Red Sand: An Elegy

EDITOR'S NOTE: I really wanna thank many people for their messages of support after the passing of my Gram. Specifically, I want to thank the Boatmans, Jeri, Ruth, the ladies at Case Management, Carrie, the ladies of DPHHS, Barb and everybody else who really reached out. I really really appreciate the sentiments. It's taken a while to process this but it's time I laid to rest my erratic thoughts. So, I guess we'll see. :D

Okay, I don't know how many of you have scattered the ashes of cremation. When we laid my brother Michael to rest, I had an incidental chance to see the ashes his broken body became. I saw a sparkling shower of reddish sand floating downward through a shaft of afternoon sunlight that found its way through the pines. I swear it was red like martian soil or like a summer sunset. I could envision myself trying to hold the dust in my hands as it inevitably trickled through my fingers to be caught by the western wind. These ashes are never meant to be clutched onto no matter how much we wish it otherwise. I learned the meaning of impermanence that day. All beings should be valued as gifts of the earth. We should also remember that earth takes all things back...eventually.

Gram had been sick for a long time. Even though she appeared to bear illness with the same stoic resolve she displayed in everything she did, it wore on her. She so rarely complained that the toll on her wasn't ever truly expressed. I heard it in the undertones and subtleties that a lifetime of being her grandson provided. The things she enjoyed became more difficult. I guess any rational person in her place would reach a point where they would ask at what price was it worth remaining in this miraculously flawed gift of a world? At what price?

I can't look at Gram's passing as an unfair act by a being who would rip her from me. Michael on the other hand...well, that's my contention with the Other. I will speak only of Gram here. Her life was blessed and cursed in one, colored with joy and pain and triumph and retreat. It was a long and worthy life. She left behind all who called her mom, gram, teacher and angel. We are her legacy in this world and making her proud is the greatest achievement we can reach. I will always try for her. It's who she raised me to be.

Now, I can only envision her journey to that place built for her, perhaps with Michael awaiting her. Although I may somewhat lack in trust for the gatekeeper and his master, I know that Gram has earned her way. The pillar of faith has ascended and her rest is reward for her faith. She remains in my heart and pangs of yearning to talk to her do overtake me, but they are short. I know what is must be. The red sand and the lessons she taught me are what I have left. For now, it's got to be enough. I do love you always Gram. Always.

D

Look Ma, No Brain (function)

Creepy title apologetics
Okay. The title's a little creepy but it's intended humorously as most things are with me. You'll see. Sorry I haven't posted lately but quality before quantity, right? Anyway, here's a heap'o blogginess.

I'm writing about a mysterious time in my life. Not just mysterious as in hidden from others but mysterious as in mysterious TO ME. The reasons for that will become apparent but first I must rant and then take a quick trip back in time. First...the rant.

The Rant
THERE IS NO LIVING BEING MORE ANNOYING, GENERALLY PUKE INDUCING AND WASTEFUL OF VALUABLE AIR FOR WORTHWHILE HUMANS THAN ANN COULTER. NOBODY! Alright, here's the deal. She says MONUMENTALLY STUPID things. Not just stupid but MONUMENTALLY stupid. It's the kind of stupidity that archaeologists 3000 years from now will wonder at. Strike one? She called widows of men who died in 911 "broads." I assume the word "whores" made an appearance somewhere in the film cuttings from the interview. Strike two? She actually BELIEVES that WE ALL would be happier as Conservative lockstep drones. She really really believes that. Strike three happened last week. She was on a CNBC show called "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch." (Why? God only knows.) Anyway, he was interviewing her (Why, God?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy???) and she said that EVERYBODY SHOULD BE CHRISTIAN AND THAT...wait for it...JEWS SHOULD CONVERT TO BE "PERFECTED." Her words. Donny Deutsch is Jewish and she said it TO HIS FACE. Oh, and she laughed off his indignation. Piece'a work does not BEGIN to describe this chickoid. Yes, she is a chickoid...and a whole buncha shorter words I don't wanna use. However, I will say that the term "too stupid to live" actually applies to someone. Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time Travel
2001. I was in College at U of Montana and heavily involved in student politics and disability advocacy. I'd met my dearest T a year ago and we lived together in a tiny apartment while we slowly moved to our current home in EMo (East Missoula to the non-THUGS in da hizzouse). Health wise, I was okay except for strange respiratory attacks that were asthma-ish but I didn't have asthma. As months progressed to a year and beyond, my attacks got worse. I could barely breath, went unconscious for long-ass periods of time (days), I was always freezing and literally couldn't recall anything from one day to the next. The Docs had me on Oxygen, nebulizers and a preliminary diagnosis of dying to death. Okay, okay, it was actually the idea that my breathing muscles were too weak to breath and I couldn't get enough O.

