scottie: king on his porcelain throne

when scottie was little, he used to make very frequent bathroom trips. anywhere & everywhere my family went, he would have to use the toilet.. & never just to urinate. at home, our downstairs bathroom was situated right next to our living room. every night, while the family was watching tv, scott would strip down completely naked (like having a single piece of clothing on would inhibit his ability to move his bowels), and use the bathroom, which was never a quick visit. it seemed like he was comfortable being the king on his porcelain throne. he always left the door wide open too, because he never wanted to miss what was on the television screen. he would loudly yell, "what did i miss?!" with his young yet surprisingly loud voice. my brother steven would always try to close the door, embarassed by our brother's unembarrassed & brazen nakedness. without fail, the door would soon be flung open with scottie asking, "what did i miss?!"

in restaurants, it wasn't too different. about halfway through our meal, scottie would say that he had to go to the bathroom. when he was big enough to go by himself, he would beeline to the bathroom (he always knew where they were) & disappear for at least 15 minutes before my dad or steven was sent to find him. they would always catch him in a stall, pants around his ankles, taking his sweet time on the toilet. dad & steve would come back to the table annoyed. but scott was always happy, blissfully oblivious, & appeared to be feeling much much lighter.

everything must die i know but now.. we gotta live

the tuesday after scott died, he was cremated. the funeral parlor that my dad found said that we could be involved as much as we wanted to. so my dad, mom, brother steve, husband mike, uncle chip & i met at the lp wooster funeral home. there was a viewing for a hare krishna set up for later that night. underneath the viewing bed, a handmade painted sign said, "you are now seated on God's lap." it was nice to picture scottie there too.

dennis, our liaison to the world of cremation, brought us to a different house which was used to burn the dead bodies. we stepped inside & it looked like any other suburban sitting room. dennis led us through a door to an immense cold warehouse room with a large steel furnace, that he explained was actually like a kiln. dennis started up the incinerator, which took a while to heat up, so we took a seat in the waiting room. my uncle couldn't take the loud roar of the heater so he stayed outside. my parents held hands.. for probably the first time in 15 years. it wasn't out of some imaginary hope for a future romance or the sadness of lost memories. but out of pure love.. for my brothers & me, for still having each other, for the loss of the son whom they had brought into the world only 24 years ago. my mom said how happy she was that they still have love for each other & didn't harbor any animosity that plagues so many other divorced couples. my dad said that in all honesty, it was scott & his issues that ended up keeping them connected when otherwise they would have drifted apart years ago.

dennis called us back in, where we saw scott's casket. it was a large cardboard box; on the top was written "scott parker" & underneath it said "head." dennis explained that bodies have to be burned in a certain direction inside the furnace. it was strange picturing his naked body, probably looking much like it did a few days before in the hospital but without any tubes stuck into him or machines keeping his body alive. i could so easily see his matted curly hair, dirty feet still smelly from not being washed, dried blood on his nose & other various places he had been pricked, his drunken pizza slice tattoo on the back of his left calf. we all kissed scott's box as dennis opened the mouth of the incinerator. there were no flames or ashes. but still the inside hazed over with heat, like the hot road on the horizon at midday in a desert. my parents lifted up my brother's body to the height of the opening, much like jacking a car up when changing a flat tire. we kissed the box again, when suddenly my mom started drumming on the cardboard. we instinctually did the same because that's exactly what scott would have done.

we said goodbye & pushed scott's body & casket into the kiln. we cried & cried & clung to each other. our family, which hadn't been a "family" in at least 15 years, would never be the same again. but here we were, needing each other like we never had before; squeezing each other with scott's vigor, as if he was hugging through us.

i was so sad while driving home: not looking forward to coming back to the house that held so many nightmares but also so many good memories of my brother; thinking about the wonderful staff at the hospital & how i never could have gotten through this without them; wondering what happened to the glove we had put on scottie on friday because he didn't look right without it. i passed by so many reminders on that ride.. & i realized that, for good & for bad, this would happen everyday for the rest of my life.

my mom called after dad & steven had picked up scott's ashes. the funeral director said that the hospital had taken such care with scottie & that he looked so clean. they had even washed his hair. he asked about the tattoos..
& why he still had a glove on his right hand.

