Toast to the ones that we lost on the way

"There's a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain

When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same

Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name

'Cause I can't reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah

Everybody hurts sometimes

Everybody hurts someday, aye aye

But everything gon' be alright

Go and raise a glass and say, aye

Here's to the ones that we got

Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

Of everything we've been through

Toast to the ones here today

Toast to the ones that we lost on the way

'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

And the memories bring back, memories bring back you"

This song kills me every time. This has been a year where you have been close, for lots of reasons, but really this is just life now, the new normal when you live your life with grief. Cheers to the "wish you were here but you're not." 

What punishments of God are not gifts?

It's Thanksgiving weekend and when I think of things I am grateful for I think of the time we had together as brother and sister. I didn't realize, as most of us don't, that our time together would be so much shorter than expected, that it was a gift soon to be taken back. I had no idea that would hurt so much. Not just to lose you, but to simply be without you, to have to exist in a world where you are no longer.

When Tolkien wrote "What punishments of God are not gifts" I think he was exploring the meaning of suffering in human existence, no doubt well informed by the trauma he experienced in World War I and the early loss of his parents. For Tolkien, it seems pain and suffering is tantamount to being human, and something that is inescapable as part of that condition, and as such must be expected alongside all of the other things that comes with being human. We love, therefore we hurt. It isn't a choice, for we must love, must seek out attachments, must find connections, because that is what it means to be human - ergo alive. But the loss of that love, or the absence of that gift, causes us pain and sadness. Forever, it seems. The gift of that love and those experiences of it are indeed, great gifts, The loss of love does, at first, feel like punishment. Loss really is the continuation of that gift of love, and we wouldn't opt to remove the pain, by simply never having had that gift. The punishment, it seems, is the price we pay for being human, yet it is still the  greatest gift we have been given.

Last night you came to me in a dream. You arrived out of the blue with a wife and two children and you hugged me tight and said that you were sorry to show up unannounced but that you'd really like to join us for Thanksgiving. It felt pretty real, that hug. I still feel it. I've felt it all day long. It hurts a bit too, because it's a common trope that my mind plays with that you were just away somewhere, and that one day you will show up again and it will all have been a mistake.

I am thankful for this dream. I am thankful for this visit, this hug, that I can still feel, even though it hurts. I am grateful that you remain with me, that I remember you, that I can still see you in my dreams. I am thankful for you.

Happy Thanksgiving little brother. You are, of course, always welcome. 
 

We Were Having Fun

Fifteen Years Came and Went...

“The future came and went in the mildly discouraging
way that futures do.”

 
- Neil Gaiman (Good Omens)

... And Many More

Today is your birthday, your most favourite time of the year. If you were still here with us, you'd be celebrating your 45th birthday, which is a decent milestone. We'd probably laugh and call you old, teasing you for whatever new ache you had. We'd sing the happy birthday song and end with the words "and many more..."

Sometimes we say words without realizing how much of a quiet prayer they are. Or we say them not expecting that we need to consider them such a hopeful wish.

Because sometimes "many more" becomes "no more."

And no more is the saddest birthday of all.

A Final Resting Place

This nautical buoy sits at the entrance to Departure Bay, along the route BC Ferries travel to get in and out of the Nanaimo Harbour.

You might recognize it from your youthful antics that may or may not have involved you and Geoff being chastised by the Coast Guard for hanging off of it as the ferry passed, sending some enormous waves your way. This is where Geoff wanted to scatter you and it turned out to be the perfect place.     

Letting you go

One last cruise

You would have enjoyed this

All we could think of was how you would be hanging off the back of this boat, likely hollering in a most unsafe manner, and being ALIVE during every second of it. Because that is how you lived.

We're gonna have a good time then

Home sweet home, Nanaimo. The place where you made every day an adventure.

If I had my choice

He took part of my story with him

Had this conversation about loss on Twitter this morning. I’ve often thought about those times we shared, the adventures we had, the memories of me that only he had, how I existed in his world.. I don’t have that testimony of my life, and I can’t access it, it’s just gone. I miss that part of who we were together as brother and sister, the world that we created for us, that no one else knew.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

I’m sitting in a lounge at the Vancouver airport on a layover on my way to Vietnam and was thinking how awesome it would be for you and I to have a drink while I was here.

Some things are not meant to be I suppose, but I’ll tip my drink for you.

You came home with me

After we scattered Mom and Dad's ashes together in the cemetery in Calgary I brought your urn home with me. I knew that I needed to do something different for you and that a cemetery in Calgary didn't feel like the right spot to be your final resting place.

I reached out to Geoff and told him I wanted to scatter you where you grew up and he knew the perfect place right away. So in April we are going to get a boat and go out to the little cave you guys used to camp and hang out at, and with some proper pomp and ceremony, scatter you to the wind and sea.