my brother's brother

tomorrow will make 6 months since my brother died. sunday will make an entire year of living without my father in law. i found out this morning that one of my brother's best friends died yesterday morning. i'm not sure how much more pain my tender heart can take.

scottie had so many friends in so many groups in various parts of the country it was easy to forget some. or have your eyes glaze over when he told another tale about their asinine antics or reckless behavior. but ryan... he wasn't easily dismissible - in demeanor or appearance. he has beautiful super long, super straight hair that would drive any girl i know insanely jealous. he wore the same smelly, dirt dyed, threadbare bajas & shirts with the sleeves cut off that scottie liked to wear. he had the energy to match a puppy who'd been left alone all day. or a 17 month old toddler. he could talk the ear off of a deaf person. & my brother adored him. they enjoyed telling people they were brothers, & watch them as their eyes darted back & forth, trying to figure out if they were lying.

i saw ryan at rittenhouse the week after scott died at a vigil his friends were holding. i remember wanting to see him in particular. although he could be loud & irritating, he was so much like my brother that it was comforting. it's like those ratty pair of shoes you can't get rid of - they fit too perfectly & have walked so many miles with you. you can't bear the thought of throwing them out, even though you can feel the road because the soles are so worn. he walked over to me, with a bottle in a paper bag in his hand, & hugged me tight while I cried into his silky hair. we reminisced about my brother... our brother. i told him that i wanted him to always keep in touch with me, to in some way stay in sporadic contact, so that i would be able to be reminded of scottie tangibly. he smiled proudly & reassured me that he would. then i watched him walk to where the candles with lit in the cold, pick up a pile of snow, & sculpt my brother's nub - a permanent "hang-loose" hand - & leave it next to his empty 40 ounce beer bottle.

i recently saw ryan last month in rittenhouse during one of my visits there with my mom. he was super happy to see us & promptly made sure to put his shirt on before he gave us each a hug. he chatted with my mom while i zigzagged behind harry as he excitedly & clumsily made his way around the fountain. we eventually found our way back & ryan sweetly & sincerely doted on my son. somehow, it was like seeing scott take pride in his nephew. it was the last time i would see ryan alive.

yesterday morning, i woke up to find a facebook message from "sevenfingers arebetter thanten" - a name ryan had been using since my brother died in january. i hadn't heard from anyone about scottie in months, so receiving a thought from him was surprising & much appreciated. i wrote him back:

Thanks Ryan. Good to hear from you. It's almost like hearing from my bro himself. I hope you are happy & safe & staying cool. Much much love to you too. I guess I really needed your message thanks again

i thought about him a lot that day. & karen, scott's high school girlfriend who had also written to me out of the blue that morning - asking me how i was holding up. i told her it was a hard time, but it was nice to hear from her & ryan. she said she had seen ryan a few weeks ago & that they had bonded over scott stories & she would tell me about them next time she saw me. last night i was telling mike about how happy i was to read their notes. how hearing from ryan was like hearing from scottie, & it felt so nice to know that he was thinking of me. how strange it is to feel a bond with someone you don't know very well - but somehow, life is bigger than your unknowing.

i woke up to find out that ryan had been hit by a truck while tagging a sign soon after he wrote me that message yesterday morning. i took the news much harder than i ever would have anticipated. i cried to the point of barely being able to breathe. i felt like i was going to lose the breakfast i had just consumed. i felt like i was losing my brother all over again. i made this relative stranger into the physical reminder of my brother; someone, whom i could see on occasion, who could transport me back to feeling what it was like to be around my brother - even if it was in passing moments & fleeting glimpses. so quickly he was gone. my brother's brother. & i felt so utterly alone.

ryan's note reads just like something my brother would write. & maybe, in some cosmic way, scott prompted ryan to write to me, knowing how i felt about him, so that i would be able to feel his love one last time. if that's so, thank you ryan, for channeling my brother the past 6 months, for accepting him & loving him, for being the free spirit that you were made to me & writing me this beautiful message:

• • hang loose for life
  • may eternal love bless u and ur family...love yall forewver...gnight

cardboard paintings, chicken scratch & graffiti; pollution, light & love

my brother, at times, seems like he's slowly slipping away from me. i have yet to dream about him, which makes me wonder if there is some reason he isn't visiting me. i seldom expect him to show up at my front door anymore. or when some mystery number appears on my cell phone, my first instinct is to no longer guess that it's scottie calling from a random phone he borrowed, just to check in & say "hey." what always seems to get me, still, is when my mom tells me that she talked to my brother. my first instinct is to ask, "which one?" like i always used to do, out of some unconscious, unbreakable habit. i don't think i'll be able to say i have only one brother.

his death, although still so strange & surreal, is becoming more normal. i think about him often. i cry easily & quickly when i imagine seeing him in the hospital for the last time, not only 5 months ago. i fake a smile when harry points to his uncle scottie's pictures by the side of my bed, because i know that my son will only know him through those photos & the stories he will hear. & someday he can relive the day that his "scuncle" magically appeared at the birth center, or when he taught harry how to drum on the bongos in florida, or how we went to busch gardens & flea markets together. & although he may never see his uncle again, harry can be sure that he was beyond loved.

there are times i feel scottie's presence so strongly. like when we visit my father in law's gravesite. i feel this overwhelming sense that elliott & scott are together, wherever that is - i'm not sure. but i know they are next to each other, & happy, & without sickness of any kind. i see them taking care of each other. & watching out for the rest of the family, keeping us out of harm's way, as much as they are able to.

last august, when steve was visiting from china, my dad was up from florida, & scott was suffering from horrible hallucinations in my kitchen, mike & i had taken scott to a thrift store where we had bought him some clothes (because he hardly had any at that point). as we were leaving, i saw a small acrylic paint set & asked him if he wanted it, since the nice one i bought him for christmas was stolen by a former friend. i found those paints in his bag that he had brought back from florida in january. i went looking for them tonight. i was painting a card for a friend, & thought of how many times scottie & i painted on my back porch. i remembered wondering anxiously what he was going to do after he mangled his hand, but watching in utter amazement as he used his remaining fingers with such deliberation & determination. his art grew more creative, & became more haunted.

i cursed myself when i couldn't find those paints. i came across some of his brushes & an extra large crayon box. a pillowcase stuffed with pajama bottoms that he had left at my mother in law's house when he stayed there after elliott died. a disjointed poem in half chicken scratch & graffiti about pollution, truth, light & love. i smelled all of these priceless belongings, praying that a renegade molecule of scottie's smell would be left behind so that i could breathe him in.


then underneath my bed, i found dusty, hair-covered painting on a piece of cardboard. it was one of many scott had made for me over the years. some are lost, misplaced in moves or mistaken for recyclables - especially when painted on the back of pizza boxes. i'm not sure when scottie gave me this one - probably for christmas of 2009 or a recent birthday. this picture wasn't particularly my favorite. it's very busy with lots of sharpie tracing & paint on top of paint on top of paint. but discovering it tonight was like finding a missing wedding ring. especially when i turned the cardboard over & saw the message he had written:


SARAH & MIKE
I love you guys
& I love music
& I know you both do too...
Keep up the good work =)
LOVE
Scotty


along with his shred tag & other graffiti scribbles i couldn't decipher. i could hear mike faintly playing his guitar through his amp downstairs. & i felt my brother so near to me, listening along with me & drumming along approvingly.

i'm positive i'll find the paints when scottie wants me to. when he has something to tell me & i'm ready to listen.

from one super mama to another...