Live to love. A song by Scott David Parker

Time... Time... Time... Let this all unwind
So let the light shine
We'll never be blind... Never be blind
And it's hard I know
It all just helps us grow
'Cause life sometimes will die, I know
But right now we're gonna live
We're gonna live

Any kinda love is a good kinda love
I wanna give you whatever it is to keep it all to love
It's easy to love anytime, anywhere
I wanna give you whatever it is to keep it all to love

I wanna give you all my love all the time
I wanna give you all my love all the time
I wanna give you all my love all the time
I wanna give you all my love all the time, all the time...

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, & weaves them gratefully Into a single cloth...

tomorrow, harry & i leave to go to florida to scatter some of scottie's ashes. the last time i was there was in late september. at the end of august, my dad had taken scottie down to stay with him in st. petersburg for a while. my brother had been delusional & paranoid. i remember him looking out my front window, thinking that people parked in the car outside were waiting for him. there was a night where he was sitting on the cold granite floor of my kitchen, in the dark for nearly an hour. he wanted to be out of sight from some people who were out to get him. he was skinny & had lots of trouble sleeping. my other brother steve was in from china & staying with us, as was my dad; & neither of them wanted to stay in the same room with him because he was up pacing all night long.

mom wanted to have an intervention. we knew he had been taking an oral form of heroin. but the rest of us knew that scott was no where near to wanting help, or believing that he had a problem. my dad thought that if scott would agree, the best option would be to take my brother back to florida with him, away from the drugs, the park where he got the drugs, the bad influences around philadelphia & south jersey. much to our surprise, & my mother's delight, scott agreed. he left with little more than a pillowcase full of belongings. he left a pair of timberland's he had found on the sidewalk next to my door. they ended up staying there for almost 5 months before i got sick of them & threw them out. that was 2 weeks before scott died.

my brother stayed convinced that insects were aliens & that white vans were tailing him & my dad. so dad talked scott into checking himself into a mental hospital where he was diagnosed bi-polar. but scott hated the drugs. he said that he didn't want any meds in his system, regardless of the fact that he had been self medicating with illegal prescription pills, alcohol & street drugs for years. so he was on risperdal & sleeping pills for a couple weeks by the time i came down to stay with my mom. she was going to be alone with scott for a few weeks & didn't know what to expect. we thought that harry & i would be a good distraction for both of them.

scott complained of the meds almost immediately. but damn he looked healthy. he had gained weight, which is a side effect of the risperdal; it increases one's appetite. & instead of staying up night after night, he had been going to sleep at a reasonable 10:00. but this wasn't scottie's lifestyle. & he hated it. to help keep some semblance of his old self, my brother smoked a couple packs of cigarettes & drank at least 3 monster energy drinks a day. it was like a rehab center for a 13 year old. he got so angry with my mom & couldn't possibly understand why she would want him to take his meds. his delusions eventually subsided, enough that he could laugh & make fun of himself about them.

that week, my brother did very little but irritate me. we went to the beach, & he thought the fish were after him. we went to busch gardens, & he waited by the front entrance while my mom, harry & i rode the train to look at the animals. we went to a flea market, & he wanted to leave right after he found what he was looking for. my brother, the scottie i had grown up with & liked hanging out with, was nearly gone. i knew he had been slipping away for years. but that week i spent with him in september, my fears were confirmed.

there were moments that my scottie appeared. like the short amount of time he would play with harry upstairs on the carpet & teach him out to bang on a bongo. or when we would wait to ride the roller coasters together; & go on 3 or 4 times if the line was short enough. he would know where each camera was & have a face ready. i felt my heart swell with sisterly protection when some punk ass kids in the line next to us whispered about scott while looking at his tattooed body & gloved hand that held only 2 fingers. i wanted to shelter him from those stares that he would undoubtably get the rest of his life. luckily, he didn't seem to notice...