2003. My lost year. Out of 365 days and 6 hours in that year, I remember maybe 20 or 30. Basically, I remember maybe a day out of that year. I was passed out more than I was awake. I was skeletal because I couldn't stay awake to eat. I call this my "smurfy" phase cuz I was mostly blue. December of that year, I recall asking T to come lay with me in home/bed.

"How long have I been asleep?" I asked because last I remembered I was up in my chair and didn't remember being put in bed.

"Since Tuesday," she said while brushing my cheek with her fingers. Tuesday. It was Thursday. I'd slept 2 days straight without being aware of it. It was like an alien abduction story: I had missing time. It hit me how I'd been living, what I'd become and I broke. I cried, sobbed, babbled in confusion and fear. She cried with me, held me, feeling the same fear. Eventually, I calmed. I looked straight into her wide blue eyes and told her straight that the odds were against me surviving the winter. I said it amazingly calm for as terrified as I was inside. Saying you aren't afraid of death ain't the same as staring it in the gaping maw. I was scared. She was scared. We were both losing me and helpless to stop it.

I don't know how I lived through that winter. I stayed unconscious, got thinner but lived. I guess it's the steel inside, the core of pure will that makes me both a blessing and a rather stubborn curse. Ask T. Really. I couldn't leave her here without me but, also, my brother perished in July 2003 (naturally during the year I could remember least) and I wasn't letting anything take me that same year. It would've broken mom and my grandmas hearts to lose me too. I never ever wanna hurt anyone that badly. So, with will, T's love, Docs help, I survived.

I got better or I wouldn't be writing this. Long story super short, it wasn't lack of O killing me, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much CO2 stuck in my system because I couldn't exhale it out. I was dying of Carbon Dioxide poisoning. DUH. Any idiot (especially this idiot) should have figured THAT out. April 2004 I got a non-invasive ventilator that helps pull O in and blow the other crap out. In three months I became me again just skinnier. I began to rebuild my life and bang-zoom, here I am writing this.

Dying was scary. Not knowing why was scarier. I now believe that the mindset of a dying person is vital to the legacy they leave and perhaps the experience they have. Our minds frame everything from how we process senses, to personality and choice, even how we shape the world. It absolutely effects how we die. We imagine death as a "known quantity" as if we truly understand what it means and how it happens. I now believe it's not "known" at all. If our mind frames our knowledge and experience of death then death is as wide and deep as the human mind. Though we all possess mind, do we really understand it? I say maybe on the very surface levels but there are entire UNIVERSES underneath that we glimpse and can never grasp. Our mind creates our life as well as our death. Therefore, I think that to ensure our peaceful passing we should learn to cultivate peaceful mindsets and apply them to our lives. From there, serenity would become a natural part of the daily flow (wolf) of our lives. How could we not carry that peace with us as we flow beyond into the Great Next? How could fear or pain ever truly intrude on the sacred space we'd create for ourselves?

D

Speaking for the Dead

My brother Michael died on July 4, 2003. It was five days after his 26th birthday. He died of pneumonia and heart failure caused by the weakening of his heart by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The same disease I have. Our Perfect Enemy.

We didn't always get along because there was only two years between us. I must admit that being the older one did have its privileges. Primarily picking on the younger one is the biggest privilege. I really, really pushed that privilege. Mike had cognitive delay issues as well as a plethora of learning disabilities. His temper was thermonuclear, but it was easy to find his "big red button" and push it. I caused quite a few meltdowns. His brown eyes turned darker brown, his Italian complexion shaded red, his voice became tight and he stuttered. The relationship we had in our youth was natural, but like all things in nature our relationship evolved. When we entered our twenties, we fought no more. We realized that we were the only brothers we had. From there, he became my best friend. I could tell him anything and he could count on me to listen to anything. I had a treasure and I knew it.

I don't remember when the conversation with God happened. After high school graduation I'm sure. I had it all figured out and I was laying out the plan. When I used to speak to God, I didn't bow my head with eyes closed. I always looked up and spoke aloud in a quiet place locked away from the world. The plan was simple: I would die first, then Grandma who was our caregiver and Mike would go last. It was fair, straight and statistically likely. It was my only askance.

