Brothers.

Molly's brother John just left this morning.  He came kinda last minute to get to spend a few days with Charlotte and get to know her (as well as see us, but we know the truth).  Maybe I have not had a lot of sleep (it's true) and am just being affected by stress of having a new baby and a thesis and PhD applications coming up (there is a lot of stress) but I find myself being very emotional today. 

As I'm transcribing interviews of suicide survivors and their experience of having lost someone so dear to them, I find myself thinking of my brother.  I usually do think of him in the end of August.  It was his birthday last week (8-22) and mine is next week (9-3) so I always kinda associate the two together.  In a lot of ways I have always thought of us together.  I can't quite recall when it started, but I have always identified with Superman.  My brother with Batman.  I grew up reading his vast collection of Batman comics and probably somehow put myself into them with him as they reminded me of him.

6 years ago around this time, I came home to Arizona after my first summer whitewater rafting.  I had just dropped out of school and was very confused with my life.  Being up in rural Idaho gave me the time I needed to rediscover my relationship with God and myself.  My dad, sister and brother-in-law took me out to eat the day I flew home.  I don't remember where we ate, but the meal is forever burned into my memory.  It was at this dinner that I realized I was older than Eric.  In some ways, I felt that I had betrayed him because I did not realize it sooner, or because I have neglected visiting his grave.  But mostly, I just felt sad that I couldn't spend time with my brother.  I sure miss him. 

I'm not sure how to preface it, but this is a segment of what I am including in my thesis that kinda sums up how I feel about Eric:

When I was eight years old my brother deployed to serve in Operation Desert Storm.  Nearly a year later he returned, he visited a few friends and family and then went A.W.O.L.  He was my hero.  I wanted to be an Air Force weatherman because he was—I wanted to be just like him.  Several days before he went A.W.O.L. he took me on a hike.  We drove up to the mountain on which he later took his own life, showed me his favorite hiking trail.  Before we even actually began the hike I pretended to sprain my ankle.  I wanted go home and watch Ninja Turtles.  For months he was missing, our only clue being his Jeep that had been stripped of all valuables at the bottom of a ravine in the Four Peaks mountain area of Arizona.  I don’t remember when we knew he was missing, but I do remember laying on my bed at night crying because I missed my older brother—my hero.  When I learned that he had died on the very same mountain trail that he had attempted to introduce to me, I felt that his death had was my fault.  Even at eight-years old I felt that if I would have continued that hike, I would never have lost my brother.  As I grew up I often cried myself to sleep looking at the pictures that I had  of him, wishing that I would have not been such a “wuss” and had been able to finish that hike.  I knew that in that one hike, I would have been able to tell him I loved him and cared for him.  If only he had known I cared, he would not have died.  When I was a teenager, this guilt manifest itself as a deep feeling of depression and suicidality simply out of a desire to stop my own pain and again be with my brother.  While my own religious understanding of death and the hereafter was complicated by his suicide, I knew that if I died the same way we would be together.  Today, I have found ways to live, love, and be near him.  In a sense, my entire life has been dedicated to remembering my brother and create a as much positive meaning out of his and my family’s suffering as possible.

Though I do not visit his grave as much as I would live, I carry with me always a memorial to him in my head and in my heart.  Having John visit was really happy, I am so glad to have a brother-in-law as awesome as him.  He's nice to me, and to my wife.  I have no doubt that he will be Charlotte's favorite uncle.  But having him visit sure made me miss Eric a lot.  I have missed having a brother.  Though getting to know John more feels great--I really just miss Eric even more in some ways.  I wish that Molly and Charlotte--even more that Kim--could get to know Eric.  I'm sad that Eric can't be Charlotte's favorite uncle.

To end this scatterbrained and tearful post I'm including what is perhaps my favorite picture with Eric--and the only one I have.

So to sum it up:  I miss my brother.  As I'm transcribing interviews with other people that have lost their brothers or sons or cousins to suicide I feel my emotions rising.  And today, while sitting at school in the middle of a crowded room I just started bawling.  I have not cried like this in a long time, but have occasionally teared up a little.  I knew that these interviews might be difficult for the people I was interviewing; after having done 3 I thought I knew what to expect.  However, I did not know what to expect while transcribing the interviews.  When I'm in the room and interviewing, I very much feel like a therapist.  However, when I'm transcribing them I find myself being stirred by intense feelings of loss.  This is hard.  All my thoughts tell me, as a man, as an adult tells me to cowboy up and get over it.  Every feeling I have within me tells me to just feel it.  It's sad because I love him.  It's sad because I still miss him.