Every year, my late brother's birthday is a mixed bag. He passed away at the age of 37, the month before my baby died. We all got the news he'd passed away on Mother's Day, which is just about the worst day for my mom to find out her son was dead. My family with seven kids got pretty close growing up because we moved around a lot. We only had each other most of that time. My best friend through all of that was my older brother, Brent. He was my mentor and my creative center as we seven kids raised each other.
My dad was an emotionally abusive tyrant and my mom, his resentful servant. He didn't want her spending any time with us, so she didn't, not much. We invented our own creative world and spend all day every day in it, Brent, me, often Kevin, occasionally Lyn, and my little brother, Bryan. I grew up as basically one of the boys. The two little girls were in a separate orbit. Even as the oldest brothers moved away, then I went away to college, and then on a mission for my church, Brent stayed my buddy, calling or writing regularly.
A couple of years after I got married (on my brother's birthday 17 years ago Saturday), we went to visit my parents (where my brother was living in the basement) and found the computer riddled with his child porn. We had to make the hardest call I've ever had to make, which was to put my childhood best friend in prison for what would turn out to be the rest of his life. After two years, he died there of a sudden medical condition. So September 4th, my late brother's birthday and my wedding anniversary, already make for an emotionally complicated day. And, like I said, his death day came a month and a half before my baby passed away; thus, any reminders of my brother also lead back to Alli.
Saturday morning, before we went to a play and out to eat to celebrate our anniversary/our family's founders' day with the kids, I walked outside to grab some catnip from my yard for my girl's one-eyed kitten. And there, I found a tiny black cat, a juvenile, I'd seen wandering around my yard and running from us every time we came near. I'd even debated just the previous night starting to feed her because she'd adopted our house. But feeding one cat brings a clowder (a group), and building a clowder here on the highway would be bad for the herd. But she seemed so lonely and hungry. Yesterday morning, I saw her there, floppy and dying, having lost all control of her limbs.
Last year, we fostered a kitten who showed the same symptoms. The vet could do nothing for little Batman because he had feline parvo. He seemed healthy one day and was gone by the next evening. Since then, every cat or kitten who has come into our house has gotten feline parvo shots. We knew this little girl was on the final stages of parvo. She couldn't lift her head, couldn't even lap up the water I droppered into her mouth. But she did weakly massage the air like a nursing kitten when I pet her. It was a heartbreaker, especially on that of all days.
Within minutes of watching the kitty fade, knowing there was nothing I could do for her, my neighbor told me that her boyfriend, who she was so excited would be coming home, had disappeared. She believes he would not intentionally disappear on her and also knows he has ties to a gang. She had reason to assume the gang may have had something to do with that disappearance. It felt like I'd stepped into an episode of one of my true crime shows. Until that day, I had pictured her having brought him home, and they needed some peace and quiet together. Instead, she was panicky and grieving the future that was just starting to form.
It was hard to leave this neighbor like that, knowing what fresh loss feels like. And she doesn't have the closure of knowing whether he disappeared himself, someone disappeared him, or if he may show up tomorrow. I can't imagine being able to hold up my own weight under those circumstances. But then, my family went off to have our fun time, with the awareness of this darkness undercutting the joy of the moment.
It's hard to know how to process a day like that. Birthdays and anniversaries of those we have lost are hard days. Add all the rest of this baggage, and I really didn't get to process it, just as I never got to process my brother's loss in the first place since another loss came right after. Loss is just hard and not fun. It's nice to have the empathy for one who has lost. It's just hard understanding it first hand.