when i left florida i was relieved. i remember telling my mother that i loved scott, but i didn't like him all the time. he wasn't the scott that i had remembered. i knew he was in there.. but he was buried so deeply. i wasn't sure he was able to escape...

i once was lost but now i'm found... was blind but now i see you

in about an hour, my brother will have been dead a week. needless to say, it has been the most difficult time of my life.  my mom, brother, husband, & brother in law were in the operating room when scott's heart stopped beating. we were in bright Barney purple scrubs & hairnets. the surgeons & staff were ready to operate as soon as we left to take scottie's organs away in hopes of saving some other people's lives. it was so cold & dark. we sang, "i'll fly away! oh glory. i'll fly away! when i die, hallelujah by & by! i'll fly away!" as i watched the red line get flatter & flatter on the monitor. i remember saying "thank you GOD for giving scott to us." i heard the staff behind me crying with us.

he was pronounced at 11:29. on january 21, 2011. my brother in law's birthday. almost 6 months after my father in law passed away. the day after my husband's birthday.

before going into the OR, mary, from the gift of life program, commended us for the giving of scott's organs. but really we were just doing what he wanted to do his whole life. it seemed too obvious. she said that we'd be invited to a banquet for families of organ donors in 2012; & i remember losing it. it was like she was telling me i'd be without my brother for the next year. 

how am i supposed to live without him? how do i explain to my son, or my future children about their scuncle? i used to joke around with mike that harry would say, "what's wrong with uncle scott?" because he was always so loud, smelly, dirty & drumming unabashedly with his nub.

when i picture the rest of my life without scottie, i feel paralyzed. i can't breathe. i know i'll always have my memories & pictures & home videos. i believe that he is nearby, in the air, a part of him always in my heart. but selfishly i want him to call me. to show up on my porch. to take off his god awful stinky shoes, go upstairs & wash his feet. to sit on my couch & let penny lick his face all over. to teach harry a paradiddle; & what it means to love. i want him to tell me he loves me. & i want to tell him that i love him.

i believe that god is showing himself through all of my friends, family, & scott's friends. he is sustaining me with food made lovingly through neighbors' hands. i can even manage to smile at the roses on my dining room table & the tiny paper cranes that came in the mail today. i feel so much love from people who are still writing to me, telling me they are sorry, they love me, they are thinking of me... it doesn't matter really. i am just so so so thankful for so many things. but especially for the life of my brother. who obviously touched so many people. who was hurting & in pain, but still managed to love & care for everyone. he loved others more than he did himself. 

my dad has a sweet story of scott that i'll end with. within the last couple of months, my dad was driving scott home from a doctor's appointment when he heard scott yell, "dad pull over!" so he did & scottie ran out of the passenger's seat towards about a half dozen street guys he didn't know hanging out on some park benches. my dad saw scott passing out his cigarettes & soon later ran back to the car. as he was getting in, he says, "man those guys are awesome!"

may we all be able to show such love...

thank you Scottie, for showing us the way.

amen & amen.

a prayer for scottie...

I am praying again, Awesome One. 

You hear me again, as words from the depths of me rush toward you in the wind. 

I've been scattered in pieces, torn by conflict, mocked by laughter, washed down in drink. 

In alleyways I sweep myself up out of garbage & broken glass. With my half-mouth I stammer you, who are eternal in your symmetry. I lift to you my half-hands in wordless beseeching, that I may find again the eyes with which I once beheld you. 

I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out into the open. 

I am a city by the sea sinking into a toxic tide. I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown had poisoned my mother as she carried me. 

It's here in all the pieces of my shame that now I find myself again. I yearn to belong to something, to be contained in an all-embracing mind that sees me as a single thing. I yearn to be held in the great hands of your heart - oh let them take me now. Into them I place these fragments, my life, & you God - spend them however you want. 

Rainer Maria Rilke


*this poem once helped me through a rough time in my life. It now reminds me of my brother's difficult life & his freedom from it. Praise God