autumn has always been my favorite season. The leaves on the trees turn a rich warm orange, red and yellow and spiral down to the earth below. I love walking through piles of leaves that have blown over a sidewalk. I love walking underneath trees while the leaves fall. I love the smell of the damp leaves, and feeling the mist on my face. I love wrapping myself up in a sweater or an extra blanket to keep cozy and keep the cold out. 

When I was younger my parents would buy the bright orange leaves bags with black carved pumpkin faces printed on them. On a nice Saturday afternoon my brother and I, along with help from our parents, would rake the leaves and fill the bags. Of course we would rake all the leaves into giant piles in the front yard and instead of filling the bags we'd run through the leaves, or jump into the pile. I remember throwing bunches of leaves up over my head and sitting amongst the leaves.

There are pictures, in a photo album, of my brother and I playing in the leaves. When I look at those pictures, they are memorized in my head, I can hear the laughter of my brother. The small laughter of a four year old boy echos in my mind and all I can do is smile. 

So autumn, the season of change, the change from growing, and new life into a period of quiet death and wait, is my favorite. It is a season of transition. It is a time of year while looking at the multicolored leaves when I remember long walks in the woods with my brother and father, it is the time of year when I remember stacking wood in piles with my Great Uncle, while my brother tried to help, it is the time of year when I remember the laughter of raking leaves with my little brother. 

ouch...wrestling hurts

My daily devotional today is the scripture from Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God. All night he wrestles with a man, and does not give in. Simply re-reading this passage a few times I think of this in terms of my own struggle. I've stayed up countless nights wrestling with my emotions. I've cried until it hurt to produce tears. I've cried until I stopped breathing for a few seconds. However hard I've struggled with my emotions at night, I survived until the morning. I've either stayed up or woken up to the light of the dawn. 

Jacob survives the night, is blessed and renamed by God and ultimately reconciles with his brother Esau after all the wrong. The idea of wrestling with God is something that goes beyond simply crying for me. I am still angry with God. There are moments when I feel the anger more, when I feel the distance. I cannot see a time when I will be okay with the death of my brother in relation to how I see God. There will always be tension. I am willing to live in that tension. I trust God that he will not fail me. I trust in God that even during this period of me wrestling that he still loves me unconditionally. Maybe it's not this simple.

Yesterday's devotion, the first in my book of 365 devotions, was about reconciliation. It is a fitting topic and something I've been thinking about recently. I feel the separation between myself and God. I feel it sometimes very deeply in my core. I yearn for the closeness I once felt. I want to be held in his hands again, or feel like I'm being held in his hands again. Yet the anger I still feel about my brother's death inhibits my relationship with God. It inhibits my full attention to the workings of God in my life. I am blessed. I am a child of God. I am loved. But in the midst of all that, in the midst of loving God, my brother died. 

we are all just dust...

A week before the anniversary of my brother's death I decided that I simply could not sit home and cry. I could not remember my brother by doing nothing. I needed to get out of my house, get out of the state, get out of my world and do something. The only one of his friends that I spoke to regularly, Jessie, had spoken to me about my plans for the anniversary a few weeks prior so she was the first one I proposed my idea to. She was instantly on board and within four days we had figured most of the plans out. 

On Sunday, August 2nd I drove down to NYC to pick Jessie up and we began our journey. We planned on driving to Florida, a place my brother lived for a year and a half. This journey was not about Florida. It was about getting away. 

The night before I left my father and I spoke about the other plan I had for the Florida trip. When my brother and I spoke while he was in Florida, he always spoke of Cocoa Beach. He posted photos of Cocoa Beach on myspace and after he returned home still spoke of this beach. It is with this knowledge that I made my mind up that I would spread some of his ashes on the beach and in the ocean. Although growing up my family never vacationed at the ocean, the thought of my brother's ashes floating in the ocean, spreading out across the world, made sense. 

The morning, on the day I was leaving, my father transfered some of my brother's ashes into a small heart shaped tin, and another small container. He handed them both to me and I placed them both in my car. 

