All Dogs Go to Heaven

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from my friend KP. Along with 2 other spectacular friends, he had sent me a lovely Valentine’s Day gift, so I’d sent him a thank-you message. True to form, KP responded in the most moving, compassionate fashion.

As if he hasn’t suffered enough heartbreak for 10 lifetimes (KP lost his father to cancer 2 years ago), KP’s dog died a couple of weeks ago. He’d had the dog since high school. I expressed my condolences in my e-mail. KP’s response, after acknowledging that his family is heartbroken, was to say “If 3 likes dogs, tell him to look for Lucas, and he’ll quickly find a new best friend.”

Before I knew what was happening, my appreciative laughter had turned to tears. Tears of sorrow at 3’s death, tears of gratefulness for the love of such miraculous friends, and tears of joy at such a wonderful picture. With one sweet sentence, KP had made 3’s death Real for a few moments. Real, but not miserable. I love the image of 3 sprinting around heaven with KP’s gorgeous golden retriever. I don’t know if KP is comforted by the idea of Lucas having an energetic new friend in the form of 3, but I sure am.

After getting that e-mail, I prayed for KP. “God, this guy deserves everything he’s ever wanted.” I firmly believe that. Acceptance to the graduate school he applied to, health and happiness for his entire family, and, most of all, never to lose anyone or anything he loves ever, ever again. KP’s innate compassion and empathy mean that he feels badly enough for the suffering of others. He doesn’t deserve any pain of his own, much less the agony of losing a parent and a beloved pet within the span of 2 years.

Why can’t good things happen to good people? KP has been an endless source of support and comfort for me, and he is generally agreed to be one of the most wonderful people on the planet (and among my remarkable group of friends, that’s really saying something). He should be lavished with all the material and emotional comforts this world has to offer.

I want the best for my friends. They have given me so much these past few weeks, a constant stream of words, thoughts, prayers, and gifts. They have made the Real moments infinitely more bearable. Tonight, I get to go to sleep with the thought of 3 playing fetch with Lucas, each taking care of the other until KP and I get there.

The Support Group That Didn’t

I’ve said before that I’ve tried numerous methods to “help” me grieve. One of the first things I did while waiting for my flight that Sunday was look up the “Survivors of Suicide” support group in my city. Over the next few days, I played phone tag with the coordinator until we finally got in touch and she screened me for the group, which meets on Tuesday nights. The first Tuesday I was available, the group was cancelled because of ice warnings, so I waited another week.

I was understandably nervous. Attending a support group meeting was painfully Real. I stepped into the lobby of the building, where a handful of people were chatting, sitting around on couches. After a few minutes, we all walked to a back room, where chairs had been set up around the perimeter. Group rules indicate that everyone should introduce themselves, say who they lost, and how long it’s been.

I was halfway around the room. I don’t remember anyone else’s name because I was focused so hard on breathing and not breaking down. When my turn came, it took more than a few pauses and deep breaths before I squeaked out my information, letting everyone know that my brother had killed himself three weeks prior. The other group members were kind and patient; no one rushed me, and they offered tissues for my tears. After introductions, the room was quiet for a bit, so I (being more comfortable with speech than silence), started telling my story.

I gave the group my hypothesis: that 3’s death was impulsive, that he was prone to making “stupid” decisions and this was one of them. I told them how I’d feared this kind of phone call for years, but never suicide. Admittedly, I was not being exceptionally clear in either voice or choice of words, but I don’t think that lack of clarity excuses the response I got.

One woman, to whom I shall refer as FTB (“Fuck This Bitch”), started addressing me as I tried to compose myself. In what was probably meant to be a wise-sounding voice, she started telling me to “listen” to what I was saying. 3 had “always been troubled…since kindergarten. And you knew that.” FTB went on about how my “women’s intuition” had been telling me that something was wrong (referring to my fear of 3 dying) and that the “silver lining” of 3’s suicide is that now I know not to ignore my “gut feelings.”

