It's Not Okay

I know it's way past time to post something.  I'm sorry.  I haven't felt like writing.  I haven't felt like getting out of bed.  In fact, if breathing required a decision to do it first, I guess I wouldn't bother to breathe.  It's a little better now.  I guess.

I went to decoration with my parents.  I don't normally do that.  I mean, the person is not in there anymore, and I don't really care what is done with my body (within reason) after I'm dead.  I like to focus on the here and now and the memories.  I guess I don't want to remember that a person is dead. Anyway, my brother's headstone wasn't ready yet.  I think that was kind of a relief.

So now I've made it to the summer, and everything is not okay.  I'm having a hard time making myself get up in the mornings.  It's difficult to work on the five million things that I need to accomplish this summer.  So much gets put off until summer during the school year, so I always have more than I can possibly accomplish each summer.  In addition to all that, I need to help my mother get my brother's house ready to sell.  I need to move all the stuff in my classroom (again!)  And I need to prepare for this fall's classes.  The odds are not exactly in my favor here!

It's been four months, and it's not okay.  In fact, today is exactly four months since my brother's suicide shattered my world.  When do I get to wake up and find out that it's a just a terrible dream?  When does all the business that must be taken care of when someone dies end?  Why does it have to be so difficult to take care of things when someone dies?  Why does the world go on when someone dies?!

Yep.  Four months now, and it's not okay.

Aight

When we moved to Alabama, my brother was a lot younger than I was.  It was 1983.  August 1983.  That means I was 13, and he was 9.  Subsequently, he ended up sounding a lot more Southern than I have.  I say "iron"and "all right." He said "arn" and "aight."  I have always hated to hear "aight," but now I'd love just to get to hear him say it again.  I can see the expression on his face, how he would hold his shoulders. . . all of it.

My brother was one of the most honest people I have ever known.  I remember how when he was little, he would eventually always tell on himself.  (My children have that trait as well.  I think it's beautiful).  I guess part of it is because he wanted so badly not to be a hypocrite.  I think that's one reason why he didn't go to church all that much as he was older--although I treasure memories of when he went to The Fire Escape (a local church, comprised mostly of teens and twenty-somethings) with me.  He was real.  What you see is what you get--like it or not.  I think he had gotten to the point where it didn't hurt his feelings if you didn't like what you saw.  Funny. . . I think he got to that point much sooner than I did.

I'm not sure that I realized this about him until his friends mentioned it at the viewing, but he also didn't judge you.  He accepted you just as you were--all your faults and imperfections.  It just didn't matter to him.  He could listen to you recount the dumbest thing you've ever done and not judge you for it.  He made you feel like you had worth as a person.  He really listened.

I sure wish he had made some different choices in life.  I will always think that he was supposed to preach.  I've thought that since our Fire Escape days.  Unfortunately, he felt imperfect--like it would be hypocritical for him to do so.

I really miss him.  He was pretty aight for a little brother.  Matter of fact, he was pretty aight no matter what.

A Little Red Bird

I saw a little red bird today.  A cardinal.  It was beautiful.  I remembered how some people associate those sightings with their lost loved ones.  I've never really put much stock in that belief, and I still don't, but it made me feel like God was with me, and it made me think of my brother.  I wondered what he would think about it.  I could almost hear him chuckle.  I could see him shrug his shoulders and that crazy grin of his, and. . . I just about fell to pieces. . . driving down the road. . . about a minute from school.

Tomorrow's the last day of school, and there's still some crazy part of me that thinks if I can just make it, everything will be okay.  I have a feeling tomorrow night or Saturday I really am going to fall apart.  I just know that somehow it's all a bad dream.  I keep waiting to wake up--like I did when we were young.  When I was in high school, and my brother was in elementary school, we used to watch Voltron cartoons on Saturday mornings, so one Friday night, I told him to wake me up when he got up, so we could watch them together.  Well, I don't know what all I dreamed that night, and I almost never remember my dreams, but when he came to wake me up that morning, it totally freaked me out because I had dreamed he died.  It was such a real dream that it kind of scared me when he woke me up!  Oh, how I wish that this would end that way.  I just want someone somewhere to say that it's all been some terrible mix up.  I know that I saw his body in the casket, but I still want someone to say that it wasn't him.  But no one has.  No one will.

