about faith & marriage

tomorrow, mike & i will celebrate our 6 year anniversary. our ride together has been a roller coaster. a few years ago, we were separated. our unfounded & unrealistic belief that we were a near perfect couple & we didn't have to work on issues blew up in our innocent faces. after 7 years of being together, we took each other & our relationship for granted. we ended up living apart for 9 months. it was a profoundly dark & lonely time for both of us. scottie also took it very hard. i think he was forced to relive feelings of abandonment & extreme sorrow as a byproduct of my parent's divorce. but despite the dim outlook, he never gave up on mike & me. in the end, he may have been the only one to never fully submit to our break-up.

mike & i met when i was 19, a sophomore in college. he was 23 & had just graduated from temple. it was about 2 and a half years after my dad left. scottie was only 14 & took to mike immediately. he would tell me that he liked mike more than any of my previous boyfriends. scott loved that mike was a musician & valued his taste in bands. he would brag to his friends that his sister was dating mike from mewithoutyou. i think mike took on a fatherly role that was lacking in my brother's life. likewise, mike became very close to scottie & grew to think of him as a little brother. as scottie got older & formed his own bands, we would go & watch him preform at bowling alleys & school auditoriums. to my delight & mike's embarassment, one group even covered a mewithoutyou song, rather shoddily but very endearingly.

scott got caught smoking pot a year or 2 later. he got into drinking & eventually doing other kinds of drugs. we could see him & my mom falling into depression. at some point he threatened suicide & spent a short time in the mental hospital. mike & i decided to let scottie come on a brief tour with the band, maybe to inspire him with music, maybe to convince him that he didn't need to drink or do drugs, maybe just to reassure him that he was loved. we gave him some ground rules that even then, at about 17 years old, he wasn't able to obey. i left him by himself in the bus one afternoon & returned to smelled beer on his breath. he denied it, saying he had just rinsed his mouth with mouthwash. it was one of the first times he lied to my face. by then, the relationships scottie had with the rest of my family were slowly deteriorating, but i know my brother & i had a special bond that, until that point, was unwavering. i was so hurt by his betrayal, & ultimately he was too. he went to lie in a bunk in the back of the bus & cried. my brother told me that he didn't want to deceive me, that i was the one person he didn't want to upset. but after that, it became increasingly difficult for me to trust him again.

however scottie was never one to give up that easily on another. he equally stuck by mike & me during our separation. he would visit mike at our house & call to make sure that he was doing alright. he would tell me how upset mike was & how much he wanted me back. at the time, i was in too much pain to hear him. but scottie wouldn't stop voicing his desire to see us reconcile, long after it appeared that the rest of our families had given up hope.

he was with me when mike & i were brought back together. i met scottie at rittenhouse square. it was a beautiful & sunny day in april. it was one of those days that people long for after a cold, dark, lonely winter that never seemed to end. scottie was walking me through the park & introducing me to his friends. i mentioned that i was thinking about calling mike, to see if he wanted to meet up. the weeks prior, i had done a great deal of soul searching & been given a change of heart. i wanted to see if mike was feeling the same way, if somehow we could miraculously reconnect, despite all the shit we had endured. mike agreed to meet us. i could see how happy scott was, how strongly he was wishing for what mom & dad weren't able to do.

we convened in the middle of the park, a short distance from where scottie's memorial would one day take place. it was awkward for mike & me, having spent only short amounts of time together for the past 9 months. i was so scared.. wondering what was eventually going to happen between us. we all could agree that we were hungry & decided to have pizza together. it was there, in front of scott, that i told mike that i loved him. that i was sorry for all i had done, & took responsibility for my part in our failed marriage. but i had learned to forgive him & to forgive myself. then i asked him to take me back. at first he was reluctant. too much damage had been done. too much hurt had been committed that couldn't be rescinded. i told him that i understood, as tears fell down my cheeks, amidst the other paying customers of allegro's pizza.