so somehow, my friend managed to have her baby before i got around to finishing my story... which was planned to help her (in some small way) through her own delivery. sorry, dear sister & newly fellow mama. i had all intentions of finishing my tale of labor before you bravely embarked on yours. but soon enough, if you haven't already, you will wake up in the middle of the night wondering how it suddenly turned into some june tuesday morning. & you forgot to take out the trash & recycling (for the second week in a row). & you haven't yet paid those bills (luckily you have a husband that manages to remember). & the floor is covered in equal parts dog hair & cheerio crumbs, but you can't bring to yourself to vacuum when the baby's asleep, to risk waking him up, or any other time because it's way too damn hot now. & meanwhile, you're waiting for the baby to wake up (again) & debating whether to push the dog off of your sweaty legs to go to the bathroom. somewhere in the midst off all this, the baby wakes up, as if on command, as if he heard you going over the list in your head from his crib in the room beside yours. you hope he will miraculously fall back to sleep, as if your breast milk was really just some magic sleeping aid, or wine (figuratively of course). but his whimpers inevitably turn into full on, throat expanding cries. & you sigh, glance enviously over to your sleeping husband beside you, kick & curse at the dog, & pick up the sweetest thing you've ever created to nurse back to dreamland. you realize sadly that what you've really missed out on these however many months is blissful reenergizing rest. & you desperately pray that it isn't your early morning shift in a couple hours.

becoming a mama has required me to moment by moment prioritize my life. with each precious second that isn't completely devoted to harry, i have to decide what i am going to accomplish... or allow to lie in wait. it started when i got pregnant & was initially overcome with first trimester fatigue. it was hard to give myself permission to lay in bed for most of the day when there were dishes to be washed or dinner to be cooked. or as my stomach stretched & my mobility became compromised, i had to give up feelings of guilt when i was unable to assist in lifting up the garbage bag (bummer!) or bringing all the dirty laundry down 3 flights of stairs just to take it all back up after it was cleaned. these little instances helped me to discover what was important at each moment after little harry was born. every day, i am faced with new decisions, usually dealing with my own selfish & necessary well being. like when harry naps, do i decide to wash the floors, or lie down in my own revere, hoping to catch up on my own needed slumber. or after an exhausting day of carrying a 25 pound bowling ball on my alternating hips, do i make this kick ass, super healthy, well balanced meal with all fresh, natural ingredients purchased from a the local coop or farmer's market, or heat up the frozen pizza & split the whole thing with mike. (i eat my half with absolutely zero guilt.) believe it or not, sometimes i choose the housewife, homemade direction. & i feel so proud & otherworldly, like wonder woman as a wife & mother (also with the killer body). but lots of times i opt for the rest that my body, heart & mind desperately require. sometimes i am unable to fall asleep for a short nap. but just allowing myself to not feel any obligations for a few minutes are sometimes just what i need in the middle of a tiring day. or when i finally put harry down at night, i find rejuvenation in watching a phillies game with mike while i paint my nails, or spending an absurd amount of money on a ballet class that brings me so much joy & confidence, or just going right to sleep, while letting the corners gather dust & the pesky weeds find happy little homes in the garden.

so tonight, i ate about 8,000 goldfish crackers & downed 2 (large) cups of tea cooler. harry's clothes are in the drier & another load was just put in the washing machine. mike is playing guitar with my legs propped up on his knees. i had planned on writing the third part of my delivery story, but it simply wasn't in the cards. someday, i'll get around to it, exactly when i'm supposed to share it. meanwhile, i brush whatever loose dirt i can from the black soles of my feet, climb the dusty stairs, wash my oily face & brush my gritty teeth, & happily fly into bed - the super mama that i am.

all before 10 pm.

"She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

for six or so months, from the day (specifically july 24th, mike's 32nd birthday) we finally told people that we were expecting (after getting approved for welfare health insurance, acceptance into the birth center, & our own growing excitement for our little weiss) until baby harry was introduced into the world, i was given lots of kindhearted advice & unnecessary warnings about how my delivery was probably going to take place. especially when it was disclosed that i was going to a birthing center, where it is understood that there is lots of hippie, pro-women mumbo jumbo & no epidurals of any kind. needless to say, i received a colorful array of responses, ranging from: "i don't know how you're going to do that. it's supposed to hurt like hell. like the worst pain ever. & you can labor for so long. so you could be in agony for days. & what if something happens with only a midwife there? no doctor?! can they handle everything? but hey, cool! congratulations! good luck!" to: "giving birth is orgasmic!" enough said.

