I took this picture of the sky for George
"How many years since you found yourself staring at an endless sky?" ~Vnvnation
As today comes to a close, I am stricken. Stricken with thought, emotion, wonder and loss. There is gratitude and pain. There is art, music, laughter and such deep sorrow. My mother called me, today. She was crying. I've witnessed her tears many times, over the years and she has witnessed mine. Today, the hurt came through in its most raw and genuine form. There is nothing and I mean nothing like the sound of a mother grieving for the loss of her youngest son. Six months, today...half a year.
The day that George died, the sun took a break. Spring and all its shining gave way to cloud and gray. The birds were silent, or so it seemed, and the flowers and trees mellowed their hue. Even had the sun dared to shine on that day, its light would have paled in comparison to the brightness and all-encompassing force of my baby brother's spirit leaving his body. Six-foot-five and three-hundred fifteen pounds was still a space much too small for such a beautiful soul. After witnessing the horror of his lifeless body and drowning in the sounds of a family suffering, I left that room filled with people, but still so empty...only to be surrounded by him on the other side of the door. On the other side...but still here. He filled the halls of that sprawling hospital. He was everywhere. I could sense him in the footfalls of passers-by, their voices, my own breathing and heartbeat. At the entrance where a man played the piano, George danced within the music. Every single note was him. No, the sun had no place, that day. It was George who warmed and lit up the world as he stretched, free from his shell.
He's okay. I know he is. Sometimes, he comes to give me hugs and often times, I talk to him. Knowing this, it may seem silly that it still hurts so deeply. Grief is such a selfish thing, but a necessary thing. As the days, weeks, months go by, functioning becomes a little easier. I cry less and my body is no longer wracked with the pain that held me in a state of half-living. It's like starving, really. Even now, when I get really hungry, I think to myself that this feels like death. Grief is so strange. It's like another world. You go about your day, doing what you typically do, but nothing is the same and the real world seems light years away. As the months go on, I get closer and closer to that world. However, I am not always comfortable with it. As I move from that place of pain, I sometimes feel like I am moving farther away from George. I know I have to move on. I know I have to heal...but I don't always want to. In those mornings just after he left, I would sit at my computer with my coffee and his iPod, feeling him close by. In that place, that realm, that half-alive existence, I felt closer to him. As I move through the process and heal the way I'm supposed to, I sometimes feel like I'm losing him forever. I don't want to lose him. I don't want to move on. Still, it's happening anyway, and I know it's what I must do.
George was love...he was and is pure love. So much has changed over the past six months and life is taking me in directions that astound me. I want to call him and tell him how well I'm doing. I want to tell him about the art show I'll be in, this week. I want to share everything with him. So...sometimes, I just say it out loud. I talk to him. Sometimes I do it through tears, sometimes it's silently in my head. Sometimes...all the time, I just want to give him a hug and tell him how much I love him. That is why, in everything good that I do, George is there. Everything is about him. Everything.
“Find it in you, raise your eyes
Look beyond the place you stand
Towards the furthest reaches
And to the smallest of things
The sound you are hearing
Is the symphony of what we are
Revelation will not come
With heart and mind closed and divided
No need of sun to light the way
Across the ages, we have reigned as we endured
Through the storm fronts we will ever surely pass
To stand as never ending light
Throw away the mantle
Awake from your uncertain hesitation
No way to describe or equate the feeling
No end to what is at your command
A million thoughts run through you
Concentric circles, ever greater
But you have always known
That this is not all there is
To your questions there'll be answers
Let there be, let there always be
Never ending light”
~vnvnation
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