scott went outside to smoke a cigarette & saw mike's brother aaron riding by on his bike. he flagged him down & pointed to mike & me inside. aaron came in smiling, hugged me & kissed me, & told me that he loved me. i earnestly told him that i loved him too. it was at that fleeting moment of love that mike believed we could miraculously overcome our past, that we could somehow make it. after pizza, i immediately moved back home & we tenderly cared for our marriage hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, like a delicate newborn. we would focus on each other & ourselves, & move forward together, trying with god's help to not look back.

of course, it goes without saying that marriage is rough. every relationship goes through hard times, whether they are parental, sibling, workplace, or maybe with your intolerable neighbor. when you pledge to remain someone's partner - someone's one & only other, through the birth of babies & inconceivable betrayals, it takes a whole lot of work & faith in your partner, but also in yourself. & it doesn't hurt to know you have a little brother always in your corner who never stopped, & will never stop believing in you.

living a nightmare. waiting to dream again.

i have been waiting, rather impatiently, for scottie to come visit me in my dreams. i had one dream with him in it while i was in florida. my grandma, who has been dead for over 11 years now, also make an appearance. i don't even remember the last time i dreamt about her. but harry woke me up in the middle of it, & there was little to be remembered. i am jealous of people who dream about scottie, or when my husband tells me he has dreams of his father elliott. they seem so meaningful & special & profound. the women in the grasp meeting last night were talking about their dreams of their loved ones. one woman had an inspiring story of her daughter's dream about her son, who overdosed. in the vision, the daughter asked her brother if it was really him who visited her while she was asleep, or if it was only her imagination. the image assured her that it was really him, her real brother. i want that so badly because right now, it seems like the only way for him to communicate with me. instead, at night i seem to be in a state in between wake & sleep, ambiguously living out my previous day's events.

sometimes, i lamentably have relived the days before scottie's release from this world. my mom had left my house after dinner on the wednesday night of january 19, after spending 2 blissful days together. my brother hadn't called us, like we thought he might. i think we had a mixture of relief & confusion. we didn't have to worry about what kind of state he would be in after the long ride from florida. we wouldn't have to say no to him, again, if he asked to be taken to the park, or distress over where he was going to stay. but all the same, we still wanted him to call. i couldn't wait for him to see harry. in the back of our minds, we always kept our guard up, waiting to again be hurt by his addiction, or waiting for his addiction to hurt him again.

we all went to sleep, mike & i in our third story bedroom in philadelphia, mom & her boyfriend, al in their rural new jersey residence. at 1 in the morning she got a phone call from one of scott's friends, telling her that he wasn't breathing. my mom told me later that for the first time in years, she hadn't thought of scottie immediately when the phone woke her up so late at night. usually when any of us got a phone call in the middle of the night, we couldn't help but think that scott was in some kind of trouble. or he'd be wasted, commandeer a phone & call to babble, oblivious of the time or annoyance that he caused. early that thursday morning, my mom couldn't comprehend what the distressed friend was saying. scottie wasn't breathing? he was being taken to the hospital? they tried cpr on him? my mom got out of bed to make the drive back across the bridge to philly when the weight of the situation became real & she broke down. it had finally happened, all that we had been foreseeing for the past few years, our biggest fears were coming true.

i, also, got a phone call at 2 am from a number i didn't recognize. just like my mom, i didn't automatically think of scott. i was exhausted, from being mom to a kid who still wakes up during the night, & ignored the ringing. (i found out later it was a nurse in the emergency room calling from the hospital. how she got my number, i'll never know.) moments later, mike's phone rang & he answered groggily. it was my mom, informing him of what was going on. mike has never been one to wake up easily or promptly so he was unable to process what my mom was saying. after piecing together what i heard mike repeating, i took the phone from mike & tried to interpret what my mom was telling me. my brother had been found not breathing by a couple friends. the doctor's had revived him at the hospital. they think he had been out for 20 minutes & had cardiac arrest. he was at the university of pennsylvania hospital, only a few miles from my house. my mom had just gotten there with her boyfriend, so she wasn't alone. she told me not to come right then; try to sleep, stay with harry in case he needed me & we'd see what happened in the morning. he was being stabilized so we wouldn't be allowed to see him anyway.