I guess the bad thing about staying busy is that you don't have time to deal with things.  I think I've kept myself so busy (like teaching doesn't already) that I haven't dealt with this properly.  What is the proper way of dealing with something like this?!  I haven't been trained in proper grieving etiquette.  I'm thankful that I haven't suffered enough losses to be a pro at this yet, and I think if someone gave me a manual on the proper "procedure," I'd like to tear it up page by page by page until nothing but confetti remains and set fire to it.  No, I'd like to make it explode. . . tiny bits of ash everywhere!  So now, as life slows down for me, I am about to be forced to deal with the unthinkable:  my brother is gone, and all I have now is a little red bird.

Past Due

I really don't have time to write this right now, but I can't focus on what I should be doing.  Technically, I try to post on Fridays, so I'm past due, but I've been working two jobs, so it's been difficult to find time to write.

I've already said that it seems less real now in some ways, and that's true.  Yet at the same time, I'm acutely feeling that it's past time to see my brother.  I don't think I've ever gone this long without seeing him.  It's been four months since I saw him.

I'm not even sure I can write this.  I have no words.  What I don't understand is how I feel. . . numb is not the right word. . . dead?  Maybe dead is.  But at the same time, I am flooded with emotions.  I am overcome with a sense of loss.  I keep reminding myself that he'll still be gone once I make it until school's out, but a part of me just won't accept that.  (It's been a very difficult school year both physically and emotionally--not all of it due to this--so I've been pushing myself to make it to the end, one day a a time.  Once I make it to the end, I will breathe, and all should be well--except that all won't be well, but when I started pushing myself, it would have all been well, so I guess that little part is deeply rooted by now).

I'm thankful for the second job.  It's just seasonal, but it keeps me busy, and if I stay busy enough, I don't have time to think.  I run into problems when I have time to think.  I've run out of tears, so that makes thinking a very bad thing.

Darn.   That's not completely true either.  I sometimes have tears.  I think I'm just too exhausted to cope.  I'm just worn out.  I'm holding on, waiting for something that is never going to happen, but I'm not ready to let go.  Maybe that's the whole thing in a nutshell:  I'm not ready to let go.  I don't want all this.  I just want to see my baby brother's crooked smile and hear him chuckle.  I want to see his hands move while he talks.  I'd even be happy to let him play with everything on the table while he talks, and I wouldn't complain at all.

But I can't.

Still Gone

From the beginning,this has been a really difficult school year for me.  We got a new superintendent, a new assistant superintendent, a new principal, a new assistant principal, and several new teachers.  I don't like change.  They added a new class for me--one that I haven't taught since I did my student teaching back in 1996!  (And you only teach a two-week unit then!)  Now, of course,  it has become extremely difficult for me.  My students have, for the most part, been very patient and understanding.  They're only kids, but they're good kids, and they try to make it easier.  (I wish some of them would try that hard when it comes to their regular class assignments!)  It's still just so hard.  I feel bad when I'm not my normal sunshiny self, and I feel guilty when I smile or laugh or cut a joke.  (My poor students are used to hearing a lot of punny jokes!)  When I share something about my brother, I feel bad for the students who have lost family members--especially the two (that I know of) who have lost brothers.  I feel like people are judging me when I have a happy moment--like they think I must not have loved him because I found a fleeting smile.

