Eddie

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day my brother died. It hits me hard every year, some harder than others. I have felt the black cloud of loss, death, pain, uncontrollable life events, hanging over me the last couple of weeks.
Most days I live my life with the new normal I created after he was gone. Most people don't even know I have a brother. Can't really explain it to my kids although I want to and long for the day that I can show him to them through pictures and his beautiful tenor singing voice, his amazing creativity and all the childhood memories I hold in my heart, noone to mutually share them with anymore. I still get a pang of jealousy, pain, at other brothers and sisters. Seems they take life for granted most times when I long for even just a fleeting moment of togetherness, sharing a memory, laughing at the things in life only we understood and had survived.
Since he's been gone, I have graduated college, taught school, lost even more weight, gained some, losing again, gotten married, travelled overseas and then gone back there to live, given birth three times, lost a baby, rejoiced at our parents' divorce which was our entire lifetime coming and such freedom and joy for our whole family, only been to one opera when I used to make every opera every season, bought a house...the list goes on and on...
He would be so proud of my kids. He was such a multihued man. So strong, he hunted and fished, smoked cigars, loved his wife passionately, and at the same time never lost sight of the little boy in him who loved to play practical jokes, lived it up every minute of the holidays, was silly, loved toys...oh how he would have eaten up my three littles. Wrestling and playing superheroes, playing forts outside and rock concerts with guitar inside...he has missed out on so much and I can't bring him back.
11 years now and I still want to. I still dream about him, dreams that he has come back just for a minute to see me, check in on my life...if only that could really happen.
Heaven doesn't really comfort me anymore. I mean, sure I want to see him again but what I really want is him here. Now. God he would be so proud of Mom. SO amazed at her strength and freedom and our lives. He would love Pompey and be such the opposite complement of him. They would share the same tender passion and compassion, I know. I think he would probably ahve had kids by now which means I would be an aunt. But I am not. And I long to be...it sucks. People dying sucks. It is unfair. It makes me fear every DAY for the lives and well being of my children. How DOES my mother survive? I don't know. I would die, die every DAY if I lost one of them so young. God spare me that pain in this life.
And I loved being a sister. Being watched out for, I trusted his advice more than anyone else. We had a survivor's relationship. I think home life was so evil and abusive and unpredictable that we avoided fighting like our friends did because we needed each other and family peace so much more than we needed to be right or above one another. I don't really know. Except that I love him fiercely and was so so proud of all that he did and was. He was even especially nice to his dog and I don't really like dogs. But I wrote a song about his...
I have changed so much since he has been gone. I have gone from hippie girl to grown up mama. Oh sure I still wear patchouli now and again but I like kiehls and sephora products more. I have become an exercise and calorie counting expert and have learned so much spiritually about what food does and is in our bodies and psyches.
It is so unfair that he is gone. It is wrong that my mom has to suffer. It is horrid that my sweet sister in law had to lose the love of her life. We are all three forever changed, and still forged together like iron.
And I can't even begin to touch the pain sweet Meme feels when she cries at my house about him still over tea and grammy cookies when the littles are asleep. She never should have felt such loss and pain over a child she loved so much...
But alas, he is gone. And all I have is opera scores, pictures, pocket knives, some toys and my heart of memories to keep him close...tomorrow is the day that changed my life completely and more permanently than anything I have ever known or care to experience again.
I wear the scars of his death deeeeep within me. Never on my sleeve. Never on public display. Just in the depth of the core of who I am. It still bleeds....and I still honor him.
In strange ways, like I don't clap at encores. I don't know why but to me, my last clap was for him and although I am so thankful for live music and symphonies and plays, I just can't clap and bravo heartily anymore. It is my little nod to his amazing performances and career. Cut short. Too short...
And then there are the cardinals...forever our sign...and that is when heaven seems not so far away...
I miss you Eddie.