sleep was the farthest thing from my possession. i went downstairs in the daze & turned on the television, hoping to trick my mind into thinking about something besides my brother; the only thing it did was help pass the time. i knew that scott was alive, but so unsure about what to expect. i needed answers, i didn't want to be blindsided at the hospital. but i was immensely afraid of what i could uncover. i eventually fought my fears & researched cardiac arrest on the internet. cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating. because my brother hadn't been breathing for such a long period of time, the lack of oxygen caused a cardiac arrest. my world stopped spinning when i discovered that brain death or loss of life can occur just 4 minutes after cardiac arrest. at 10 minutes, likelihood of revival is nearly impossible (in case you want to read more about cardiac arrest).

the reality was clear: scott would probably never again be the brother i had grown up with. but i despite the facts typed out on the bright computer screen in front of me, i couldn't succumb to that awful truth. scottie had fought through so many crazy situations before. he'd been arrested plenty of times. he had been found drunkenly passed out on so many occasions. he'd survived the loss of his fingers for god's sake. this couldn't be his end. it wasn't supposed to be this way.

harry ended up waking up at some point & fell asleep on my chest. i was laying on the couch, waiting for the sky to brighten outside the window. my mom finally called around 6 or 7 & told me that scottie was stable with the aid of ventilators & machines. the doctor's weren't able to give any concrete information yet but we would be able to go see him. she said her boyfriend had to leave so to come over as soon as possible. i got dressed, left harry with mike & my mother-in-law, bought some coffee for my mom & me, & went to the hospital. i frantically gave the woman behind the desk my brother's name & what floor i thought he was on. she rudely told me that there was no name in that unit. i remember being so angry at her, how dare she treat me like that. doesn't she know my brother is dying? she saw how distressed i was, searched a bit harder & pointed me in the right direction. i walked passed where i had gotten an ultrasound with harry a year and a half ago. it was such a life changing moment; seeing the life that my husband & i created for the first time, watching his tiny heart beat so quickly on the monitor; being amazed at how intricate, miraculous, & perfect he already was, only 20 weeks inside my uterus.

i met my friend nikki at the elevator. nikki was on duty as a chaplain that thursday & during the morning meeting, her ears perked up when she heard scottie's name mentioned & how he had overdosed the night before. once she heard that he had a sister that lived nearby with a baby, she was sure he was my brother. she brought me to the waiting room where my mom was sitting. my mom & i hugged & cried. she had wanted to wait for me to go see scottie; it was too much for a mother to handle alone. we walked down the bright, sterile hallway. about a dozen doctors, students, & nurses were having a meeting in front of my brother's room, as they do twice a day, morning & night, as protocol for every patient on the floor.

i made my way through the staff. i could see my brother through the glass wall. he was lying in the bed as if he was sleeping. tubes of all sizes & purposes were sticking out of his arms & face; blood slowly trickled out of the holes. scottie's long ratty curls were matted to his forehead. his dirty feet were sticking out of the blanket. they were always abnormally large, even as a kid, & had the second toe that stood taller than the big toe, an unfortunate family trait. it was such a comfort to still smell them, exactly like they reeked whenever he took off his shoes in my living room. i was instantly brought back to seeing him for the first time at cooper hospital the day after he cut off his fingers; his body horribly bloated & weak because of the hours he had spent in surgery. & i thought of my father-in-law, elliott, whom mike & i visited nearly everyday for 2 weeks in july, just 6 months earlier, before the severity of his prognosis was diagnosed & he was taken off of life support.

my mom & i clung to each other & sobbed. my mother's youngest son, whom she had given birth to 24 years & 2 months ago, was supposed to grow old & outlive her. she was supposed to watch him turn his life around & someday become a grandmother to his children. my poor brother, whom arrived in philadelphia just 11 hours before he overdosed, was already dead on the bed in front of me, though it took a while for the reality to sink in. after all, it just looked like he was sleeping. & how do your feet continue to stink after you are dead?

i have been reliving this nightmare consistently for over a month, in bits & pieces. if i think about it all at once, i shut down. even now, writing this out & seeing it in front of me, i am filled with such anguish. i wish scottie would come & tell me that he is ok, that he had seen the end of the story & everything is going to be alright. my brother-in-law, aaron, told me about a dream he had last night. in it, his dad, elliott was alive & waiting for him with a big chocolate chip cookie. aaron ran to elliott & hugged him. aaron was crying, for his lost dad & for scottie, whom he considered his brother. elliott held aaron & assured him to not worry about scottie, that he was just fine.

