Anniversaries of various kinds
Yesterday was my 41st birthday which was celebrated quietly but happily. Today is a sadder anniversary; three years ago I lost Big Brother to cancer.
Dave loved the beach and I'd often think of him when I visited the shore while he was ill. It was a good place to clear the hospital sounds and smells from my head. Before he was ill I loved him but nevertheless I took him shamefully for granted. On his last night (not that we knew) I brought a little bag of sand, salt, seaweed and shells positively reeking of the ocean to his hospital bed. I can't be sure if he knew it was there, but I hoped his sense of smell was still strong enough to trigger happy memories.
It seemed more than likely at the time that he would not be able to hang on for his 50th birthday in late December, so I invited him to share mine. Hospitals aren't particularly keen about naked flames on the ward, but they let me light a candle and we celebrated his "practice" birthday.
A lot of my brother had already gone by that night, but he still had lucid moments of conversation here and there, and when I left for the night he gave me a cheery albeit weak thumbs up. That was my final farewell; I didn't make it in time the next morning to hold him again, but I cherish that and all the other time we spent together. If nothing else his illness brought us very much closer as big brother and baby sister, forever separately by the huge gulf of 12 years.
His ashes were scattered in the ocean on his 50th birthday, with a jar of Cable Beach sand and a pinch of red pindan dirt from the Kimberley for company. And that little bag of smelly beach essence that I just hadn't known what to do with. The answer came, and it went with him at the end.
Grief hit me hard. At first it was easy to forget from moment to moment that he was gone. "I must show that to Dave," I'd think, only to be hit by the instant realisation that that could never happen, and the horror and guilt that I could *forget* like that. Then the message sank deep enough into my brain that I stopped having those lapses, and I also forgave myself for them. Gratitude that he was no longer suffering eventually morphed into something else that protested his absence. He was gone; I *knew* he was gone, but I didn't have to like it. Maybe that was the anger phase.
That too changed over time, to a period of acceptance that he was not coming back. Before he became ill it was not unusual for us to not see each other in the flesh for up to a year, and his continued absence started to feel a bit like that. I recently caught myself wondering if he was going to be in town for Christmas this year. That was weird; it would seem that I've started to forget things again. Maybe I'm finally starting to forget the pain of his loss and am just simply missing having him around.
So today I did not make the anniversary of his passing. Instead I went to the beach yesterday and marked his living.
Boofhead.
Dave loved the beach and I'd often think of him when I visited the shore while he was ill. It was a good place to clear the hospital sounds and smells from my head. Before he was ill I loved him but nevertheless I took him shamefully for granted. On his last night (not that we knew) I brought a little bag of sand, salt, seaweed and shells positively reeking of the ocean to his hospital bed. I can't be sure if he knew it was there, but I hoped his sense of smell was still strong enough to trigger happy memories.
It seemed more than likely at the time that he would not be able to hang on for his 50th birthday in late December, so I invited him to share mine. Hospitals aren't particularly keen about naked flames on the ward, but they let me light a candle and we celebrated his "practice" birthday.
A lot of my brother had already gone by that night, but he still had lucid moments of conversation here and there, and when I left for the night he gave me a cheery albeit weak thumbs up. That was my final farewell; I didn't make it in time the next morning to hold him again, but I cherish that and all the other time we spent together. If nothing else his illness brought us very much closer as big brother and baby sister, forever separately by the huge gulf of 12 years.
His ashes were scattered in the ocean on his 50th birthday, with a jar of Cable Beach sand and a pinch of red pindan dirt from the Kimberley for company. And that little bag of smelly beach essence that I just hadn't known what to do with. The answer came, and it went with him at the end.
Grief hit me hard. At first it was easy to forget from moment to moment that he was gone. "I must show that to Dave," I'd think, only to be hit by the instant realisation that that could never happen, and the horror and guilt that I could *forget* like that. Then the message sank deep enough into my brain that I stopped having those lapses, and I also forgave myself for them. Gratitude that he was no longer suffering eventually morphed into something else that protested his absence. He was gone; I *knew* he was gone, but I didn't have to like it. Maybe that was the anger phase.
That too changed over time, to a period of acceptance that he was not coming back. Before he became ill it was not unusual for us to not see each other in the flesh for up to a year, and his continued absence started to feel a bit like that. I recently caught myself wondering if he was going to be in town for Christmas this year. That was weird; it would seem that I've started to forget things again. Maybe I'm finally starting to forget the pain of his loss and am just simply missing having him around.
So today I did not make the anniversary of his passing. Instead I went to the beach yesterday and marked his living.
Boofhead.