grief

by

It’s the Little Things

This morning I awoke with anticipation of a decent day. My boy started 5th grade today and like most first days of school, he was looking forward to it. (Sadly, that excitement typically ends by week 2, but we hold onto the good as long as we can.)  My husband made me a lobster omelet for breakfast, the kid was smiling as he entered the school and I was off to work.

Typically driving makes my mind wander and during those moments, my mind always goes to my brother. Either to good memories or questions I want to ask him or I relive that last visit with him. I always end up in tears, no matter what my thoughts. But this morning, my mind didn’t wander. I kept it focused on my driving and on the radio. Nothing else.

But the day would not be a tear-free day, nor would it let me put my brother aside. I had a visit from my brother’s partner early in my work day. We had to discuss legal issues about my brother’s estate. This was not an unpleasant conversation, but just having to do paperwork for this kind of thing is not fun. It’s much worse for my brother’s partner, but we are all trying to make this as easy as possible for him. If that really is possible.

Later in the day, a book title nearly sent me into tears. “So Much I Want to Tell You.” It’s a book by Anna Akana to her younger sister who committed suicide ten years ago.  Every day I not only want to tell my brother something, but want to ask him so many questions. Like, aren’t you pissed you couldn’t see the new Planet of the Apes movie? Or the fact that Lego Batman came in the mail after you died? Or the fucking fact that you were listening to an audio book but you were only on disc three? Doesn’t that make you angry?!?

It makes *me* angry. It makes me really fucking angry. And unbelievably sad.

But you know what broke me today? Even after the paperwork and the book title, I pretty much kept my shit together. I went home early to be with the boy after his first day of school. It’s a tradition I’ve been able to keep up through all his school years so far, and I look forward to being the first one he tells his day to. As usual, he gave me a pile of papers I had to look through and sign and all that jazz. We call it “Mom’s homework”. So after he told me about his day and had a snack, he asked to veg for a few minutes with a YouTube video. I obliged so I could fill out all the paperwork and get started on dinner. I sifted through the papers, signed where I needed to, recycled what didn’t pertain to us. And then I got to the emergency contacts.

Since Kindergarten, my brother has been my son’s number one emergency contact.

But I forgot.

I wasn’t expecting to see his name and phone number listed in this pile of papers.

It stopped me cold. I just sat staring at his name, knowing I had to cross it out.

That’s when I cried.

I crossed my brother’s name from our emergency contact list and it felt like our lives got so much smaller.

I felt much lonelier than I had a few minutes before.

I felt…guilty….lost….defeated.

And sad. Always so fucking sad.

Grief

 

 

 

by

The Pretender

Dear Phil,

I really don’t like this.

I’ve cried every day since we said goodbye. Most days have been those horrible gut-wracking sobs, the kind where snot runs from your nose to your mouth. I’m not sure when those will stop.  I’ve cried everywhere. Every room in this house, in the car every day, other people’s homes, at the library, in bathrooms, at a bar, outside during my walks, even at the Maine Discovery Museum. But you’re probably not surprised by any of that. I cry at everything, right?

Yesterday, I wanted to call you. Not only did I find something totally cool in a library book, but I heard on the radio about a restaurant in Japan that has monkeys as waiters. Monkeys, Phil!!

waiters-1

I wanted to talk to you and laugh with you so badly…that’s happened every day, too. I hope that doesn’t ever stop.

We went to your house today. I’m not sure how Larry does it. He’s strong, I know, but this is hard. I sat on your bed and cried. I just kept looking at that green and white striped shirt you wore so much. It’s hanging in your closet, waiting.

The boy couldn’t go inside your home yet. I thought he was ready, but not quite. Maybe next month….or next year.

So…I did something kind of weird. A few days after we spread some of your ashes around my house…I panicked because it had rained and I thought all of your ashes would have dissolved into the ground and I wouldn’t be able to see…well…YOU anymore. But there was a bit under that little bush by my front steps….and I scooped you up into one of Mom’s empty memory medicine containers.

I know, I know! It’s fucking bizarre and I’m sure you don’t want to be there but you’re not there anyway. Just a little bit of your body is.

I just….I just can’t let you go. I didn’t think I wanted any of your ashes because that’s a bit freaky for me but when it came right down to it? I couldn’t bear the thought of not having you somewhere near me for the rest of my life.

It may have been a fantasy, but I thought we would get to be old together. I thought that you and Bonnie and I would get to sit on my porch with our creaky bones and sit in creaky rocking chairs and reminisce about the old days. I just…I really didn’t think you’d go this early, Phil. As sick as you were? I really thought we all had more time with you.

I really did.

I miss you. Every single one of us who loves you misses you. The world was pretty fucked up before you had to go, but it’s even worse now because you’re not here to make fun of it and make us all laugh at the absurdity of it all.

I can clearly hear your voice telling me that I’ll be fine, that I’ll be ok, that I’m stronger than I think I am. (I know, I know, because Bonnie said that, too.) But right now I’m really not ok. Instead I’ve become very good at pretending to be ok. I keep on working and tending to my family and I thank all that need to be thanked, but I feel so fucking sad and empty that sometimes I cannot take a breath.

So….yeah. This sucks monkey balls. It really does.

Love,

Holly

 

by

Broken

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve started this post. Maybe I shouldn’t write it if I can’t get my thoughts together, but maybe it will help? I don’t know.