month one

today is one of those impossibly hard days. it's been exactly 1 months since my brother passed away. yesterday steve & i walked from west philly to rittenhouse square, scottie's favorite place in the world. for me, it is a place of refuge & comfort; when i am there i can feel my brother's spirit & picture him, smoking, drinking energy drinks, hanging out in the middle of the park, excitedly yelling "hey!" & hugging all the people he knew who walked by, no matter how much of a hurry they were in. but it is also a place that holds lots of regret & sorrow. i know the park is where scott had gotten into fights, been arrested, passed out cold after hours of drinking & using drugs. the park is where his "friend" stole scott's bike & sold it for drug money. it is there where scott bought drugs, & quite possibly sold them as well.

we sat where my brother's memorial had been a few weeks ago. i had heard that the candles & empty 40 bottles had been left up for a while afterwards, but with the melting snow & influx of people that had come to enjoy the beautiful weather last weekend, there wasn't any trace of my brother's shrine. yesterday, it had gotten cold again, so it wasn't super crowded. but i immediately noticed a small group of outcasts that looked like they'd be a part of scottie's crowd. then i recognized one - the one with the long red dreads, also known as p**** - as a friend who either sold my brother the heroin, or was the middleman, that helped kill my brother. some of scottie's other friends had been full of rage towards p****. at the hospital, they had reassured my mom & me that they would get him for what he had done to scott. we kindly told them that shouldn't do anything on our behalf, or scottie's either. he wouldn't have wanted it; it wouldn't make us feel any better; it wouldn't help bring him back anyway.

but sitting in the park, watching p**** & his few other friends smoking & drinking red bull, got me so angry. i noticed a couple of young boys, who looked like they couldn't have been more than 20 years old, walk hesitantly & uncertainly toward the crew. they paused, just outside the circle, then slowly joined. the 2 groups exchanged handshakes, & phone numbers. although i didn't see any drugs exchanged, & i know that my mind is capable of conjuring up images that aren't necessarily based in reality, i couldn't help but wonder if this whole interaction was for a future illegal deal. & i could feel my blood boil; my brother would be dead only a month & this friend hadn't learned a damn thing. to me, it was like he was spitting on his ashes.

in fact, p**** came to visit my brother in the hospital on friday, a few hours before the machines were unplugged. his pupils were dilated, his eyes were glassy & red. he smiled innocently & knowingly, claiming scott was in a better place. there was no sadness in his voice, or regret. i remember being confused by his reaction; not all of scottie's friends had cried in the hospital, but all had showed some kind of remorse, or at least complete shock. i don't think p**** purposely hurt my brother. like i said, i'm not completely sure of his role in the overdose. but i will never understand how he could treat his friend's death, & life, so flippantly. & then continue to participate in reckless behavior that ultimately caused so much pain to not only my brother, but my family. i watched the 2 younger guys settle into p****'s crowd, & share some cigarettes. by then, steven & i had had enough. we gathered up harry, who was practicing his walking by inching himself around the dry fountain, & strolled out of the park.

i guess the hardest part of the whole thing is that we, my family & i, think about scottie most of the day, everyday. the hurting is so raw. just beneath each emotion, our sorrow lies waiting to reappear & consume us. although the loss of my brother is still somewhat of a hazy reality, the truth is steadily coming into focus & becoming more concrete each day. the fact is, i want my brother back, but i know that will never happen, at least not like i'm used to having him in my life. this is a painful fact that i, along with my mom & dad & brother, will have to face each day for as long as the world has use for us. it is hard for us to know that to others, my brother's memory will slowly fade. he won't be thought of regularly; instead he may be a passing thought every so often. they can eventually go back to living similarly, if not exactly like they did before his death. we will never have that option. & it is beyond upsetting to know that some of scottie's friends will continue to do drugs & succumb to the same fate as my brother.