contractions are little laboring episodes that cannot aptly & appropriately be described. it's like trying to make someone feel a migraine, who has never experienced the extreme tension in the temples, how even dim light & dull noise makes your head pound, how even the subtlest of movements can induce paralyzing nausea. but migraines, like contractions, are so easily dismissed & forgotten when they are over. the intense pain felt by the whole body with each cramp lasts only as long at the uterus contracts. then there is a brief & sudden period of euphoria, like a cold beer on a hot night at a phillies' game or sitting next to a hot wood burning stove while seeing the snow silently fall outside the window nearby. or like when a migraine dissipates, with the help of aspirin & caffeine, & i am able to blissfully go about my day, almost instantly forgetting i was crippled for most of the morning. the trick to handling the intense time within each contraction, according to the sweet, informative teachers of my birth class, was to concentrate, breathe through them & somehow find solace in knowing that, at most, they will last only 90 seconds. one exercise they had us do was squeeze ice cubes in our fists for increasing increments of time, resting an entire heavenly minute between each grievous grip. although melting ice cubes clutched in your hands isn't completely comparable to contractions, it was a remarkably relevant lesson in understanding how truly painful the cramps are when you are living in that moment, but also how much relief & rest there is when they are gone.

unfortunately, all that flies out the proverbial window when your uterus is hurriedly preparing your body for baby elimination mode. mike came back in the house after preparing our car for the drive to the suburbs in bryn mawr, about 1/2 hour drive from our house in west philly. i had just gotten off the phone with the midwife on duty at the birth center, & she had told me to come on in. i had also called my extremely excited & confused mother, who couldn't believe i hadn't warned her earlier so that al, her boyfriend, could dig out his car, & extra long driveway, & make it to the birth center from new jersey before the baby was born. i frantically explained to mike that we had to leave right then, that the baby was coming faster than i had imagined, that it really really hurt.

mike took my freshly packed birthing bag & gently lead me down & across pine street, which was covered in piles of snow. i don't even think our road had been plowed yet, a common courtesy of the city of philadelphia. i gingerly got in the passenger's seat, & i felt my body telling me not to sit down. it definitely wasn't a comfortable position for my laboring body. i moaned long & low through the pain, just like i was taught in the classes, which i think freaked mike out, a lot. he knew, at that point, that i was feeling some crazy shit. he pulled out of the parking spot cautiously but with quick determination. luckily, as we turned off of pine street, the other roads were cleared at least once over. & there was hardly anyone crazy enough to be driving under such dangerous conditions. he turned on the hazard lights, paused briefly at each stop sign & red light, & carefully proceeded through them. although mike was driving slowly, the infinite ice bumps on the road made the journey even more difficult. i remember trying desperately to half squat over the seat while bracing my right arm on the ceiling & the left on the rear of the seat so that my achy lower back & cushioned derriere wouldn't have to feel the added bounces.

we made it to the birth center in record time, considering the remnants of the recent blizzard. i was introduced to kathy, the midwife on duty, & my super pregnant nurse. besides mike & my mom, they would be the only other 2 people with me when i deliver. as kathy was showing me back to my room, she explained that there was only one other woman there that morning & that she was coming along excruciatingly slowly. she had been laboring since the previous day & hadn't progressed. ohhhh lordy! i thought. please don't let that be me!

so allow me to gush about the birth center for a bit: it's basically a large house down the street from the bryn mawr hospital. on the second floor, there is the office, waiting room, & check-up rooms where women go for prenatal, gynecological, & postnatal care. the basement consists of a large room where couples go for their birth seminars & the mandatory introductory class. the ground level most resembles a home. there are 3 "bedrooms" - distinguished by color - adjacent to full private bathrooms. each bathroom comes equipped with a large jacuzzi tub, which is the birth center's natural version of an epidural. towards the back of the building, there is a kitchen for parents & relatives to bring & store food, for those unforeseen long laborers. & beyond that, a dining area & living room, where extended family & visitors can wait, and celebrate, in the comforts of a home.

