Two Years Later

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." Soren Kierkegaard

I made a commitment to myself and my brother in the early morning hours after his death. I promised him and I promised myself I would not let him be forgotten. I was panicked by the very idea that there would be a day, even a moment that my brother and who he was would be forgotten. He had no wife. He had no children. Ralph's legacy was fully in my family's hands. And, if you haven't noticed, I take that very seriously.

On what would have been my brother's 52nd birthday, we marked the 3 month anniversary of my mother's death. And in that moment, I realized that the imminent grief I was experiencing needed to be separated from the loss of my brother if I was going to keep my promise. Now, this doesn't mean that I have to parcel out my grief in small packages but the confounding effects of the last few years have left me not knowing which way is up most of the time.

I still grieve my loss of my brother. Every day. This may make some people uncomfortable but I speak the truth regardless of other's comfort. Mostly, because this is one way I can honor my brother. And also, because its my blog and I can say what I want, when I want to. So there......

Dare I say, the loss of Ralph has had a profound effect on the direction of my life in a way that losing my mother can not or will not. We all expect to lose our mother; as incredibly painful as that may be. And it's been painful. But the loss of a sibling, while expected, unearths deep feelings of pain, sadness and heartache about a person who has stood by your side as you've built your life story. From the very beginning of time, for at least one of you. Ralph was 12 years older than me; but I hadn't ever lived a single day when he wasn't my big brother until the night I got that phone call. That experience of loss changes a person on a fundamental level in a way that you cannot explain, unless you have experienced it.

A few months after my brother died, I wandered into a library desperately looking for a book that would give a voice to these deep feelings of loss I was experiencing. And I was shocked to find them. In a book called  The Empty Room: Understanding Sibling Loss, the sister of the infamous "Boy in the Bubble" (yes - he was an actual person) complied interviews of individuals from every stage of life who had lost a sibling. As I read the book I found a single sentence that has been burned into my memory everytime I think of a way that I can possibly explain what it feels like to lose your sibling. "What he was saying was, how do you describe the way someone fit into your life, if they have always been a part of it?"

In many ways, that sentence has both haunted and sustained me over the past 2 years. In the beginning, I was so desperate to figure out how to define and clarify the deep impact the life and death of my brother had on my life. But it felt like nothing I said was good enough, clear enough or deep enough to give what he meant to me justice. I felt like I was forever failing his legacy. But I'm stubborn so I kept trying. I kept writing. I kept talking. I kept laughing. I kept crying. I just tried to keep him. And it helped.

Last year, as the first anniversary of Ralph's passing approached, I wanted to take that opportunity to write about what I had learned about myself and those around me as I had gone through that difficult journey. And I learned so much. I came out on the other side of 365 days a stronger, deeper, more determined person. Not perfect. But happier in many ways, which sounds bizarre in itself. I had learned to embrace all of those less than perfect things in myself in a way that would have made my brother beam. I have said before, if I knew nothing else about Ralph, I knew this one thing; he believed in me in a way that no single other human being ever had in my life. I have no idea why. I remember knowing this from a pretty young. age. And I paid him no mind. I gave it little thought. But there I was, on the other side of a single year, without that undying support holding me up. And I was still standing. And that propelled me in many ways. I would have never run a 5K after 12 days of training without knowing that my brother assumed I could do it. I would have never taught a college class without knowing that he just assumed that I would someday do it. I would have never pissed endless people off by saying exactly what I thought without knowing that living in my own truth was my brother's expectation. I would have never started this blog.

And then my mother got sick. And then my mother died. And the winds were completely knocked out of my sails. I was devastated and vulnerable. And for a little while I forgot who I was grieving. I mean, of course, I was (and continue to) mourn my mother. Everyday, I think "I'll call Mom." followed by a sinking, empty feeling. But 3 months later, I am standing on the brink of another 365 days since I lost my brother. And I'm left thinking, what have I learned? And, how can I keep his legacy alive?

So most of the day today, I thought about a man who taught me about music, loyalty, truth and family. It was suggested that I spend his birthday, which was Sunday, doing something he loved and the only thing I could come up with was having a few drinks, singing Beatles songs and quoting lines like "Book 'em Dano." I'll admit, I did none of those things but that's what he would have done. And then he'd have spent the next day with us (my sisters, the kids and my mother) eating spaghetti and eating birthday cake. We had this thing we did every year. Every birthday, we would call each other just to say happy birthday. And then we would always have cake at my mom's. Not every one of us 6 kids did this but Ralph and I did, along with a few others. It felt very juvenile in some ways but it was a tradition. And it hurts to know that we can't do this again. And that I can't call him on the phone number that it is still saved in my phone 2 years later.

But this is what I can do....I can continue to talk about my brother. I can continue to write about my brother. I can continue to learn from a life, while short, lived full. I can continue to let him lift me up in the way only he knew how.