the sad reality is that my brother used to be one of those souls. about a year ago, a close friend of scottie's passed away by overdosing. i remember how distraught he was; but i also remember scott telling me that he & his friends honored the death by getting wasted.

so today, the 21st of february, steve & i spent our last hours together missing our brother. i wore scottie's camouflaged t-shirt, & we ate at chick-fil-a in honor of him. scott was always obsessed with chicken: kfc, crown fried, the generic grocery store brand, or the spicy nuggets you could get for a few bucks at the chinese place with the bullet proof glass around the corner. back home, steve packed up his suits & scottie's clothes that he had been wearing for the past month. he said goodbye to his nephew & the spot he had made on our couch. i drove him to the airport & hugged him one last time.

one month down...
(breathe&repeat)

a brief history of my dad

my dad has had a difficult life... that is, from what i know of my dad's life, it has been difficult. he was the second son of carl & rosemary parker. my grandfather was a hard man. he lied about his age to join the navy as a youngster, & claimed to pull bodies out of the water during the bombing of pearl harbor in world war 2. as a kid, he got evicted from grade school for kicking his teacher. i think my grandpa would now be diagnosed bipolar. but back then, mental illness wasn't well-known & probably ignored. instead, he was just an angry & confused child who grew into an angry & confused adult. he married my grandmother, who was a daughter to an italian immigrant father & german immigrant mother. she had both of her sons by the time she was 20 years old. she & her boys were clearly under the rule of her overbearing husband. my dad has passively told stories of his father beating him, his brother & mother for various infractions, like bad grades or if my grandfather drank too much.

my dad went to vietnam in 1969. he was a helicopter pilot in the southern part of the country. the atrocities that happened to him are something that it is hard for him to talk about even now. he saw many of his bunkmates shot down in front of his eyes. the first time i saw my dad cry was when we visited to the vietnam war memorial in washington dc when i was about 9 years old. he traced a row of names & eventually found one of his closest friends. he stood there sobbing. it was a revelation for me, that my dad wasn't just the man who got up early, went to work all day, came home for 2 helpings of dinner, then chose what boring program to watch on tv that night, regardless of what mindless shows my brothers & i wanted to watch. he went through some serious shit that i, being only a child, couldn't & probably shouldn't have understood.

i guess because my dad didn't have much of a father figure growing up, he didn't really know how to treat my brothers & me. on top of that, anyone he risked getting close to during the war had the strong possibility of dying. so he wasn't one to be vulnerable & caring. his way of being a daddy was to provide financially for his family, & he did that very well. he worked his way up to vice-president of purchasing at campbell's soup company, which required him being at the office long hours & traveling around the globe for long periods of time. he made a great deal of money, but my brothers & i didn't know it. he would never spoil us; yet he supplied us with whatever was needed. i don't remember spending too much time with dad. he would sometimes meet my family during our vacations in chicago, if he could take time off of work. on the weekends he was preoccupied with projects around the house & fertilizing the lawn. he would try to make it to all of my brothers' & my soccer games though. i could hear his voice clearly above the roar of the crowd, always cheering me on, earnestly & proudly.

when my dad left my mom, we were pressured to spend forced & awkward time together. my brothers & i didn't know how to act around our mysterious father; & he didn't know how to treat his growing children. my dad eventually bought a condo about 15 minutes from my mom's house in new jersey so we would spend the night over his bare, sterile home. i remember trying hard just to fall asleep in this strange bed in a room i had to myself, because i didn't want to bear the unpleasantness of being awake. the first christmas we had at my dad's, he took it upon himself to buy us presents that he thought we would like. the only other time he bought me a gift on his own was for my birthday a month after he left my mom. it was a tennis racket. i had never played the sport before. it turns out he & his mistress had played lots of tennis together; secretly i guess when he was supposed to be at work. so that christmas, one of my presents was a puzzle. he said that i used to love putting together puzzles when i was a child. i couldn't remember the last time i attempted doing a puzzle but i didn't say so. it just reinforced how my dad & i were nearly strangers.