Anyway, like I said, this has been a very difficult school year for me.  I've been pushing myself to make it to the end because once I make it to the end, I can rest.  It will all be okay.  Well, I just realized that, subconsciously, I've been thinking that everything will be okay once I make it through this school year.  Ironically, I realized this the evening of my brother's birthday.  No matter how long this school year lasts or how quickly the remaining time passes, my brother won't be there at the end of the year.  He isn't coming back.  The reality of that still hasn't really soaked in.  Maybe that's because we didn't get to spend a lot of time together in more recent years.  I'm used to going a couple of months without seeing him.  Well, it's been a couple of months.  It's time to see him.  Now, I'm starting to feel that emptiness.  I would say it's not as overwhelming as it was at first, but I'm not sure that's accurate.  It's. . . different.  Just different.  It doesn't usually physically hurt my chest anymore when I breathe, but it's still very powerful.  I don't think I've had time to grieve properly.  I have a job to do.  I have kids to raise.  I have family to be strong for.  Maybe I can schedule in some time in June to grieve.  Ha!  I hope you were able to catch the sarcasm there.  I do realize that grief is not something you can schedule.  Sooner or later, it's going to pull me down under the flood again, and there's nothing I can do to change that.  I just hope that it's not at an inopportune time--though that's when it's likely to happen.  That's the way it works.

I'll tell you how it doesn't work.  It doesn't work like the formula that I've heard.  When a loved one dies by suicide, you experience anger and guilt.  All those articles about the steps of grief make it sound like there's this proven process:  You work your way from one stage to another, and then you're done.  It makes it sound like it's the same for all survivors:  one-size-fits-all grief.  Well, it's not.  It's not even the same for the same person.  This is the third family member I've lost to suicide.  I've not responded to any of the deaths in the same manner.  I thought at first that was because I was so young with the first one, because I didn't know all the details surrounding the second one until years later.  Nope.  It's just like literature.  I tell my students that what you get out of a "text" is determined in part by what you bring with you.  Everything that you have experienced in your life up to that point affects your interpretation of the text.  You can read the same text at different points in your life, and you will get something different each time.  In fact, your interpretations could be very different.  I think that how you experience loss is the same.  It is based largely on the relationship you had with the person lost, whether or not you were on good terms with the person, how he/she died, how old or young he/she was, and it is all affected by what you've experienced in your life up to that point.  I have not cycled through the "steps" in the same manner this time.  In fact, I thought that I wasn't going to experience the anger and guilt this time, but every once in a while, I feel anger rise up.  I keep having to forgive my brother.  If I think about it for too long, I get angry with him because he knew what it was like to be the survivor.  I know that he would not intentionally cause this pain to his family.  That's why I know this was not something that he spent time planning.  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for him.   How I wish he'd have been able to wait!  I (at the moment, at least) do not feel a lot of guilt because I don't think there was anything I could have done to change things.  As the older sister, I do feel that I failed at protecting my baby brother.  That bothers me some, but I did my best.  At the moment, that is enough.

I feel like I am going back and forth through the stages.  The articles make them sound like bases.  You go from home to first to second to third and back to home.  Nope.  This is not like that at all.  This is like a kid in a candy store--all over the place.  Only, the image you just had of a kid in a candy store was positive, and this is not at all positive.

Yes, it hurts to remember my brother, but at the same time, it brings me comfort.  The things he loved are now bittersweet.  They are more dear than ever before.  I'm glad that we got to spend time together after I graduated from college.  I'm glad that we watched Ice Age in the theater together.  I think that's the only movie that we saw together--just the two of us.  I had planned to see if he wanted to watch the new Star Wars movie--just me and him--when it came out.  I'm not sure I even want to see it in the theater now.

I'm glad that there are people who listen when I want to talk about him.  I need to talk about him.  I want his memory to stay alive. I need his memory to stay alive.

I think that I'm more in denial now than I was before (except for the very beginning).  It doesn't seem real.  It can't be real.  And I have so few tears left to cry.  Don't get me wrong--I DO have days that are okay.