i surprisingly & happily got the blue room, which is what i had secretly hoped for since it is my favorite color. i immediately took off my pajama bottoms, that i hadn't gotten a chance to change out of, & kathy reached in & felt my cervix. i was dilated to 8 centimeters! which to those of you who aren't familiar with such birthing jargon, is only 2 centimeters from pushing time. which means i was really far along already. she asked if i wanted to get into the tub, & i thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. the contractions had been getting stronger, so allowing the warm, pulsating water to envelope my body was like getting a hug from your mama after falling off your bike as skinning your knees. i closed my eyes & let myself melt into the water. i tried to feel each moment of peace in it's entirety before the contractions shot through & terminated any sense of serenity. kathy told me that she was going to check in on the other unfortunate future mother & to let her know when it was time to push. i wrinkled my brow in confusion, felt my uterus prepare itself again for delivery & asked, "but how will i know?" she stopped at the door, turned & looked at me confidently, smiled & replied, "you'll know."

"He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

my friend is due to have her baby this weekend. realistically, the likelihood of giving birth on her "due date" is somewhere around 4 or 5%. so unless she erupts into labor within the next few days, she'll become one of the many mothers who impatiently crosses off her assumed birthing day, her skin stretched beyond what seems comprehensible, her joints pulled to their limits, all the while having to simultaneously urinate & scarf down antacids to feel somewhat comfortable. growing up i had a rather skewed vision of pregnancy & the birth experience. i was five when my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, scott. although we didn't know if the baby was going to be a boy or girl, we knew that it was going to be born on november 20, 1986, since my mom had undergone 2 prior cesareans with my brother & me. i remember being so excited, helping mommy organize all the baby's clothes, diapers, bibs, & toys. steven & i went to visit mommy & the new baby, which to my immediate dismay turned out to be another brother. but when i saw him, he was perfect. i recall seeing my mommy's scars from being cut open & having little scott david, the name we had all agreed on if he had turned out to be a 'he,' taken out of her belly. & for a long time, longer than i'd like to admit, i thought that cesareans were the norm. when i played with my barbie dolls, some of whom just happened to burst into pregnancy, their offspring were cut from their unrealistic frames. then barbie was sewed back up, put on her favorite tiny purple dress & mismatched high heels, & went on her merry way to live happily ever after in her homemade house with her eerily similar looking barbie friends. when i finally discovered how babies were supposed to be born, the way nature had intended it, i was shocked, sickened, & secretly hoped that my future baby would become stuck like i had so that i could have a cesarean & not have to push something so large through something so tiny.

when i found out i was pregnant with harry, mike & i were completely freaked out. we had just reunited after being separated for about 9 months, we didn't have health insurance, & probably most importantly, we had no idea what it meant to be parents. we were used to living for ourselves, doing whatever we wanted, having the future open to us without any obstructions. a baby would take us out of what we were used to, & at first we thought it was going to be a bad thing. a couple days after i took the pregnancy test (or 3 or 4 of them), we were going on a long tour with mike's band in a crowded, dirty bus across the country. we decided to keep the pregnancy between us until we got back from tour, found a doctor, & miraculously got on some kind of insurance plan. after endless reading & researching & finding out what it actually means to be pregnant, i slowly became excited & fascinated by the tiny little parasite growing inside of me. i grew to embrace my xx chromosomes, my extremely fertile uterus, my breasts that i could already feel growing full, & all the thousands of uniquely feminine characteristics that used to terrify me. i decided i wanted to deliver at the birth center, in bryn mawr, pennsylvania.

