grief work

     I've often heard the phrase 'working through emotions'.  It's such a bizarre concept to me.  How does one work at feeling emotions?  But stuck in apathy and lethargy, bordering on the edge of a very dark place, I knew I had to try something different.  Going back to the normal routine of life wouldn't work.  There would be no 'throwing myself into my work.'  Besides, I have no school, no visits to MD Anderson, no nothing.  And I'm not about to find the motivation to engage the mundane aspects of life like going to the grocery or cleaning (shudder).  I needed to give some physical embodiement to my emotion.  But not just anything.  It had to have some meaning and symbol behind it.  Some sweat and tears along with just a little bit of blood would probably aid the process.
     Some of my wife's coworkers graciously offered to buy us a plant to remember my brother.  Yeah, that sounds right.  Good idea.  We both loved our gardens.  We were as different as night and day but that is one thing I, along with my dad, helped to get my brother hooked on.  If it's going to be in memory of him, it better be a plant that lasts.  That meant a tree.  My soil is awful and compacted.  It better be an indestructible tree.  I've got it.  In the front yard of my brother and sister-in-law's house (I don't know if I'll ever be able to call it just her house) is a beautiful crape myrtle called 'Natchez'.  White fragrant flowers with a cinammon colored trunk, it's a bullet-proof tree and an icon of the south. 
     It took visits to 4 different nurseries but I finally found a good specimen.  That's ok, because I wasn't in a hurry.  I had all day.  Besides, I was working on grief as much as planting a tree.  It doesn't look like much now but soon it will grow into a beautiful tree (you can see the bark of some down at MDACC here).  My garden was in a complete state of disarray since A) we've been in a severe drought and B) I've hardly been around to tend to it.  So I sweated plenty in the Houston sun, cried when I moved the crape that was originally there that had a memory associated with my dad (another long story) and replaced it with the one for my brother, and bled when I pruned some nearby roses.  Grief work, I get it now.

a measure of life

There existed an ongoing debate.  On one side, there was my brother who thought himself average.  Not bad, not great, just average.  He was comparing himself to people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs who would be in that class of greatness.  He subscribed to my dad's joking assessment of "I shot for mediocrity and hit it."  On the other side was my sister-in-law.  She thought her husband above average and that everyone has some talents or abilities to put to use.  I myself found it a strange and interesting debate to watch, coming down on neither side.  Always a contrarian, at the time I found that the question of competence and self-worth didn't work very well for me but I could not quite put it into words.  That is until now (but they're not my words, they are somebody else's).  I was pondering the death of my brother and the ripples it sent out and came across this chapter from Steinbeck.  I could not have encountered this passage at a more ripe and appropriate time in my life.

     A child may ask, 'What is the world's story about?' And a grown man or woman may wonder, 'What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we're at it, what's the story about?'
     I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too -- in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite changes we might impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well -- or ill?
     Herodotus, in the Persian War, tells a story of how Croesus, the richest and most favoured King of his time, asked Solon the Athenian, a leading question. He would not have asked it if he had he not been worried about the answer. 'Who,' he asked, 'is the luckiest person in the world?' He must have been eaten with doubt, and hungry for reassurance. Solon told him of three lucky people in old times. And Croesus more than likely did not listen; so anxious was he about himself. And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say, 'Do you consider me lucky?' Solon did not hesitate in his answer. 'How can I tell?' he said. 'You aren't dead yet.' And this answer must have haunted Croesus dismally as his luck disappeared, and his wealth and his kingdom. And as he was being burned on a tall fire, he may have thought of it and perhaps wished he had not asked or not been answered.
     And in our time, when a man dies -- if he has had wealth and influence, power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man's property and his eminence and works and monuments -- the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? -- which is another way of putting Croesus's question. Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?
     I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said 'Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.'
     Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I wondered if he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died, the nation rang with praise, and just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.
     There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance, but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when there were ugly forces loose in the world to ultilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he did, the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, 'What can we do now? How can we go on without him?'
     In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved, his life must be a failure to him, and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action we should remember our dying so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

Average, below average, above average.  They don't matter to me.  I like Steinbeck's question better.  And I certainly know the answer as it pertains to my brother.

nothing & something

I knew this point would come but knowledge of the coming struggle doesn't make it any easier.  It's all the harder for knowing it but still being powerless to effect it.  No caring for my brother.  No lectures to run through.  No brother at all, not even to forward email jokes to.  No exams to prepare for.  No medical or cancer questions to answer.  Nothing.  Nothing but the everyday routines of life.  It's hard to give a damn about those right now.  Even under the best of circumstances, I don't do well with the day in and day out aspects of life.  Add crushing defeat and I become my own worst enemy.  I turn a lot to literature to keep those demons at bay.  In this passage from East of Eden, an older gentleman named Samuel whom reminds me greatly of my dad is speaking with a friend, Adam, who has just suffered a tragedy and is now left with two newborn twins.

