Sibling Loss

A non-hiker hikes in Montana

/ Missi / 3 Comments

To understand the significance of me hiking Beehive Basin, I need to get one thing out of the way first. I have to give an accurate picture of how out of shape I am. I have never exercised more than three times in a week– actually, I’m probably being generous there- let’s say twice in a week. And those occasions were extremely rare. Like the times that I’ve exercised twice in week has happened maybe…. 10 times in my life. So yes, I am the person who gets winded walking a steep flight of stairs just a little too quickly (read: at a normal pace). Okay, so that’s me.

Andy loves to hike, loves Montana and he loves Beehive Basin, a hike in Big Sky, MT. He calls it his happy place and recently had the mountain range of the Spanish Peaks (the range at the top of the hike) tattooed on his arm. It’s a place in the world where he feels most at peace and most himself.

Andy’s family has been visiting Big Sky since the 90s and this is a hike I have heard the whole family talk about often. On our first trip out here together 5 years ago I twisted my ankle the day before the hike so this year was my chance at redemption and to see what all the fuss is about.

Andy told me the hike was 2 miles, so I thought it was weird we had packed a lunch, but whatever. And let’s also be clear- this is not a difficult hike for probably most humans on the planet. People in their 70s were passing me. I’d like to blame the elevation (a gain of 1600 feet up) and the length (turns out it’s between 6 and 7 miles total) or the time (I think we were gone for 6 hours) and any other excuse that sounds reasonable, but really, I’m just out of shape.

At one point when the hike got hard I looked down and I saw my arm. I saw where I had my brother’s signature tattooed a couple months ago. His writing was taken from a card he sent me years ago. My dad calls it, “the perfect Justin scrawl.”

We were in a flat part of the hike and I had gotten ahead of our little group of me, Andy and his mom and dad. (Which, PS, my in-laws can do this hike in their sleep. They kindly slowed down so I didn’t feel like I was the one constantly stopping us, though at the beginning, I most certainly did.)

Anyway, I looked at my arm and thought of my brother. And I also thought about his death. I thought about his last breath. And I reminded myself that I was alive, I had air in my lungs, and I could do this hike. I could keep going even when it was tough.

My brother doesn’t have breath in his lungs anymore, but when he did, he wanted to keep on living. It wasn’t his choice to die. So I kept going because he can’t. I thought of him and cried because I missed him. I cried because sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s really gone. I cried because I hate that he’s gone.

I was glad I had on sunglasses and was a ways ahead of the group for these thoughts and memories. I was cruising at this point, having something else to think about and focus on probably helped. Andy actually had to call out to me to stop because it wasn’t safe for me to be by myself in bear country.

After a while of processing all these thoughts and continuing to push myself further than I thought I was capable of, I stopped to take a picture of my arm. But the rear facing camera was on which made me laugh (because when is that ever a flattering angle?), so I grinned and got this one first.

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I switched the camera back to get a picture of my hiking motivation, my brother’s signature complete with a little heart and arrow he used to draw when signing his name on cards.

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My brother’s signature

I felt my brother’s presence with me on that hike which made me smile because I don’t think that hike would have been his first idea of a good time either. I got brave at one point and asked him what he thought of me doing this hike. He liked to tease me for being what he called, “unathletic” for well, my whole life. And when I asked what he thought, I only heard four words back, “I’m proud of you.”

And yes, I sobbed exactly like a woman talking to her dead brother’s spirit on a hiking trail.

When we got to the lake at the top and were rewarded with an up close view of the Spanish Peaks, I felt glad I had done something that was hard for me. And I noticed another feeling. I was proud of me, too.

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The view at Beehive Basin with Alpine Lake and the Spanish Peaks

Does Grief Have a Timeline?

/ Missi / 4 Comments

This morning as I was backing my car out of the driveway a song was just starting on the radio. It was a song that reminded me of Justin because he had said something about it once. “I almost stopped believin’ once, and I bet Journey was pissed!” So I smiled, laughed at the memory of how funny my brother was, and .02 seconds later I was full on ugly crying. I cried through the entire song, up the hill, through the stop lights and into a new town, until it ended. I hadn’t had a long cry like that over Justin in quite a while.

So I started thinking, it’s been over a year and the missing him waves can be just as strong as it was the moment he was no longer in this world.

A friend’s dad recently died and he describes the void in the world as a hole he lives with where his dad used to be. I saw an author say those feelings are the cost of loving deeply, and I think that’s true too. If there wasn’t such great love there, there wouldn’t be such great pain and grief without them.

Facebook memories reminded me this morning that a year ago, a friend posted a picture on my page of an hourglass that said, “There is no timeline with grief, take all the time you need.” I like that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be “done” grieving and I definitely don’t think grief is something to “get over” or “move on” from.

But I like the language about moving forward, in spite of the grief, continuing to live around this hole where our person used to be, acknowledging their life and the sadness of their absence for as long as we need to.