the midwives & nurses there were always encouraging me to trust & listen my body, which was something i had been channeling in my life during my counseling sessions. it was just like being in tune with my thoughts & feelings, & not being afraid of them like i had been for so many years. i was becoming empowered not only as a woman, but as 'sarah,' a person i hadn't necessarily liked was turning into someone i loved, had confidence in, & could trust. i also learned that if i couldn't have my baby naturally - if he came out too early or too late, if unforeseen complications arose, or if labor become much longer & harder than expected - i wasn't a horrible mother or terrible person. knowing your limits & graciously living within them has been very freeing & empowering for me.

my due date was set for february 8, 2010. i realize that in theory you're supposed to want your baby to gain weight & carry to full term. but the last month is so brutal. especially when it's the worst winter in philadelphia's recorded history & you are afraid to leave the house because you don't want to slip on the ice. & anyways you've been feeling like humpty dumpty who's always teetering on the edge of falling over. so i just nestled into the couch, trying to find any position that would be comfortable for more than 15 minutes before having to rock myself back off the couch & waddle up to the bathroom. & then repeat.

but i figured my little "boo" knew what was best. so i waited, through birth center appointments, multiple blizzards, & then my due date. i found myself convinced that i'd probably end up pregnant another 2 weeks, trying castor oil, spicy foods, pressure points & sex to induce labor. on february 10th, another epic snow storm hit philadelphia & the city was incapacitated. the next day i woke up around 7, after another miserable night's sleep, & went to the bathroom, as per usual. i had cramps, but i thought it was just my "morning ritual," if you know what i mean. but when i wiped there was blood on the the toilet paper & instead of the cramps going away, they grew in frequency & intensity. i guess this is it, i remember thinking. i went back to bed, believing that i would probably be in inactive labor (the first stage of giving birth) for another 12 hours. i nudged mike awake & said, "just so you know... i think i'm in labor." he smiled groggily & with surprising alertness, that i've rarely seen him possess so early in the morning, responded with, "i should go dig out the car." i told him not to worry about it yet, that i'd most likely be in labor for a while. but he rationally & quickly got dressed, put on his coat & boots, & shoveled the snow off of our nearly hidden volkswagen.

i tried to go back to sleep, to rejuvenate for my imminent delivery. but the pains were becoming too hard to ignore... & i remembered that i hadn't yet packed my "birth bag." i got up & gathered my rice-filled socks for my back, my extra clothes, the baby's first outfit, cds with laboring music. but i had to stop & brace myself frequently as the contractions came & went. it became evident rather quickly that my inactive labor wasn't going to be as long as i was told it could be. i started to time them & they were coming in at less than 4 minutes apart. at my birth class, i was told to call at 4-1-1, when my contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasted for a minute & had been going on for an hour. but i listened to my body & trusted it when it told me to call the midwife regardless. i managed to say something like this: "hi. i know i'm not supposed to call until it's 4-1-1... but my contractions are coming faster than 4 minutes & i've had them for about 30 minutes & i don't think i should wait." just by the sound of my voice, she told me to come right in.

let us die, let them live

when we were young, grown ups seemed to skirt around death, keeping it hidden on the same dusty out of reach shelf as sex & the creepy older neighbor that you were never left alone with. they never told us that each day we see to completion brings us closer to our own unavoidable & natural demise. when the dog is taken away to "live somewhere else," or the turtle mysteriously "ran away" never to be seen again, we took these stories as truths, because we didn't understand the idea of something not being anymore. we relied on consistency & permanency. when daddy went away on a business trip, we were scared that first night when he wasn't at the dinner table. "are you sure he's coming back mama?" & she was sure. so we believed her & took solace in her omnipotence. eventually he would always come back. when our ankle biting chihuahua mutt, logan, was put down after one too many nips at scott's fingers, my younger brothers were convinced he was simply in his favorite hiding place behind the couch, & never wanted to leave it.

