Sunday, March 22, 2015

Magic and Loss

Exhausted today.

Attended Kevin's memorial service on Thursday.

Worked Friday and Saturday.

Crawled home last night and blended into the recliner.

Here I am on Sunday morning; my brain is struggling to make sense.

We, my family and extended family, have been bludgeoned with death for three solid goddamn months.

On December 16, 2014, my brother-in-law, Carol's baby brother - Sarge - died after a heroic struggle with cancer. He was 59.

On December 17, 2014, our nephew, my brother's only son - Jonathan - died of a heroin overdose. He was 27.

On March 14, 2015, our nephew, Kevin, committed suicide. He was 34.

That is too much for any human brain to comprehend. Too much pain, too much loss, too many unanswered questions.

Too much emptiness.

These deaths hollowed out our insides and sapped us of all meaningful energy. I have definitely changed, I feel it from inside out, but I can't quite define how.

I cannot think clearly about my own life because I am struggling mightily to figure out what the hell just happened.

I didn't have time to absorb Sarge's death because my precious nephew Jonathan died the very next day.

Spent the last couple of months getting blind sided by this new reality at unexpected moments. Suddenly shaking my head out of the blue as if doing so would bring Sarge and Jonathan back.

Quick tears, sudden pain.

Then Kevin died.

There are now three faces in my head that are coming at me from down deep and shaking me up and challenging my definition of reality.

When I laugh I feel guilty. When I forget, I feel guilty.

Paul, Kevin's older brother, told me at Wayne's house after the service that he had laughed with his girls the night before and then felt guilty about it.

I know exactly what he is saying.

This is what I am referring to when I say challenging my definition of reality.

I am lost. Everybody in our families is lost.

I selfishly feel like I should do something about this, that I should make whatever changes in my life are going to bring me the most happiness. The most pride in who I am. Immediately. No time lost. No exceptions. No excuses.

These thoughts are clouded over with guilt as well.

I am exhausted. Too much pain and loss in too short a time. Too much pressure to just go on with my life and act like I am OK when I am nowhere near OK.

As I wrote the words pain and loss it triggered a memory in my head of an album Lou Reed put out in 1992 called "Magic and Loss". He was making an album about themes of magic based on magicians he had seen in Mexico, when two close friends died.

Doc Pomus and Rita.

So Reed incorporated these deaths and what these people went through before they died and what they meant to him, into the album.

It is almost a spoken word record and it is raw emotion.

I like the album for the very reason that it is so raw and emotional and honest. I have always loved the phrase magic and loss because it sounds like a definition of life.

Jonathan and Kevin and Sarge are gone. They have left behind a huge void.

They also all brought magic into our lives. Three special people.

Maybe that magic can just keep on working. Maybe it can positively affect how we live our lives or how we think, maybe it can give us the strength to change the aspects of our lives that disappoint us, maybe it can open our eyes to what love really is and what it really means.

I am going to spend a quiet day today with my wife who I love deeply, with our cats who give us simple love and  comfort exponentially out of proportion with their physical size.

I am going to sit in close proximity to pictures of Jonathan and Sarge and Kevin.

Gonna try to focus on the magic.



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