Dumb Stuff

Everything seems dumb right now.  Really, it just seems numb AND dumb.

 

Yesterday on the drive home from Dallas, after my brother-in-law’s two memorial services on Sunday, Tim mentioned something – the Thai restaurant where we used to meet my mother-in-law and brother-in-law for dinner a lot.

I lost it.

Brian was not my favorite person.  We were complete opposites.  I was tradition and he was rebellion.  I was Sarah McLachlan, he was any punk rock band (I don’t know the names of any…)

I was “why did you leave your family?”  He was, “I gotta leave them to pursue this dream, this chance at happiness.”

But we could always share panang curry around a table in a small restaurant in Arlington, Texas.

Even though we misunderstood each other a lot, we had one person in common who was one of the most important people in our lives and that is my husband, his brother.

I knew Brian for almost exactly half of his life.

When Tim and I started dating he was 18.5 years old.  He took his life at age 37 plus a few months.

And when I say I “knew” him, I simply mean as much as he would let me in.

He used to make me SO mad with his attitude of always being right.  But I would take him back, right now and tell him he’s right every time if I could.

There is only one thing I really feel he was not right about and that was this last, final decision he made.

 

It’s hard to describe what you feel when a loved one leaves you unexpectedly and on his own terms.

It’s hard to explain how you feel when you wished you had known them better and spent more time with them.

It’s hard to convey how it feels when you know they were happy somewhere, somehow for a little while and you wonder why that could not continue…

 

So yeah, a lot of stuff around me feels really dumb right now.    Like daily routine stuff or the man who flipped me off on the road the other day who has no idea what is going on in my life right now.  Or just waking up every morning and realizing this is NOT a nightmare, but reality.

 

THIS is the Brian I knew “way back when”.  This is this Brian I spent the most time with.  This is the Brian I choose to remember for me, for the memories I hold dear.  This is the Brian I will always love…

 

 

But I love THIS Brian too because this is the Brian that was the most happy for some time, doing what he loved and living in a community that completely had his back.  Both Brians hold a place in my heart and in our family forever and ever.

 

pink light images – december 2009

 

We’ll always miss you…

Always.

I hope you’re playing music “upstairs” right now.

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