I’ve been avoiding this.
I can write short things, small poems, quick hits and move along, nothing to see here, nothing to fear…
I have always learned about myself by writing.
I’m afraid of what I might learn, this time, and that’s why I’ve been pretending to have forgotten about my little blog.
April 26, May 3, May 6, you would think people would show a little courtesy and die on dates further apart so as to spare me the trouble, to spare my hurts from being doubled or tripled or god-damned infinite.
Matt was a good kid. He looked up to me. He was 19 and having fun and then he was dead on a road in the middle of the night, and his mom and his brother and his dad and by the way his uncle, Big Matt, the 25-year-old that didn’t know what life meant yet, the guy that had so much of his identity wrapped up in a kid that had the same name, none of these people knew what to do, that night changed everything. I’ve read those words before,
That night changed everything
And I didn’t get it until I was screaming at the sky, drunk and destroyed, a few nights later, after burying that kid, that fucking stupid kid with an easy grin and more mischief than a toddler, that kid changed my life by dying. April 26
Ethan was a good kid.
My only kid brother, he was 29 years old and he had never caught a break on his life. Our mother had babied him and never taught him how to live and then, when she was tired of him, she booted him, just abandoned like a kitten on the freeway, he had no clue how to live. Something we had in common, except I was gifted with so many talents and strengths and I had other people to help me, but for Ethan, everything was harder.
He was a fat guy. 400 lbs of neglected emotion and he was a sweet kid, he lived with all of his heart and would give anything to someone he loved. He did some drugs, he got into some trouble, he was unlucky.
He broke his leg, and that lead to an infection that went into his heart and he died. A few months before his 30th birthday, he just died, and all of my thoughts about trying to help him and my guilt over being unavailable to him are all I have left. My only kid brother, and what does that mean, I had two kids that looked up to me and they both died young,
I’m starting to think it’s me. May 3
In fifteen years, I’ve had fourteen deaths land in my heart.
I won’t go through the whole list. It’s enough to say, some mattered more than others. I think it’s fair to acknowledge that everyone has their own significance, in the lives of those they are connected to…
Some hurt a lot more, when they go.
Matt hurt a lot. Ethan didn’t hurt as much, but there was more guilt. A few others ripped me up. One in particular that I can’t talk about.
Ruane, she was good at a lot of things.
She had a life that was both amazing and awful. The entire spectrum of experience was visited upon her, and she lived with undeniable courage. She also made some terrible choices and hurt a lot of people.
She was my angel. I was her angel.
We were close, for most of my life. She was a friend, she was a sister and a mother to me, she saved me more times than I can count, she was damnably charismatic and she was absolutely broken, and she was my hero. I looked up to her. She told me, once, when she was going through some hard times, that she looked up to me, because I was trying to live a life of truth and integrity.
All I had ever wanted was for Ruane to be okay. I had seen the whole story, I knew the good and bad and I understood the choices, I understand still what it’s like to live broken and damaged and somehow still face life with ferocity and courage, I got that from her. She gave me so much.
I left Colorado because I couldn’t afford to stay. Financially and emotionally. Going to the places where Ruane and I did things, hanging out and living, for close to 20 years she and I lived in those places and the memories were tearing me in half.
I remember still, and I dream about her almost every night. I am not ready to let go. It may take me more time, for this one. Some of the deaths I’ve carried were momentarily sad, and I moved on. Some have taken years to accept.
Ruane is still alive, in my mind. I can’t let her be dead, yet. I need her, I have always needed her to help me understand life.
She dropped her purse from her motorcycle. I hated that she rode it, I was sure she would get killed. She loved the rush of being almost dead and fully alive, going fast and feeling the wind on her body, she told me it was like a drug, and she loved the high.
It was late at night, she parked on the side of the street and ran out to get her purse. A drunk dude hit her, speeding and not paying attention, and she died on the pavement within a few minutes. May 6
I don’t mean to take anything away from anyone else. I know that Matt and Ethan and Ruane impacted a lot of other lives and I’m not the one that felt it the most…
I’m just the one writing about them.
People live and people die, and
I know this life is awful and amazing
And I can only live my own life
But how I wish I could have lived
With them.
I can imagine Matt, all grown up and 33, still with the foolish grin but a man, not a boy.
I can picture Ethan, 35 and finally figuring life out.
Ruane would have been 50 this July. Her grandkids miss her, her daughters miss her.
What would I have been, if they were alive, if Matt hadn’t changed everything, what would I have become?
Life doesn’t give anything
Without taking something else away.
