Thursday, December 17, 2015
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Months
go by and I never make time to chronicle my thoughts and feelings. By some odd coincidence, three people during
the same week asked if I was still writing on my blog. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write or
appreciate the exhaustive therapy from writing.
It’s just that inspiration comes at awkward times. Those inspiration moments are insanely
difficult to replicate later when you want to retell how you were feeling at
that moment in time. Recently, I’m just
busy trying to maintain. Maintain; that has
been tough to do these last few months.
I can’t say I’ve been much of pleasure to be around. Proof point when my wife gave me a firm
talkin’ to one night few weeks back.
I
could take this entry into some ethereal long winded diatribe and camouflage my
feelings with words but instead I’m just going to get to the point; I have been
in a moopy place these last few months.
In
what felt like an instant, my pet went from the pillar of health, strength, and
normalcy, changed to weakness, deterioration, and suffering. In an emergency visit to the veterinarian, I
learned that her health was so far gone, that there was really no choice but to
make a life altering decision for both of us and let her go in peace.
12
years old. She lived through several
three house moves, flown on more airplanes than some people, adjusted to the
addition of two boys and one runaway dog, a marriage, and loss of family
members, an became to stoic alpha of our family. Through those 12 years, she was
always my emotional backbone. After my
brother died, she was the one thing that helped me stay focused on moving
forward. Every day at lunch I’d come
home from work to walk her around the dog park.
It was a break in the monotony.
We
rescued her from the animal shelter and she rescued us when I lost my brother
and my wife lost her mother. And so as
it came full circle and let her spirit go back.
While it was the right decision given the context and circumstances, the
process of arriving at the decision and admitting it was nothing short of gut
wrenching. I feel like I lost a very
important piece of me that day. Possibly
one of the last pieces of a life from long ago.
I guess I wasn’t ready to lose that piece yet.
Realizing
that I wasn’t doing OK after making this choice got me thinking about larger
things in life like my parents and my mortality. I always believed that my little brother
would be here when things got tough. He
was level headed, and me, well I’m nothing close to that. It’s an unspoken confidence you have in someone
in your life. I always knew he would man
up and help take care of things when shit got sideways. Losing Stacey and not being able to cope with
it was a harsh reminder that my brother was gone and not here to help.
There’s
been so many reminders these last few months.
Some good and some bad. Some feel
like picking at a wound that never really healed. If nothing else, it’s definitely reminded me
that I’m still feeling lost in all of this.
But I suppose that’s the small satisfaction of still carrying those
memories. We carry those we lost in our hearts. Forever.
I’ve
been taking so much of this out on those around me; my family. At the end of all of this, that’s all we
really have; family. It has been very surreal
to write this entry. I’ve gone from
feeling alone and depressed to appreciative and accepting. Time has continued to tick away and that
emotional ground zero is a long way back in the rear view mirror. Many people I know now don’t even know I had
a brother. Life has moved on and I can’t
expect them to live in my past when they were never there to begin with. Nevertheless, it’s hard to have constant
reminders of all of your missing parts.
As far as you think you may have come, it’s never really that far
sometimes.
And
I’ve found much peace in the music and film I’ve experienced recently. It’s helped me get past some of the
negativity. It’s allowed me to carry
those memories in my heart with new vigor.
My brother and I may never create a new memory together; but we do have
every bit of richness from the 24 years we did have; Christmas Eves sleeping in
the same room, picking him up from junior high school to play basketball,
Cougar football games, the Commodore 64 and Nintendo game marathons, all the
laughs and the stupid fights. And that’s
just to name a few. What about the cars? The cars; the riced out Hondas, the Subarus,
the street rods and muscle cars, and all of the drama and fun that came with
them. I think the cars are the one of
the best memories. And those memories
are always within my reach.
No
matter where you are, whether it's a quarter mile away or halfway across the
world. You'll always be with me. You'll always be my brother.
1 Comment:
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January 18, 2016 at 8:15 AM
And don't forget Saved by the Bell! When I think of him, I think of him watching that show!!!! I sing that song to Megan every day. Those little stinkers.
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