     Samuel sat down quietly, and he didn't trouble Adam by looking him too much, and he didn't trouble him by not looking at him.  The wind freshened in the treetops and a fringe of it ruffled Samuel's hair.  "I thought I'd better get back to the wells," Samuel said softly
     Adam's voice had gone rusty from lack of use.  "No," he said, "I don't want any wells.  I'll pay for the work you did."
     Samuel leaned over the basket and put his finger against the small palm of one of the twins and the fingers closed and held on.  "I guess the last bad habit a man will give up is advising."
     "I don't want advice."
     "Nobody does.  It's a giver's present.  Go through the motions, Adam."
     "What motions?"
     "Act out being alive, like a play.  And after a while, a long while, it will be true."
     "Why should I?" Adam asked.
     Samuel was looking at the twins.  "You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing.  Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles.  Something will grow."
     Adam did not answer, and Samuel stood up.  "I'll be back," he said.  "I'll be back again and again.  Go through the motions, Adam."

That's what I'm doing.  I'm going through the motions.  Hell, I'm not even doing that.  The past few days, I have set ridiculously low daily goals to accomplish like 'do a load of laundry and actually put it away' or 'mow the yard.'  It's all I can do to reach even those low marks.  I'm trusting in Samuel's words that 'something will grow' and that by engaging the grief as well as the day, I can have some impact on what grows.  It should be true, at least it was once before.  My dad gave me similar advice at an earlier point in my life when I felt stuck and couldn't go on.  Something will grow.

request

At my brother's memorial service, there will be a point in the service for anyone to share your favorite memory of my brother or what impact he may have had your life.  We feel this will be important for the family to hear, especially his son and daughter.  In the interest of fairness, though, if you should decide to share, please keep it brief.

Less than an hour after my brother passed away, the family still held close around him full of tears.  I saw my sister-in-law trying to console her son and daughter.  But there were two of them, and now only one parent.  There simply was not enough of her to wrap them both close.  Now I am horrible at hugs.  Ask anyone that knows me, especially my Canadian cousins.  But even I knew that it was time to step up to the plate.  And in my mind, I thought of all the times I saw my niece cuddled up in my brother's arms.  During our annual trip to the beach, one would often find her asleep in her daddy's lap.  So I whisked her up and set her down in my lap with my arms around her.  It felt awkward and miserable and my heart broke even more, if that is even possible.  Like I said, I'm horrible at hugs.  But I held her tight.

Just the other day, I was scrolling through old pictures and came across this one that my mom took.  My first thought was, 'does he have cancer here?'  Yes, of course he does.  He has the bald head.  The date is my birthday of last year.  How's that for twisted irony.  He would have already started chemotherapy by now.  Judging by how good he looks, this is during our hopeful phase.

translation

With my dad in the hospital, I tried to help out by communicating a couple of things to his workers.  The head one is from El Salvador and while he does speak some english, it can get difficult to convey some things over the phone.  So I met up with him and tried best I could in my pidgin spanish.  As I was about to drive away, he came up and leaned in my window.

"Tu brother?"

"Muerto," I confirmed his suspicion.  It's emotionally difficult to say even in another language, perhaps because I wasn't expecting to have to deal with any grief at this point in time.  Just a simple task to fulfill.

He drew in a sharp breath between his teeth and shook his head signifying displeasure.  "Tu father, muy poquito..." and made the motion with his hand like a mouth talking.  Basically, he was saying he didn't talk much anymore.  That was a big deal.  A year ago, he'd say of my father, "mucho widdy-widdy."  It's a phrase that basically means chatty, or even too chatty.  That's who my dad was.  He'd constantly be talking to the customers or the workers about their lives or his.

Cancer sucks.

rules of grief

Today marks the transition from caring for my brother to mourning his loss.  As I drove home from his house yesterday, - (and yes, I still think of him in the present tense as in 'his house', and at what point, if ever, does it become just my sister in law's house?) - I gave myself three rules to follow.  And that's strange because I hate rules and have never been one to follow them very well.  Whether there is any value or truth to be derived from them for myself (or anyone else since I gave no thought to whether they would work for others), well I'll have to wait and see.

1. Grief is a process, not a goal.  When I fell in love with my wife, it wasn't a goal.  Sure, you try to woo and pursue your beloved's affection but ultimately, the act of falling in love is something experiential.  And you don't stop falling in love after the 'goal' of marriage is passed.  The relationship changes, evolves, ebbs & flows.  There is no end, only the experience.  I strongly suspect that losing someone you love is the same, only in the opposite direction.  There is no getting over the loss of my brother.  The loss will always be there.  The challenge is learn how to hold his presence, my memories of him, his very essence within me and still carry on in my own life without being destroyed by the loss.
2. You can't tell yourself how to feel.  I find myself feeling emotions faster than I can even register them.  On the way driving home, the clouds broke and the sun came out as I neared Houston.  I rolled down the windows to feel the warm, humid gulf coast air.  It simply felt good.  In less than a second, I felt guilty for enjoying that moment.  My brother is dead.  How dare I feel pleasure at the sensation of the warm air?  He can't so why should I?  Immediately following that emotion was one saying, 'yeah, but what would your brother want for you?'  That leads me to the last rule.
3. Allow for contradictions and mutually exclusive experiences.  To answer that last question above, I think my brother would absolutely want me to mourn him fully.  He'd also want me to live my life as I best know how.  So I allowed for the contradiction of the pleasure of a warm breeze juxtaposed with the guilt associated with that feeling.  One didn't have to win out over the other.  It doesn't have to make sense at this point.  It just is.