my brothers & i were introduced to dad's "friend" the father's day after he left. he took us to the mall for lunch where she coincidentally also happened to be shopping. my brothers & i glanced at each other knowingly. dad told us he was getting remarried when he took us on vacation to myrtle beach in south carolina. halfway through the drive down, he informed us that kathleen would be meeting us there with her 3 kids. by then, it was too late to change my mind. i remember crying when we got there, begging my mom to buy me a flight home. i ended up sticking it out with my brothers, & for my dad. on the beach one evening toward the end of the week, he took us aside & said that he loved kathleen & they were going to get married; would that be okay with us. what else could we say?

steven, mike & i ended up going to the wedding in november. it was a small family gathering at a local new jersey restaurant. the ceremony was preformed by a justice of the peace. there was little celebration & love. it seemed like everyone were acting out their prescribed roles.

"hi, i'm steve's daughter"
"hello, i'm kathleen's twin sister"
"no, scott couldn't make it tonight. he wasn't feeling well"
"i do"
"i do"
"i now pronounce you man & wife"

they lasted only a few years. by the time mike & i were engaged, their marriage was already falling apart, though my dad never told me. kathleen came to our wedding in february of 2005, & that was the last time i saw her & the last time my dad spoke of her. i don't know, to this day, what happened to them.

scottie ran into kathleen a couple times since then. she tried to avoid his gaze, but my brother, having no boundaries with people or fear of confrontation, ran right up to her as if nothing had happened. one time they ended up christmas shopping together. another, he invaded her lunch. i think my dad married kathleen because it was the only right thing to do after abandoning my family. & i guess their marriage never could have lasted for the same reasons my parents' didn't make it. my dad isn't able to get close to anyone. when it comes down to opening up, being honest, being raw in front of another, his other, he is afraid. there is too much at stake, too much potential hurt & loss. my dad has been burned too many times. but unfortunately, he ends up burning other people, his family, the ones he loves in the process.

i have learned to forgive him, as often as i need to. & not just because he is my dad. but because i love him.. because he is worthy of forgiveness, just like i am worthy of forgiveness.. by forgiving my dad, i am not expecting anything from him, like dad finally divulging all his deep dark secrets to me or some miraculous reconciliation. but i'm hoping that through forgiveness, i can help my relationship with my son; to love him with an openness & truth that my father was unable to show his family. & through forgiving my dad, i can learn to forgive myself, as often as i need to, when the occasions arise & to heal.

we are all complicated. we are all love.

one of the hardest things about scottie's death - which is probably felt by many families of people who overdose - is trying to find out the impossible why. it's like scott's life was a huge puzzle, where so many of the tiny pieces are lost. i want to dig beneath the couch cushions & sweep over the entire floor, finding each & every missing fragment to somehow assemble the mystery into something tangible & conclusive. but i know no matter how deep i search, i will never be able to fully comprehend my brother's death.

there are so many layers that complicate a person. we all easily label people to separate them into certain areas in our lives. but when you assemble all these segments together, it creates a true, beautiful, intricate human being. one part of my brother i am just beginning to understand is his mental illness. bipolar runs strong on both sides of my family. scottie was diagnosed with the disorder as a teenager, & again in florida, but didn't do anything about it. i think his only way of dealing with his extremes of mania & depression was to self-medicate, first with pot & alcohol. no one wants to feel more different than they already believe they are, especially in those formative teen years. you are already trying so hard to fit in & make friends. scott at that time was dealing with being home alone with a very sad mom, & a dad who was trying really hard to assimilate him into a foreign family. my brother probably just wanted some peace & normalcy. he needed somehow to be himself, without having to be a different son for each of my parents.

scottie was always a people pleaser. he loved to make people laugh & feel loved & accepted. as much as he loved this role, it must have been exhausting & an impossible task for him to fulfill. he couldn't seem make my mom happy & he wasn't able to bring my dad back. when his friends started doing other drugs, he didn't want to disappoint them; after all he was the life of the party. at the same time, he liked the drugs & the drinking. with them he was able to escape the reality that had been haunting him.. the cavernous depths that his thoughts would fall into & the secret toxic memories that were kept down below the surface but never fully forgotten.

