This week my little brother passed away at age 33. It doesn't seem possible. It doesn't seem fair that the world just keeps going on, that we keep eating, breathing, talking... I know in my heart that his pain has ended and my tears are for me and my own sadness. I ache for his son. I ache for my parents. I ache for my kids. If you ever met Shannon, you were probably greeted with his silly smile and some goofy thing to say. Unless you were on his bad side. But generally, he was a sweet guy. As kids, I can remember sleeping in his room because I was scared (he had bunk beds). For all the fighting we did, we were just as protective of each other. He couldn't stand it if his friends said anything guylike about mom or me. He was always a backwards kid and would get me to call for anything he wanted out of the ad bulletin. We played Atari together. He held my hand and led me out of the woods when I stepped in a yellow jackets nest and was stung over a hundred times. He hid in the wood box at our old house by stretching out his legs and arms and shimmying up to the ceiling. He made fun of me when I sat on our picnic table and pretended to play guitar and sing to the animals. I took him out of his crib when he was little and took him to my closet to play. We peeled each other's sunburns and bragged over the biggest pieces. He caught a baby turtle and put it in our spring behind the house. I let it go, made turtle tracks with a stick and told him it ran away. He grabbed a vine when we were in the back of the Spradling's truck and flipped out of the bed flat on his back in their driveway. He said groovy all the time and it drove mom nuts. We made up crazy stories on the long and winding drives we endured in the backseat of whatever car our parents were driving us around in. He used to crawl into the space behind my bed and hide. He made me a purse that said "I love you" while I was on my sixth grade trip to DC. He folded a piece of fabric over, sewed the sides, sewed a button and wrote it on...I wish I still had it. I wish I had kept everything he ever gave me. I wish I could hug him again, I want to hear him say something insulting and rotten, I just want to see him. I just want to tell him I love him. That I always loved him, flaws and all. I just want to hold him and tell him it's ok and I hope he is alright.
People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. ~Marcel Proust
5 years ago