Michael went to the hospital in June 2003, one year after having an episode of pneumonia that hospitalized him. He recovered then. I knew he would. I knew. In 2003, I knew he would fight and win again. In 2003, I was wrong. He was gone and ooooooooooooohhhhhh God there was pain. Now, hollowness. Then, rending pain. I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO FIRST. ME. Not him. Me. I was older, weaker and sick more often. Didn't matter. None of it mattered. He was GONE. Taken. Taken from me.

I understand survivor's guilt. I understand it wasn't my fault. Yet I still feel betrayed, cheated and even rage sometimes. He should be writing here and I should be in the next place. It is only fair, but life's not fair. So I live. I move along. There is a caveat, however. A vow I made to myself, the universe and Whoever is listening. I live FOR him. I will speak FOR him. He always trusted me without question. He believed in me, believed in goodness, believed in justice. So, as debt to him, I will live to try to create the world he wanted. When I speak of compassion, empathy or what is right, I speak for him and the power of his spirit. I will speak for the dead because they can't speak for themselves. I speak for him. I am proud to do so.

Yesterday, Tomorrow and the Time In Between

On a sunny day years ago, I talked to a dying man. He was tall and lean and spoke with a slow Texas drawl. Though his hair was faint and bone white, there was a clarity in his misty blue eyes. It was a clarity age could never touch.

I had failed. That's why I met him. Like a young, nested bird I tried to fly too high too soon. I ran out of College in Missoula. I ran back home confused, sick and furious. I ran back to Superior. It was time for my transfiguration.

We walked the road slowly passing houses and the high school until we reached the edge of the woods by the river. He picked an old pine stump half-torn from the ground and leaned against it. We talked about destiny and futures decided and incomplete pasts. I told him how lost and dead and cold I felt. I failed and I hated myself for it. Hated. I couldn't even look in a mirror for sheer desire to scratch the eyes out of the failure looking back at me.

It's strange how casually some of the most important lessons are passed from one person to another. Just conversing. In a coffee shop or a street corner or the edge of the woods in Superior. I needed to find a way to forgive myself but I also needed a direction to follow through the winds of uncertainty swirling around me. I needed something to make it okay for me to leave on that future day when I could stay no more. So, although I didn't ask, he told me a story.

He was a G.I. in the Korean Conflict. In the tent that he and another soldier stayed, he collapsed to the floor. Things got blurry and faded and mixed up. Then, like the picture on an old television, everything narrowed to a point of light, then, darkness. The awareness he said he had was impossible to rationally explain. It wasn't the same as the awareness he had while telling me this but there were no real parallels either. He said that the dark began to lighten and he felt warmth like when he slept in the sun. There was a cacophony of strange sounds like a group of people talking in an underwater echo chamber. Fear wasn't exactly what he felt. It was more resignation. Whatever was whatever. Then he felt a single strong whisper inside. It didn't say much. It just asked him one question: What have you given? Over and over it echoed. What have you given? In a kind of mouthless paralysis, there was no answer he could give. Then the darkness returned and swallowed him whole.

Sitting in the shade of the pines looking at the mountains reflect in the river, he let me interpret what he said in silence. All I did was let the question bounce around my skull. What have I given? What could I give? What was the right answer? I flashed through a thousand trite answers that you'd find written in the "Spirituality" section of Barnes and Noble. I got lucky, however, because he spoke before I was going to. He said that he woke up in a Japanese hospital. He spent 25 years in a Bourbon bottle trying to forget what happened on the battlefield. He ran too. When faced with something as overwhelming as yourself in the unchangable past, you run. It's what people do. But when the Bourbon wore off, the question was always there waiting. Finally, it occurred to him to maybe look for an answer. Travelling the country, getting married, having children...all the while trying to answer this riddle from his past. Then he said that an answer came one day and he didn't even remember when, where or how. He just had an answer that he was willing to bet it all on. What can you give that would ever be enough? Yourself. He left it at that for me to interpret. He at the point had spent years as a case manager for mentally ill children. I thought I understood and here's what it means to me: For my life to be acceptable to me at all, I had to give myself over to the purpose of allowing others to embrace life in this world of small miracles. I had to let the fire of empathy consume me. I could dedicate my time here to nothing less. I'd found the beginning of my path.

Now, I still fail, mind you, but I always try. I need to try at least, then failure can be an acceptable consequence. It is my path and on that day, my last day here, if I've tried and left this world even slightly better than if I'd never existed, I say let the wind erase me. And maybe I'll see you somewhere on the path in the future.