studies show that drugs can hinder a person's maturity. my brother never seemed to grow emotionally or mentally older than a teenager. as he got older, it was difficult for him to think about his future. he could envision grandiose plans for himself but when it came to taking the first step, you could actually see his brain shut down. the light in his eyes would fade & he wasn't able to talk about it anymore. anything beyond the moment was too far off, too foreign for him. i think he liked the dreaming more than the succeeding. but while he was imagining, other former high school friends were actually doing. he found other friends who were younger & closer to his maturity level. or he hung out with older people who shared scott's stunted mentality. they were alcoholics & drug users & gladly provided scottie with as much self-medication as he desired.

all the while the caverns in my brother's brain were growing wider & deeper. he experienced more damaging memories & they, too, were colliding around secretly inside his mind. his drug use & drinking became a way to escape. but it also became routine. scott created bonds with others because he was unknowingly falling away from the people he loved the most. i wish i could see through my brother's eyes & know what he was thinking & feeling. i wish i could know all those secret stories that plagued him. i haven't decided if i should keep hidden the ones that he told me, or let them free. but the ones i know are sad & horrible. & scottie had lived quite a full life for someone a few months into his 24th year.

i have to be okay with never knowing the whole truth. i think it would be too much for me to handle anyway. my brother was a sad & hurting soul, but brought so much joy & love to people around him. i wish i could tell him that having a mental illness isn't so uncommon or harmful. one of our most beloved presidents, honest abe lincoln, is now thought to have suffered with depression throughout his presidency & most of his life. unfortunately, he probably wouldn't be elected into such an office today because people with mental illness are as seen as unpredictable or incompetent. but when has anyone been truly steadfast & unfailing?

maybe it starts with me. if i was diagnosed as bipolar tomorrow, how would i take it? would i be so lighthearted & secure in myself? honestly, i think i'd feel how scottie did: scared, confused, in denial. but through scottie, i know i'd have to not only accept it, but to own it. each & every one of us has something impure, that we'd rather keep hidden inside. but that's where it festers. & it usually ends up eating us from within. then we look outside of ourselves for happiness, acceptance, & salvation. maybe we can help each other to find the goodness that lives inside ourselves, especially in the forms of mental illness, addiction & deep dark secrets. we will soon find that we are not alone.. & that we are all beautiful, intricate & true. that we are all love.

on the divorce & being the black sheep

out of my brothers & me, scottie was most affected by my parent's divorce. my dad had been distancing himself from the family for a couple years before finally getting the balls to leave. one weekend in june of 1998, my mom took my brothers & me on a mini vacation to rural pennsylvania. when we got back my dad was waiting in the driveway. as my brothers & i piled out of the van & into the house, i heard my dad say that he had to talk to my mom. we were so happy to be back home; we were too preoccupied to notice that dad's belongings were missing.

when my parents came back in the house, my mom was still crying. my dad lead us into the library, the room unofficially designated for computer use, piano playing, & christmas morning. he told us that he had already moved out. he had rented a condo about 30 minutes away, a really small place, but we were welcome there at any time. he said not to worry, that it wasn't anything that my brothers & i had done; this was all between my mom & dad. he started to cry, for about the third time i could remember in my 16 years of living. everyone was crying, except me. maybe because of my dry cheeks, my dad felt most comfortable asking me to come with him to check out his one room apartment in echelon, right down the street from the doomed & deteriorating mall. i agreed to go because he was my dad. i never said no to my dad. i never said much of anything to him.

i wasn't surprised too much by the separation. i had seen it coming. i noticed that the time dad spent around the house had become increasingly less. at night when they thought i was sleeping, i could hear my parents arguing. my mom asked my dad about an address on his parking ticket, & why he was out so late. my dad loudly & angrily denied any kind of wrongdoing, claiming that my mom was being paranoid & ridiculous. a few years later, my dad finally divorced my mom & married the woman, with 3 young kids, that lived at the address on the parking ticket. 

scott was 11 when dad left. we all felt abandoned, but scottie, being the youngest, had been without a father figure for years. my dad traveled a lot with his job. he would be gone for weeks at a time, come home for a handful of day, & have a new international destination in store for his already saturated passport. it felt normal for him to be gone. in school, when scott was asked to describe my dad for father's day, he said that dad like ties & suits; that's all my brother knew of our father. 