I just wonder if this feeling (or lack of it) is healthy.  Probably not.  Not that any of this is healthy.  The grief, the loss, the stress, watching my mom try to wrap up the financial end of things.  It's crazy, but if someone dies, the bank won't tell you what's in their bank account, nor whether the house payment, car payment, or any other payments are automatically debited each month.  You can put money in the account, but you won't be able to take it back out.  Wrapping up all those things can be a real mess--and can take over a year when all the family wants is closure!  You can't have closure while there's still all this mess to deal with!

I wish I had something of his (from recent times).  Well, I do have a shirt.  I've managed to find a couple of books that were his when we were younger, but I sure would like to have something from now.  I sure wish that we could at least get the T-shirts that my mom wanted to make a quilt from.  We got a few shirts, but they're not T-shirts, and I'm not sure they'll really do what she wanted.  She wanted T-shirts because that's what he always wore.  That makes them more special.

I don't know if it has anything to do with any of this or not, but a couple of days ago, I just wanted to cry and cry and cry.  I didn't have time to.  Not sure I had the tears for it either.  I guess it's probably because his birthday is Tuesday.  I don't know.  I guess subconsciously I'm thinking about it--even though I'm trying not to.  I'm planning to spend some time with my sister on his birthday.  The event we were going to attend has been cancelled, but I still think spending time with family is an appropriate way to honor his birthday.  I had a great gift planned for him for the next time I gave him a gift.  I guess I should be glad that I had not yet actually purchased it.  I'm not sure I could stand to look at it.

I'm tired of this already.  I sure wish someone would step out and say that none of this is real, and we can go back to the good ol' days.  Someone. . . anyone. . . any time. . .

How Could I Forget--Even for a Second?

It's crazy, but I still think about my brother every single day, yet a part of me forgets that he's gone.  I guess maybe it's just that I don't want to accept it.  I was thinking just the other day that we need to split something three ways--like always.  We don't.  The kids' proofs came for their spring pictures.  As I prepared to order them, I thought about how many pictures I need.  One less there too.  How can I possibly forget?!  I mean, it's something I think about every day!

I'm managing a lot better than I was, but I still feel guilty for having "normal" moments.  I feel even more guilty when I have a happy moment.  I have gone through a few of the "normal" steps of the grieving process now.  Not quite in the same way that I probably should though.  I have a lot less anger than I probably should.  I have experienced a little, but it's more for what a mess he left my parents than it is for me.  I haven't really felt much like it was my fault.  (In case you didn't know this, most of the time the survivors feel guilt and anger when a loved one takes his or her own life).  I don't really think that there was anything I could do.  He knew that we would do anything for him.  He knew that we loved him.  I still don't understand why he did it, and I probably never will.  That's something that will always bother me.  He knew what suicide does to the survivors, and he would not do that to us--especially not the young man that he considered a son!  Something somewhere went wrong, and we'll probably never know what and why.  That reminds me of the well-meaning people who have said, "I didn't know things were that bad."  Well, it wasn't.  And what that comment does to some family members is make them think that you think their loved one was mentally unstable.  For some survivors, their loved ones are transformed into saints quite soon after their deaths.  I understand why they say that and that it's well-meaning, but there are some who do not.  It angers them.  It's so difficult to find the right things to say when someone dies because there are no right things to say.

That brings me to another point.  Looks like today's post is going to get a bit "religious"(for lack of a better word--although I hate the connotation that goes along with that word now).  One thing that brings me comfort is that I believe death was never part of God's original plan.  I'll never forget that a former preacher of mine used to talk about how God is a good God.  He would say that God doesn't give you cancer and sickness because "every perfect gift comes from above, from the father of lights."  He said, "God doesn't have any of that in Heaven."  Well, as I've come to understand what it is to be a parent, I understand better the idea of God as a loving father.  In addition, if you read in Genesis, God put the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.  Death was never part of His original plan.  Death never entered the picture until Adam and Eve sinned.  So I don't blame God when someone dies.  He didn't take them away--especially in this case.  My brother made a choice, and because God gave us the gift of free will, God did not prevent him from acting.  I don't agree with his choice, but it was his choice.  I wish he'd have given me the chance to talk him out of it, but he didn't.