my first close experience with death happened when my grandfather, my mom's dad, passed away suddenly when i was 12. a blood clot in his leg broke loose & traveled to his heart. he died while my grandma went home to shower & gather a change of clothes. my mom, dad, brothers & i took a flight out to chicago the following day. we met the rest of my mom's family - her mom, her 4 brothers & their spouses & children - & mourned the loss of our beloved patriarch. the funeral was full of sadness, but also songs of love & praise for having experienced such a caring, funny, creative person.

that first touch of mortality seemed to dictate all other sudden deaths i would experience. a year later, a month before my graduation from eighth grade, a friend of mine was hit by a drunk driver about a mile from my house. a group of my friends had asked me to go out with them but it was the night of my ballet recital. at home after the performance, my mom received a phone call informing her of shannon's accident. i could barely sleep. old people, like my grandpa, were supposed to die. but shannon? i kept thinking that maybe if i had been there... if only the dance recital had been a different weekend... i woke up knowing shannon was gone before the phone rang, before my mom knocked on my door & came into my bedroom with tears in her eyes. the man who had hit my 14 year old friend as she crossed the street & left her dying on the asphalt turned out to be a father of my brother's friend. my whole class spent the next month in disbelief & solidarity. we had tremendous love for even the least socially inept. we abhorred alcohol & the stupid things it made people do. we prayed & cried, & started the lifelong task of facing our imminent death. 16 years later, i can still picture shannon's bloated face in the casket. it took me that long to take another ballet class. i never danced in another recital again.

in high school, megan, who sat next to me in advanced biology, was killed when her friend, the driver of a car she was in, went on a joy ride & she was ejected from the vehicle. then 4 girls - angela who sat at my lunch table & megan number 2, the homecoming princess who knew & was loved by everyone - were killed while on vacation when a drunk lady, with a suspended license & previous dui's, ran a red light & annihilated the car they were driving. the only survivor, besides the woman, was a teenage boy from my town.

my grandma parker, my dad's mother, died suddenly sometime between christmas eve night & christmas day in 1999 during my freshman year of college. it was the second christmas after my dad left. he arrived in the morning to open up presents with us, to lessen the awkwardness of my parent's separation. our phone rang soon afterwards. it was a police officer asking for steven parker. my grandma was found dead in bed by my grandfather, whose brain was quickly deteriorating with alzheimer's. my family met my grandpa & uncle in florida. we had a small & brief remembrance for my thrifty, proud grandma, who had survived a lifelong battle with asthma & beat breast cancer at a time when it wasn't so commonplace. it was the last time i saw or talked to my grandfather. he went to arizona with my uncle, was put in a nursing home, & passed away a couple years later while i was on tour with my future husband's band. there was no service for him; it was as if he ran away & never came back.

death for me, as a grown up of nearly 30 years, has seemed to attack quickly & suddenly, with little sympathy or discrimination. especially in the last year with the unexpected & devastating passing of my father in law, elliott, & my brother, scott. with each dying i am forced to grieve again all of those who passed before. the wounds are reopened. & i can see grandpa olund in his backyard, shirtless, smoking a cigarette with one hand, & filling the kiddie pool with the garden hose in his other, so that all his grandchildren can keep cool in the humid chicaco summer air. there is shannon's slightly cocked head in her 8th grade yearbook picture- her signature red locks never to be marred by hair dye; her infectious & cheerful disposition never to be inhibited by bitterness & rejection. i hear megan teasing me about mike, who had an innocent high school crush on me, & angela discussing boys over brown bagged lunches. i can envision the other megan with her sweet smile, unencumbered by her braced teeth, befriending those who were often overlooked; her heart open & overflowing. i feel grandma parker's wrinkly skin, hear her unique cackle as she gasps for breath at one of dad's jokes, watch her tiny arched feet always squeezed into her dr. scholl sandals. i can see grandpa parker's squinty eye stare through me as he recounts his war stories that my brothers & i have heard about a hundred times before. i recall elliott's signature outfit: mesh shorts, "brotherhood" tshirt, & athletic sandals, all stained with the food he ate too quickly & diet soda that poured from his cup because of his fondness for large quantities of ice. i hear scottie's rapid drumming on the arm of the couch, smell his overpowering foot sweat mixed with cigarette smoke that always clings to his clothes, see the raised ringed scars on his arms from when he purposely burnt himself with cigarettes while in a drunken stupor.

in these memories i am hoping to keep these precious souls alive, if only for a moment, before i have to turn down the burner on the stove or change my son's soiled diaper. with each death, my departed friends & family are briefly & miraculously brought back to life. it is terribly tragic but utterly beautiful, & i am so very blessed to carry them with me & let them breathe again.