My brother, my big brother, my first friend….Phil….died on July 23. To say that I’m heartbroken or to say that my family is devastated does not seem to really say what we’re feeling. I don’t want to speak for them, but any parent who loses a child, whether 2 months old, 14 years or 49…it’s unspeakable, unfathomable. And my brother-in-law lost his partner of nearly a quarter of a century. My brother was the younger of the pair. How does this man, who was with my brother not only throughout the years but through the past few weeks of pain and uncertainty and thankfully with my brother as he took his last breath…how does this man go on without having Phil there to make him laugh every single day?

How do the rest of us?

If you know me well or if you’ve known me for a long time, you know I looked up (literally and figuratively) to my brother. He was a giant in my life, and being 6’6″, a giant in most people’s lives. He was always naughty, like in a Groucho Marx kind of way. He was incredibly kind, especially to his family and friends. He loved us with everything he had and it showed. I don’t think I realized how good he really was until I saw him with my son.  Watching my brother read to my son or play action figures with him or chase my boy with a squirt gun not only made me happy, but it allowed me to watch another person become completely enamored of my big brother and with good reason.

Phil made us all laugh until we cried. He could find humor in nearly every situation, no matter how dark.  He listened. He was never afraid to be himself and encouraged that in others. Hence the photo.

Phil&Brihats

He loved to cook. He loved to try funky foods because he knew he would never travel again and that was how he could “vacation” or experience life to the fullest. His music tastes ranged from Weird Al to Adele to show tunes. His taste in books were as varied as his taste in music. He loved Stephen King and other horror writers, but he enjoyed Liane Moriarty, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and MAD Magazine.

But he was also a writer. A really good one. I have some stories and poems he wrote years ago, including a story he wrote me for one of my birthdays, that portrays himself as a monkey. Which is perfectly fitting because he had a thing for monkeys. He was finally published a few years ago by Forbidden Fiction with some of his gay erotica stories. And before you start judging, you should read some of it. He always said that his erotica (and most others) were really romance but with a bit of nastiness thrown in. Love, not sex, is the true focus of erotica.

Phil was an amazing human being. And I miss him. But even saying that doesn’t sound right. It’s so much more than missing someone. I’ve had this constant ache in my belly since he died. I’m so tired and I feel heavy and even when I think I’m ok, something will trigger a memory and I’m caught off guard and I’ll let out this quick little sob. I try to hold it back, but what’s the point, really?

My brother is in every room of my house. He was here nearly every week for the past decade, either to visit with us or babysit my boy after school or here for family gatherings. He has a pair of slippers here that I bought just for him after my husband and I bought this house. (His size 16 feet were not easy to buy shoes for.)  There’s a box of Splenda in my cupboard for when he came over for a cup of tea. He has his own profile on my Netflix account. He’s everywhere.

And yesterday, we even scattered some of his ashes around the outside of my home. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, but my boy did. He knew right where Uncle should be. And once we scattered a few of Phil’s ashes, my boy said, “I’m never going to wash my hands again.” We squashed that idea immediately, but I knew exactly what he meant. I didn’t want to wash my hands again, either. In fact, I kept rubbing them together, trying to embed some of my brother into my skin. Later in the day, when I started to wash dishes, I realized what I was doing and pulled my hands from the water like I had been burned. I was so mad at myself. I forgot. I fucking forgot. Rationally I knew I had to wash my hands at some point but did it have to be then? Couldn’t I have tried to hold on longer?

But here’s where everything gets *really* difficult.

Life goes on.

How the hell does that happen? Actually, I’m not even asking how right now, but why? Why does it have to? There’s a big chunk of me missing. That person I used to watch the Oscars with, the relative my boy would look forward to seeing each week, that guy I’d talk books and writing with….fuck.

Easter, all of our birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Phil was here for all of those things.

And now he’s not….and I’m just…..

 

by

Helpless

Do you ever feel like your skin is too tight or you just feel uncomfortable in your body? Do you wish your skin could stretch until you could climb out of it or expand just enough to make you feel “normal” again?

hulk

If I gain a few pounds (or 8), typically this uncomfortable feeling is my cue to lose weight, just to feel somewhat good inside of this body. But for the past month, or possibly months, I’ve felt like this. I feel twitchy and itchy and tight and squishy. Yet the scale isn’t really yelling at me. There are still 4 pounds I’d like to lose, but I shouldn’t feel this out of whack for just four friggin’ pounds. I should feel annoyed and irritated, but not uneasy and anxious.

Intellectually, I know that I don’t feel well because my brother is ill and my mother is no longer my parent. I know that I am so fucking sad all of the time because my brother may not see his nephew grow up and my mother may not know who her grandson is. Thinking of the future without my brother in particular, shuts me down. A world without him is a world I don’t want to imagine living in. The possibility of my brother not being here to show me the world as he sees it, to laugh at the world as he does…how will I….why…FUCK!

This is why I want to crawl out of my skin and start anew. I want to feel like everything will be ok, to feel like I once did. To go back to some moment when all was good and happy and right.

Instead, I concentrate on those four pounds I still want to lose. I focus my energy on trying to control my weight by counting calories and reading diet books and finding healthy foods to eat and running and walking and lifting weights because I can’t control ANYTHING ELSE. And when I end up not losing weight because I either eat too little or too much or don’t exercise enough, then I readjust my formula and try something else or tweak this and that.

Because I can.

Because that’s all I can do.