I’ve had a bit of practice with grieving.
Over the course of my twenty five years of life, I have experienced the loss of three grandparents, one aunt, one uncle, one brother, three friends, a dog and two cats. And those are just the deaths immediate to me – while it may not be directly intimate, we tend to feel deeply when our friends experience death in their own families. Also, it is not uncommon to be greatly impacted by the death of a celebrity or important public figure.
I guess it might seem strange to be quantifying things like this; counting deaths like keeping score. But the thing is that I think about death and grief like I think about commuting to work. It’s second nature. It’s a part of what I do each day.
At first, after the suicide of my brother Michael (he was 21, I was 18 at the time. He purchased a hand gun from an Albuquerque pawn shop and shot himself that same day), I felt a bit like this guy —————————>
Existence became totally stunning. Traversing through time and space, I was ill-equipped and the battery in my emotional headlamp kept fritzing out. I was a solitary nomad in a cave full of reflective planes that offered little in the way of nourishment or direction.
I am writing this now just after the seven year mark of that event has come and gone and I no longer feel like I’m tromping around on scary shards of suprisingly organic materials.
Now, it’s a bit more like this. ————————>
I know this place. It is a part of my familiar scenery and I have memories and sensations associated with it that I can call up or be surprised by. I can come here whenever I need to. I can make full circles for as long as I want, so long as I am mindful of other travelers, or I can splay off in whatever direction I choose. It’s real.