Losers Weepers, Finders Keepers

We got take-out Chinese for dinner last night and watched Wreck It Ralph. As it ended, my husband sighed and said to me:

"I miss my brother."

 

We're having a little bit of a hard time.  My husband and I can't quite put our fingers on it. Winter doldrums? Stress at work? Just the effects of keeping so many balls in the air? Who knows. But we had the realization a few days ago that tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of his brother's, The Chef, abrupt death.

The kids piled into the car this morning and my daughter got accidentally kicked in the head, one son threw a pencil at another and everyone was just being sour.  I turned the car off and looked at them.

Deep breath.

"I'm going to tell you something.  Look me in the eyes. Dad is having a hard time right now because he would give just about anything in the world to have another night with his brother." 

Everyone perked up, wide eyed and nervous. Maybe not my best parenting, but like I said, we're both having a hard time.

"You have many gifts. But the people in this car are the best things that have ever happened to you. Some day, I will break a hip. And one of you is going to need to get in a car and come help me. And I will be crabby about it. I will not like feeling old and fragile. And you know what you're going to do?  You're going to call each other.  You're going to NEED each other."

No one said anything.

"Someday I am going to drive you nuts. I promise you. And the only people who will empathize with your frustration are the people in this car. You're going to help us with our finances, fix whatever kind of new fangled technology that dad and I can't figure out, and deal with the fact we don't hear so good anymore."

They start to laugh.

"Mom, it sounds suspiciously like a full time job," said my oldest.

I told him, it would be.  I promised to cause him a lot of trouble.

"But it will be happy trouble.  We're going to have a lot of fun.  We're going to take care of each other. Right now I do a lot of the care giving, but soon you'll be taking more and more care of each other, and eventually of your dad and I too. That's what family does."

Everyone softened a bit. We went to the gym. It's not easy to be good to your siblings all the time. We can be competitive. We can be frustrating. Sometimes we have nothing in common except an initial address. But it is a relationship that helps us learn how to be a good friend. I'm guessing that if you were never nice to you siblings, you aren't a great friend either.  Maybe I'm wrong. But it's an interesting thought.

Today is also my friend's, The Hummingbird, birthday. The name is apt because I've never met anyone who talks or works faster. At one point or another she has cleaned my refrigerator, bathed my kids, planted tulips in my yard (in freezing rain), fed my family, cut my grass, challenged me to run faster, rewired my 2nd floor, cheered for me, read to my children, made rhubarb cake at 5 am before my first triathlon, decorated my house for Christmas, shoveled my walk, flown 1,500 miles to hold my kids and help us bury my father-in-law; but mostly we've laughed and laughed and laughed. She is beauty in motion.

We were celebrating her birthday the night The Chef died. His heart just stopped at 32 years old in front of his wife and newborn son. We were devastated.  He lived far away and we were weeks away from the birth of our third child. My siblings showed up one by one and were incredible helpful with packing and planning, with offering support and sympathy. But the next day, The Hummingbird came quietly buzzing into the house and did laundry, took our two toddlers up to her house to play, made lunches, did dishes. She was just a calming breeze that blew through that day. At the very end of the day, when we were alone in the kitchen, she asked

"What happened?"

No one had told her any details, she just showed up and filled in.  She knew he had died but had no idea how or even when exactly. The whole time she just acted with kindness, without question, without judgement or self involvement. I've always remembered. She helped without needing to know why.

This friendship changed my life. 

I love my siblings. We are all very close. But she has helped me become a better sibling by showing me how rewarding unconditional love is. She's not perfect - but she's done a lot of perfect things for me, for my kids.

I want my kids to have this kind of capacity.

About a year ago, her out of town sister learned she has cancer and is really sick. She's angry sick. And it is heartbreaking. Loving and supporting siblings from a distance is challenging work.

It doesn't matter if you lose someone slowly or suddenly, the result is the same. Today, we feel the absence of my brother-in-law in different ways than when he first died. The anger, the shock, the confusion has mostly passed. It's the inability for my husband to call him and complain about me or talk about fatherhood to the only other man who was parented by the same father, or to think through family finances and career planning. These are the phone calls and boys get-a-way trips that The Athlete still grieves.

 

We can't go back. So how to do we go forward?

• By making it count.
• By saying I love you. 
• By putting the petty stuff aside. 
• By reaching out and not holding back. 
• By offering big, generous acts that are unexpected and unnecessary.
• By encouraging relationships, fostering friendships.

This weekend, we were going to the cabin, but instead we offered it to my adult nephews who wanted to have a boys weekend. Some are married, some have kids. We can give them that - a chance to make more memories, deepen their friendships, strengthen their brotherhood. That we can do.

We've moved on in so many ways from six years ago. The physical relationship is part of the past. My brother-in-law is a part of the horizon now. We see him in the distance, simultaneously real and ethereal, yet he is still there resting between our past and our future. When we feel the loss, we grieve, but when we embrace all that we've found in the process, we feel the blessing upon our hearts.

We will see you again, brother.