Even if it’s as long as we live.

 

The year of firsts

/ Missi / Leave a comment

A year ago yesterday my brother went to heaven. Somehow we made it through what so many refer to “the year of firsts.” Each first without him was hard, Thanksgiving and Christmas especially. But so was 4th of July, Easter, his birthday, my birthday, mother’s day, father’s day. I had been with him for almost all of those the year before. And we celebrated most of those days together for over 30 years in a row.

So the holidays and special days were hard without him, but so were random Tuesdays, Saturdays, and any old day that I thought of him and wished he was still here, which was most days in the past year. I remember the first day I didn’t think of my brother until it was almost the end of the day and I was like, “Oh my gosh, it happened, a day came where I didn’t think of him” and I burst into tears. But then I realized, oh, I guess today is not that day because I am thinking of how I didn’t think of him. Grief is weird.

I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that he has been gone for a whole year. I told my mom that it seems like yesterday that he was still here. Mom gently pointed out that we had 33 years with him, and only one without, so it seems natural to remember all the time with him instead.

And honestly? I prefer it that way. I like that I can look back on memories and remember him full of life, funny, telling stories, making people laugh. Or on holidays I can remember different things we did together. Mother’s day was a tough one this year because it was the last holiday before he died.

My mom decided to call this mother’s day simply, “Sunday” and that made it a lot easier to handle. We got together to tell stories, laugh and cry a little bit.

My favorite Mother’s day memory was when Justin and I were teenagers. My mom is and was a very good mom to us. And she almost never swore in front of us, so when she did, it was memorable. Our parents divorce was fresh and emotions were high. The custody rules were for us to visit my dad every other weekend. It so happened that one fell on Mother’s day weekend. My mom was expressing her frustration saying, “He got you on Christmas Eve, (and some other holiday I’ve since forgotten)… and now he gets you on Mother’s F@%#ING Day?!” My brother and I stood there in stunned silence. It was clearly a rhetorical question.

And that Mother’s Day, my brother decided to make a joke out of the awkward moment. We made mom cards that year saying, “Happy Mother’s F@%#ing Day” that morphed into “Mother’s King Day” over the years, complete with us drawing tiny crowns in the cards.

This story still makes me smile years later and I know my brother’s creativity made mom grin too. I’ll have to remember this on next year’s mother’s day.

I’m so thankful to have had him as my brother. He was a very good one that could always make me laugh, even on command. Last night I told Andy a dumb joke that Justin used to tell that still makes me smile- probably because I can hear his voice doing a goofy accent with it in my head.

What’s brown, and sounds like a bell?

 

DUUUUNNNNNNG!

Love you, Gus.

I’ll take all the therapy for $600, Alex

/ Missi / 1 Comment

I took some time to write on real paper instead of a keyboard this week. I don’t know why it makes such a difference to get thoughts out of my head this way. Maybe the physical act of putting pen to paper frees up mental energy or space or something. As a side bonus, it’s cheap therapy! Though I just emailed my counselor to go back for another session after a two month hiatus, so who am I kidding- I’ll take allll the therapy!

My first time in a counselor’s office was when my parents were divorcing. I don’t remember much except that my counselor asked a lot of questions and I didn’t feel comfortable to answer/share with her. I also remember feeling extremely jealous when I asked my brother what he and his counselor talked about and he said, “We play checkers.” What!? I wanted to play checkers and not have to talk! I felt like I was getting the raw end of the deal.

My next time with a counselor would be another fifteenish years later. It would be the first time I was diagnosed with depression. I liked this woman instantly. She took time to clarify the different types of depression. One kind is where the depression is brought on by a situation and with a good support system (fam/friends) and some counseling, you can get out of this little pit. Another kind of depression is a little deeper in the pit and someone could need some medicine for a while. And the third kind needs medicine on a long-term basis for a chemical imbalance. As she described these, I could think of family and friends who have been in each spot. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was depressed.

As we talked a little more, she put me squarely in the first one. Situational Depression. This type is usually brought on by some sort of life change that is typically unwanted and sometimes traumatic. Anything from a job loss, to death of a family member or close friend, to divorce, retirement, etc. Something that jolts you from your regular routine/daily life. In looking at that list, mine was far less traumatic. But there I was, in a funk.

The counselor had me write out all the losses I had experienced in my life. After I gave her the list she looked at me over the top of her glasses and said, “And this is the first time you’ve ever been depressed?” I told her I guessed so. She said that was amazing. (My husband says I have too much self-esteem, but when these are your true stories, can you even help it? ;))

Our conversation reminded me of the stress tests we had to take as teens in school. You would get points based on the life changes, points for changing houses, schools, for parents separating, divorcing, pet dying, etc. The year that all of those things happened at once? Justin and I scored off the charts and we still weren’t depressed. In our family we used denial and humor as coping mechanisms, and for the most part, it worked.

