My brother John's birthday is on Veteran's Day. Some may think this awful, but my brain has blocked-outed the day and the year that he passed-on. I know that it was June. And I want to say the year was 1996. Doing the math (he was 13 months younger than me), John was 35 when a rare stroke carried him up to the heavens.
Some may think that that is a rather ideallic way to describe death. All that I can say is that I was blessed... I was at his bedside, with my siblings and sister-inlaw, when John let go of one last exhale. I felt it. Honest. His spirit carried us with him at that tender moment.
Even though we lived a great distance apart during our adult years. Even though we didn't talk on the phone that much. We were tied together... we were the two eldest... side-by-side, taking on that traditional family responsibility.
After his passing, I felt so lonely, so weak and frail...
I also wished that I had known him better. When I graduated from high school, I flew... It's not like I didn't go back. I circled home quite a bit. However, there's a lot of growing-up that happens between 18 and 36. Yep, I think that I was 36 when John passed-on.
I still mourn. That's the bottom line.
I have found refuge in some passages written by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. in "My Grandfather's Blessings". These passages reassure me... it's alright to continue to work through this. Get the book, since I am only going to include one of those passages in today's blog. Look for the chapter titled "The Meeting Place". The other is titled "Right Protection". Her chapters are only 3 pages. Therefore, you'll find my treasured snippets easily. The one that I choose to record here is found in the chapter titled "The Way Through":
Dissapointment and loss are a part of every life. Many times we can put such things behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But not everything is amendable to this approach. Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them this way. These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us. It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us. It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.
Something in us can transform such suffering into wisdom. The process of turning pain into wisdom often looks like a sorting process. First we experience everything. Then one by one we let things go, the anger, the blame, the sense of injustice, and finally even the pain itself, until all we have left is a deeper sense of the value of life and a greater capacity to live it.
Thirteen-and-a-half years. I look back at all of the distractions that "took me away" from mourning John's passing. The distractions didn't pull me away for long, however. John, you are too precious. I continue on this path, working with this, around this, through this. Takes me back, moves me forward (one baby step at a time) xo