On this day in 1977, my parents brought their son into the world. He would have been 34 today. His laughter could melt you. He scrunched up his shoulder and his face and snickered. He always did that. Mom is determined not to fill this day with the sadness of our loss, but the joy that he brought us.
BIRTHDAY BOY
Happy birthday, Shannon! I will always love you.
Everybody knows my brother died. Today was six months since it happened. I feel weird saying anything about it when time has passed, because I don't want to discuss it really. I just want to say all the things I think, shut them in a closet and walk away. I don't want to hear how sorry people are he died. I don't want hugs, most of the time. Because really his death has left me in a feral place. I am a generally pleasant person, at least outwardly. I hide all my icky meanness inside like a good citizen. But lately I feel like a trapped animal. Like I am just waiting for danger to strike and I must stay tensely vigilant to prevent the attack. I want to howl at the moon and beat people for no good reason. When people of no relevance to me pour out their heart about matters that mean absofreakinglutely nothing to me, I want to bare my fangs and rip out their throat and piss on their remains. I want to mark my territory and march along the boundaries with the stink eye ready for those who dare cross it. Because all the things that are wrong cannot be fixed. He is dead. We weren't close as adults. My own mortality is a hair's breath away. My children could die any second. AND THERE ISN"T A BLANKITY BLANK THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. At the cemetery today a man and his friends rode up on four wheelers. I didn't recognize them. They dismounted and approached my father for conversation. They asked if his boy had gone to WVU (they were thinking of our cousin Al's son, Big John). Before I knew what I was doing I had moved to my dad's side and had to bury my face in his shoulder to keep from literally staring this man and his companions down. To keep from saying something evil and mean and designed to chase them off. I have no hackles and yet they were raised and my blood boiled.
I struggle to keep my temper even with those I love and cherish. I want to enjoy every minute as though it could be our last, but I cannot. When Aurelia asks where Shannon is, I know it is her trying to figure out life and death and the hereafter. But all I can think is "I have already told you all I know and I know nothing. SO STOP ASKING." I have an addiction to yarn. Yarn doesn't talk or ask or look at me knowingly. Yarn is yarn until I make it something else. And then it remain inanimate.
So much happens in March in a normal year. My parents wedding anniversary, birthdays, St. Patty's day.... But this year, it is all a blur. It will mark six months since my brother left us. He would have been 34 this year. Some days I think it will all be ok. It's almost like he isn't gone. We didn't see each other alot, so I can pretend. Then it hits me. And while I am down it hits me again. I am so guilty over all the things that I didn't say or do, over all the things I did say out of spite or anger, over things thought and never uttered... good and bad.
When I'm not riddled with guilt or sadness, I remember all the times we spent together. And wish for more. I wish I had never joked about being the favorite. I wish I had played every game he ever asked me to play. I wish I had listened more to the things he was interested in. Last year, I didn't even think to give him a birthday present. Granted we didn't regularly exchange them, but he surprised me with a purple hippo bank. I scurried around and got him a Shoney's Big Boy on Ebay. And now every day I look at this picture of him and cry. But they aren't all sad tears. Not all of them.