4 months in: life in a fantasy

tonight marks 4 months since my brother died. the first time. my mom & harry & i spent the day together, just like we did on january 19th. then we were waiting for scottie to get back from florida & were living in a state of panic, wondering if he would call us. what kind of state he would be in. if he could stay clean around his friends. in spite of all this, we had such a beautiful day together. today was an eerily similar day. we went to connect with scottie at rittenhouse square park. the sun was finally out, after days & days of rain. the eclectic gatherings of philadelphians were crowded on worn wooden benches, dangling off of wide concrete walls, scrunched on any available patch of dry grass, balancing on the edge the shallow wish-filled fountain. we parked next to my brother's "shred" graffiti tag, across from the concrete pond. as harry walked my mom over to the water, i dug 3 crusty pennies from the bottom of her purse. i gave one to harry, which he promptly flicked into the dirty liquid a few inches from the wall. "hi scuncle!" my mom called into the air as she tossed the bronzed coin. i lightly & apprehensively kissed mine, which left a metallic smell on my fingertips, & said "i miss you."

i sat on the ledge as my mom & harry traversed the stairs, chased the bobble headed pigeons, & fawned over each panting dog that walked by. i heard a man behind me grumble loudly about the cia. i turned around a find an overweight man in his thirties on a bench by himself. he couldn't stop talking, even though everyone that walked by quickened their pace & blatantly ignored him. he took a long drink from his iced tea carton & stood up. "my mama always said that if you don't want anyone to read what you've written... don't write anything down."

i thought of my brother & how he had been so afraid of the fbi & government & he was convinced that people were after him. i would listen to him with a mixture of shock, confusion, sorrow & anger. but i knew that although i couldn't necessarily understand the unfounded paranoia he was experiencing, it was very horrifyingly real to him. & how shitty it must have been for him - having his family tell him that we didn't believe him. of course we didn't say it like that. we wanted him to feel relieved & safe in knowing that no one was out to get him. that white cargo vans driving by where probably just work vehicles. that the chirping bugs, the fish in the gulf, & the vulture perched on top of my mom's house in florida were nothing more than the native wildlife. that the reason he was hallucinating was probably as a result of the tremendous amounts of drugs he had been taking, & his body & brain just needed some time to normalize.

but then i wondered - what if scott was never able to reach the balance that he needed? what if he was starting down a path that ultimately lead him to live a life like this man behind me? in my fantasies of my brother, i picture him growing old, somehow kicking his horrible habits, getting his mental illness under control, & starting a more decent existence. he someday has a family & they live nearby. & his children play hours on end with mine - like we had done with our own cousins. that we grow old together as friends, as brother & sister are supposed to do. my dreams didn't allow the reality of where scott was actually headed. not towards cleaning up with a job or family. but towards more drug abuse, the insatiable need for alcohol, his bouts of depression & mania becoming more & more pronounced. meanwhile his rational mind getting lost behind confusion & paranoia. it was sad to think that i may have been deluding myself all these months, well... these past couple years. that it wasn't as easy for my brother to flick the switch in his brain as i wanted it to be. & that expectation was something my brother knew he could never live up to.

walking home, as the skies turned grey & clouds gathered their ripe raindrops, my mom pointed out that 4 months ago scottie had been at the park the same time we had been there. my skin crawled a little bit & suddenly my mom gasped. she said she felt like someone was walking directly behind her & brushed against her arm, but when she turned around, we were alone. but somehow we both know that's never entirely true.