It’s Been 6 Months
It’s been six months since my brother passed away. I had this realization mowing my lawn last night. In reality it’s been six months and a week, but that’s neither here nor there.
I was attempting to reflect on that as I was sweating in the 90+ degree heat, pushing a lawnmower, as the mosquitos ate me alive. That is a terrible time to reflect on death for what it’s worth.
As I methodically pushed my mower back and forth, I tried to reimagine what was going on six months ago. Our family was on a ski trip in the mountains, I had just left my job, and was attempting to figure out the next phase of my life.
I can still remember vividly that early morning call, and the moments that followed, as I startled my wife awake, my kids trying to grasp it all.
I’d never really known what it was like to lose someone. My grandfather had passed away a few years ago. His death hurt. He was a hero to me. But somehow I could grasp his death. He’d lived a full life. While I am often reminded of him, and I carry him with me; the laughs, his wonderful humor, and his love, I can grieve a happy grief when I think about him.
I realized when sudden death, young death happens, it envelops you. It wraps you up in its blanket and wrestles you down.
I remember learning how to boogie board with my brother in Southern California when we were kids. I’d often try and catch the big waves that he would ride, and often I would find myself on the wrong side of those waves. In those moments I would be thrown off my board and sucked to the bottom of the surf. The riptide pulling at me, holding me down, as the waves crashed on top of me. I remember the feeling of fighting, trying to claw my way to the top of the water, grasping for air. The more I fought, the harder it was to reach the top and the more exhausted I became.
That has been my last six months.
The harder you fight death, the raw emotion of it, the harder it pulls you down. I know. I tried to fight it for the first several months. Whether it was flat out ignoring it, having an extra drink, sliding away from my wife, blowing up at my kids, I fought it.
I still fight it. It’s hard not to. But, I’ve also learned, that just like being sucked down in the surf, sometimes, if you just let the ocean beat you down and not fight, you get to the top a lot faster.
I’ve learned in the last month or two, I need to be present. I need to be able to be there for my wife, my kids, my job. Those were hard things to be in the first several months. I haven’t mastered them, but as I told my wife a few nights ago, I finally feel like some of the fog is lifting.
I struggle mightily on a daily basis, but I also know now, that struggle is ok. I know that I can let the blanket of death wrap me up and be ok with it. Or if not be ok, understand that it is there and acknowledge it.
I still struggle trying to “honor” my brother. Trying to figure out a way to help him live on through small actions in my life. I’ve dreamed up every scenario I can in my head. Everything from starting the pork business we always talked about, to calling his boss and asking for a job, just to be where he was and fulfill what he was building.
I still don’t know what honoring him looks like, and maybe that is ok. Maybe it’s ok to honor him in little ways. Wearing his Pelagic visor he wore all the time or watching the Mecum Auto Auction on NBC Sports, learning about the muscle cars he loved so much. Maybe honoring him is a lifelong journey and when I see it I will know it?
Whatever it is, I realized I have changed these last six months. I am not the same. I am more fragile. I have shrunk away from friends, and have been a bad dad and husband at times. But, I am also stronger. I acknowledge my feelings more. I can sense when I am feeling sad, or happy. I can finally talk about my brother and not melt into a puddle, but I can also melt when I need to.
It’s been six months. Maybe the longest, hardest six months of my life, but I know that somehow, someway, the next six months will come. I, we, will be faced with yet another challenge. An anniversary that will hurt, but maybe in that hurt, there will be a little less pain and a few more laughs than there is now. That is my hope.
It’s been six months…