a few years later, when dad got remarried, he refused to go to the wedding. but he ended up spending the most time with my dad & his new wife & family. steven & i went off to college, leaving scottie to console our still grieving mother. he was forced to spend time with the dad he hardly knew. he became the liaison between my parents, & a step-brother to 3 kids who adored him. but what he truly wanted is his family back together. 

scott, particularly later in life, was probably considered to be the black sheep of our family. but i recently heard that there really aren't any black sheep. these "outcasts" are simply the most sensitive & emotionally aware kin. they end up embodying the rest of the family's joys, despairs, angers, shames, excitements, love. they feel so deeply & truly that sometimes it is hard for others to accept, particularly if they are trying to forget. i now see scott as the delicate & passionate brother & son who wanted to relate to each one of us without inhibition. we were too scared to be so exposed... to feel so openly...

may we all become the black sheep in our families.  

together & alone in grief

last night steve went with me to my first GRASP meeting. we weren't really sure what to expect. from an earlier email correspondence with the group coordinator, i was anticipating only a few other moms. but there were a dozen other people there besides my brother & me. most were mothers, but there were 2 other sisters & 1 other brother. some lost their family member (a majority of which were young males in their early 20s) within the last couple years. one woman lost her son just 2 weeks ago. too many had the unfortunate fate of finding their sons dead.

we arrived about a half hour late so people were already talking. it reminded me of what i imagined an aa meeting would look like: everyone in a circle sitting in varying chairs, a dozen assorted books about grieving on the table in the middle, lots of dunkin donuts coffee, but no cigarettes, having to hold a large stuffed butterfly pillow when you want to speak. it took no time at all for me to feel how horribly sad, but strangely reassuring it was to be surrounded by these other lost strangers who somehow understood exactly what i was experiencing. they could relate going through year after painful year of trying to get their son or daughter help. & clinging onto to each moment of sobriety with so much hope for the fairy tale future you'd envisioned because you could never allow yourself to give up on them. you felt their despair & utter confusion when she decided to start taking drugs again. when they said that he was a good kid, & that she was a loving & caring person, but became lost along the way under the heavy mask of addiction, you knew it was true because you saw the same events unfold before your own eyes. when steven openly compared scottie to peter pan, everyone understood because they, too, once had their own child who never wanted to grow up.

it's incredible how scott seemed so similar to all these other fallen addicts. for so long, i thought that my brother was beyond the norm. i couldn't picture anyone living like him; & i thought it was impossible for him to fit into any group. but then i met so many of his friends who came to say goodbye to scottie for the last time, how they weren't embarrassed by their dirty bodies, pot smelling clothes, & foul language at the hospital. & at the memorial they threw for him at rittenhouse square nearly a week after he died, how they smoked incessantly, drank 40s from paper bags, & reminisced fondly about my brother's uninhibited lifestyle. i knew that he wasn't alone. &  when i heard these women describe their children, i could have sworn they were talking about scottie. they seemed to all have a diagnosed mental illness. they stopped maturing around the time they starting taking drugs; & they were very good at manipulation. there were so many periods of sobriety, & heavy drug use happened quickly & too often surprisingly. each of these souls loved their son, daughter, brother, or sister beyond words. i felt their tears, that have become become a normal part of life. & their utter devotion that hasn't waned since the formidable deaths.

fueled by such openness & empathy, i confessed that coping with scott's death had been difficult with my son harry; how, at times, i wished i could be alone & sit in stillness & wait for scottie, but being a mom to a 1 year old rarely afforded that luxury. as i was divulging these dark revelations, although honest, i was admitting them to women who had recently lost their own sons, who would probably give anything in the world to have their babies back again. & i was struck with such guilt & sadness. i asked for forgiveness. a few women had similar stories to mine, trying, in vain, to make me feel less selfish & horrible. but i continue to feel the regret.

i was asked to come back next week; & god-willing, i will. i pray that through getting to know about addiction & mental illness, i will better understand my brother. i pray that through self-reflection, i will find forgiveness & grace. i pray that through these other beautiful hurting individuals, we can find purpose, peace & ultimate rest.