Um…excuse me? You’ve never met my brother, and you’ve known me for all of 7 minutes. You’re going to tell me that my brother has been suicidal since he was 5, and, moreover, that I knew that and chose to ignore it??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? For the love of everything holy, how is that supposed to be helpful?

To be fair, another gentleman in the group interjected to say that how FTB sees things isn’t necessarily what might be helpful for everyone else. But I’d had enough. Honestly, the rest of the group was just repetition of things I already know: everyone grieves differently, you can’t put a time limit on these things, life will never be the same as it was, etc. So even excluding FTB’s analysis, the group did nothing particularly helpful for me. Knowing that FTB would likely be there again is just the final reason I needed to convince me that the group wasn’t worth my time.

Lesson of the day: I don’t appreciate people acting like they know me when they don’t. I really don’t appreciate people acting like they know my brother when they’ve never met him. It’s not the thought that counts; you have to pick the right words – or at least not the most horribly wrong words.

Grief Bubbles

When I got back to my apartment after the services, I received a text from a friend advising me to be prepared for “grief bubbles.” Even at the time, I had an understanding of what she meant: at unexpected times, grief would “bubble up.” It wasn’t until a few days later that it actually happened.

Oddly enough, I was watching an episode of The West Wing (love). One of the characters was describing how his sister had died years ago. It wasn’t that the sister had committed suicide, and the “death” on the show wasn’t meant to be recent. But it was 10 days after my brother had killed himself, and it was more than I could stand.

I cried for an hour, harder than I had cried since seeing 3’s body in the coffin for the first time. I looked at pictures and choked on my own tears, suffocating under one eviscerating realization: I want my brother back. That’s all. I don’t want distracted, I don’t want comforted, I don’t want ANYTHING other than my baby brother to be alive. Nothing else could possibly take away this pain, could make the world as good as it once was.

Even now, this thought brings a lump to my throat. It’s an agonizing thing, to want something you can’t have, to want something that you can’t even hope to have in this life ever again. It’s irrational, and the knowledge of this irrationality makes it worse. People have, with the best of intentions, offered to do “whatever I want.” I don’t bother telling most of them that they can’t give me what I want. No one can.

I know that this feeling will diminish, or perhaps become less acutely miserable, with time. At this point, I am becoming more comfortable with that idea. Initially, even the thought of healing with time was aversive. I didn’t want to feel better. I didn’t want the idea of my brother being gone to become “normal.” In approximately 21.75 years, I will have lived longer with my brother dead than I did with him alive. How can I be anything but despondent with that thought?

I still have these thoughts. I know enough not to push them away. As I write this (in advance), it has been exactly one month since my brother fatally shot himself. This “anniversary” is not any more difficult than the previous 30 days have been, but it is strange. My sister SL wrote very eloquently on the impossible strangeness of going on with life without 3, the oddity of waking up and doing things that we’ve done before, only now, we are doing them in a world without our brother. I will occasionally think “I am doing laundry, and my brother is dead.” The grief bubbles remind me that it’s real. The rest of the time, the idea is just perplexing. Bizarre. Impossible.

The Services, Part 3: Joy, Laughter, & Harry Potter

We decided pretty quickly that we wanted the theme of 3’s funeral to be joy: a celebration of life. To that end, we picked readings from the handy little “Funerals for Dummies” booklet (not actually what it’s called; the Church might frown upon that!) that included the word “rejoice” or talked of Heaven instead of focusing on mourning. For the second reading, one of the options was from Isaiah and included the line “And He shall destroy death forever.” Anyone who’s read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows knows that one of the lines in the book (written on a gravestone) is “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.” 3 would have known that, and, I think, would have appreciated the reference in the reading. He might not have been able to name many Bible verses, but he loved to read, and he knew Harry Potter.