The tin and container stayed in the car the entire road trip down to Florida. Jessie and I hardly remembered they were in there. We arrived in Florida on the 4th of August. At 8:04 pm we were eating dinner with my family friends at their house, which was also where we were staying. I remember thinking: I made it one year, I am still in one piece. It took us until Saturday to get to Cocoa Beach. It was a beautiful summer day. Hot sun, and a bit of a breeze. The ocean expanded out to the horizon, flat and endless. We were there all day before I removed the small tin container from my backpack and opened it gently. Silently I took a small pinch of ashes and sprinkled it gently on the sand. My fingers were stained. The ashes invading my fingerprints. As I sprinkled more into the sand, and ran my hands deep within the mounds of sand around me, mixing everything together, tears ran from my eyes, streaming down my checks. In silence I took a handful of ashes and walked to the edge of the ocean. I remember hearing children laughing, voices of parents, of couples. I remember the cool water lapping at my toes, the waves moving quicker in and out. I walked until my knees were emerged in the water and plunged my hands into the ocean. The water washed my hands as I opened them up, releasing my brother's ashes into the sea. I stood and looked towards the endless expanse of space in front of me. 

Our road trip was fun and tiring, adventurous and boring, sad and ultimately happy. 

a new beginning

On August 22nd, 2009 I moved to Washington DC. On August 22nd, I moved out of my parent's house, well all of my stuff is still there, and that is still my official residence. On August 22nd, I decided that seminary, graduate school, was the next step on the journey. 

After my brother's death making concrete plans never worked. I couldn't think of anything past a few days. I couldn't plan an activity more than four days away. I had wanted to go to seminary before his death. I remember sitting on the side porch of my house on a summer evening in July, 2008, less than a month before he died, talking about visiting Washington DC. I even asked him if he wanted to come with me. I remember him smiling at me and saying "As long as you drive." We never spoke of him visiting the school again with me, but it was definitely a possibility. I kept that conversation in mind when just three months after his death I decided that I was going to apply to attend that seminary. 

There is a part of me that didn't want to leave home. Home was where my brother knew I was. Home was the last place my brother slept. Home was the place where my brother was returned to after work. Home held memories of my brother's life that could never be replicated. Home is safe. Home is secure. Yet, that conversation reminded me that Brian knew what I was planning. He knew the future I was trying to secure for myself. So that if I left for seminary, my brother would know where to find me. 

After securing recommendations from the appropriate people, at the very last minute, I rushed to the post office the day before the application was due and overnighted the application to the seminary. I called the next day to make sure it was received and that I would still be considered for the merit scholarships. I had taken a step forward, and I just needed to wait. 

Weeks past and I received an invitation to the merit scholarship weekend and a week later I received the congratulations letter welcoming me to Wesley Theological Seminary. I remember the mixture of fear and joy upon reading the accepting words. This was something I had hoped for, and something I wanted, deep down inside. I just needed to figure everything else out.

The summer presented itself with many firsts. After I quit my job in mid-July I had the first summer vacation in five years, and in August was the first anniversary of my brother's death. Sometimes I can't believe its been over a year since he died. I remember it vividly, but I have come to realize that no matter how many years pass I will always remember the moments of that night like they just happened: that memory will never fade. 

So, on a rainy night in the nation's capital, I sit on my dorm size twin bed and think. I have piles of reading to accomplish, but somehow my mind wanders to the moment when I decided to tell my brother of my plans to attend seminary. I search my mind for the picture of his face that night that I know is stored somewhere in my memory. I search for the sound of his voice and close my eyes thinking maybe, just maybe I'd hear his laugh. 

A poem I read today

It's all I have to bring today – This, and my heart beside – This, and my heart, and all the fields – And all the meadows wide – Be sure you count – should I forget Some one the sum could tell – This, and my heart, and all the Bees Which in the Clover dwell. by Emily Dickinson