My counselor and I worked through stuff over the next few months and then she told me I had graduated and didn’t need to see her anymore. I was kind of sad, it was fun to work through things and test out what I was learning. I didn’t see another counselor again for years.

One morning I sent an email to a new counselor asking if she had any openings because I thought I might need to talk to someone soon. Later that night, my brother died.

Having been diagnosed with depression once, I can say I was probably depressed for some period of time after Justin died. Or maybe I still am? It’s hard to tell when there is a string of days that are really good and then a couple emotional ones and then good ones again that can last for weeks. Or maybe this is just grief? But this wondering is all hindsight in looking back nearly a year later. I didn’t notice depression symptoms this time around right away. For a long time I was in the shock and numb stage. Probably longer than I realized.

I saw this new counselor each week for a while, then every two weeks, then every three and in February I just didn’t make another appointment. But yesterday I did. With my brother’s deathiversary right around the corner, I figured it probably doesn’t hurt to have an extra set of ears and insight. Also, I’ve had a few extra emotions lately.

I’m sure most of it has to do with coming up on one year without my brother. I was trying to explain it to my mom the other day. I said, “I remember everything so clearly like it was yesterday.” She asked if I meant the day he died. I said, well, I’ll probably always remember that- but I meant him being alive, being here on this planet with us. My mom so simply pointed out that we had a lot more time with him than without him, so it is natural that we remember more the time he was with us. And honestly, I prefer it that way.

I’m grateful for the 33 years I got to have him as a brother. Now I get to grin and laugh as I read old messages from him. And I still talk to him on occasion, even if it’s as brief to say aloud, “Hi, Gus” when I think of him. Recently my dad asked me to imagine my brother’s reaction to something. When I did, I saw a clear picture of him laughing with his head in his hands, shaking his head back and forth and telling me, “I can’t believe you did that!” and maybe he called me stupid too. We laughed together and my dad said that sounded about right.

I think the next couple weeks will be tough, but if our family motto is anything- it can get us through this. “Always leave them laughing.” Always leave your audience wanting more.

 

(If my brother was here right now he’d wink and say, “See what I did there?”)

When to go to a funeral

/ Missi / 1 Comment

I usually go to a funeral because someone I love has died, and that sucks because death sucks.

But what about the other reasons to go to a funeral? What if someone I love has lost someone they love? What if I only knew their loved one casually, or not at all. Does it make sense to go?

I was in my early thirties the first time I was hemming and hawing about whether or not to go to a funeral. My friend’s niece had died. She was eight years old.

My justification for not going was simple, I had never met her niece. I thought this was a pretty compelling reason until I considered the other side. My friend lost someone she loved. Still, I went back and forth trying to figure out if I would be out of place or in the way of the family if I went.

As I was wrestling with this, I asked my co-workers what they thought. One said, “People don’t remember everyone who was at their wedding, but they remember who shows up at a funeral.” So I went. And it was beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. I found my friend after the service and I hugged her and talked with some of the other family before leaving. 

Since attending that service, my uncle and brother died. I was blown away when five friends showed up for my uncle’s funeral. It was then that I realized what my co-worker said was true. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it meant to see familiar faces who cared enough about me and my family to be there. Most had never even met my uncle, but they still showed up.

At my brother’s funeral, even more people came. I don’t think I can remember them all. It was a bit of a blur that day. The funeral director said in 30 years he had never seen more people turn out for a funeral than for my brother’s. The sanctuary was packed to standing room only. Another crowd listened in the lobby through speakers. Several dozen motorcycle buddies stood guard outside until the service was over. They rode off together completing the memorial ride they had started that morning in Justin’s honor. The whole day was beautiful and heart wrenching.

I remember many of the people that came to show their support and love. Family friends I hadn’t seen in a decade or more, a friend from junior high, old youth leaders from when Justin and I were teens, Andy’s best friend from college and his wife, and so many friends I can’t possibly list them all (I tried and my eyes started filling with tears so that I couldn’t see the screen anymore). To each of you that came that day, thank you, your presence was such a gift on an extremely difficult day.

It’s overwhelming when people show they love and care about you in a such a simple way.

A month after my brother’s memorial service, our friend’s dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Because we understood how much it meant to have people show up, we checked the newspaper and googled for days to track down the service information. We got the time off work and drove up north. When we walked into the small country church, our friend’s eyes welled up and we hugged for a long time.

When we show up at a funeral we are saying to our loved ones that their pain matters and we are standing in it with them.

I felt love, support, and we’re-standing-with-you-in-this-crappiness from each person who showed up at my brother’s service.

I recently saw the grandmother of the little girl whose memorial service I attended three years ago. We were talking about grief and perspective and about showing up at funerals. She got a serious look on her face as she said, “Because now you know! You know you always go!”

I couldn’t agree more.