I was nominated to give the eulogy. My biological father wanted to, but that really wasn’t a good option; 3 hadn’t spoken to Dad in over a year (again, I’ll explain later). So this particular task fell to me, the only daughter that inherited Dad’s considerable public-speaking skills. It didn’t take me long to develop a structure for the speech; I would simple tell “3 Stories,” each preceded by one of his many attributes. “3 could be mischievous. He once took a universal remote into his middle-school classroom…” I suppose it’s fortunate that the church put a 5-minute limit on eulogies. Otherwise, I might still be there, telling stories.

The day of the funeral started with one more goodbye at the funeral home before they closed the casket. My mom’s brother, who is a deacon, said a prayer, and we all piled into the procession. Mom, my stepdad, and the “childless losers” (my name for the three youngest, unmarried siblings) rode in the limo. R, RJ, & I squeezed into one row. At 5’9”, I’m the smallest of the three by at least 3 inches and about 30 pounds, to give you a visual.

The funeral itself was lovely. Two of my sisters, L & SL, sang (I have some ridiculously talented siblings). One of the prelude songs was James Taylor’s Fire and Rain. We weren’t trying to be maudlin; it’s actually 3’s favorite song. Fr. D gave a lovely homily, and the church was packed. With some deep breaths beforehand and a lot of prayers, I made it through the eulogy without a hitch. Maybe one day I’ll post the text here. They really are great stories  – everything from being the first kindergartner given a detention to how he asked his crush to prom.

Funerals are odd things. Having to write and give a eulogy for your 21-year-old brother at age 26 is downright ridiculous. Moments of the funeral were certainly difficult, but it was more strange than anything for me.

The Services, Part 2: He Was the Nicest Rockstar Ever

The calling hours (wake, to some) were held on Thursday at the high school. Everyone anticipated a huge crowd, and the high school made more sense as a venue, both as a tribute to 3’s life and as a space large enough to accommodate everyone. Officially, the event was from 4-7 PM.

I so desperately did NOT want to go to calling hours. It wasn’t the standing for hours or potentially awkward interactions with people I don’t know. It was the open casket. Though 3 shot himself through the head, it was a clean wound, so the funeral home simply placed the entry wound against the back of the casket. The exit wound was apparently through the back of the head, making an open-casket viewing possible.

I walked into the high school entryway an hour before the calling hours were scheduled to start. I could see my brother’s body through the windows of the chapel. My siblings and I took a few minutes to set up the display tables along the hallway. Soon enough, I decided that I should go in.

Seeing my baby brother’s body in a casket was the 2^nd-worst moment of my life, after the initial phone call. I’m tearing up writing about it, because that moment was decidedly Real. My handsome, vivacious brother was lying there, unmoving, with kind of weird makeup all over. (He actually did look good. The funeral home did a great job with his hair and clothes, but full-body makeup is just strange). My chest contracted, and I started to sob into my hands.

It really only took me a few moments to let the undeniability of my brother’s death sink in. The crying subsided, and I joined my siblings and nieces around the room. My brother-in-law brought his two precious girls to say goodbye to Uncle 3 before the crowds set in. My mom knelt down to talk to my oldest niece. That darling, perfect little girl said “Him’s gone to a place to be with baby Jesus!” From the mouth of babes, indeed.

The calling hours themselves lasted 6 hours, twice as long as they were scheduled. People started to come at 3:30, and the last person didn’t leave until 9:30. People waited in line for over 2 hours; I’ve heard that over 1,000 people were there. People who work with my mom, relatives from Michigan, current high school students who stopped by because of “the impact 3 made on our school.” Families my sisters and I used to babysit for, elementary, middle, and high school teachers, 3’s classmates, 3’s coworkers, people from 3’s old scouting troop, and 3’s many girlfriends. So many people wanted to tell “3 Stories.”

When talking to S & RJ, someone who went to high school with 3 was marveling at the size of the crowd, and how younger students were in awe of 3. One person commented “He was like a rock star.” The younger student responded “He was the nicest rock star ever.”

He was, too. 3 commanded every room he walked into, but he loved his “fans” as much as they loved him. He was arrogant, impulsive, and flaky. But he was also charismatic, charming, hysterically funny, talented, and so, so friendly. People loved him. I love him.