It has been a year since I wrote here last. Nearly to the day. In one month, it will be a year since my baby brother, just shy of 33, took his own life. That is a whole other blog post, a long long way off, but after his death, I retreated into myself, filling journals, but everything was too raw and too private to share with many others. Even my sweet and beloved family. We were all suffering in our individual ways and to share my burden with them felt like piling extra weight on them. I just couldn't do that. I had my safe people. My therapist. My journal. They got the bulk of my grief. (They still do. It has not all gone away.)
Just after my brother died, the last of my grandmother's cousins died and then a friend's husband. As I got dressed and was driving to my friend's visitation, I realized that I now have my "funeral clothes." Dark, comfortable, appropriate and I chose them without thought.
I also realized that I have let go of this notion that it is not appropriate or distasteful for me to go to a funeral or visitation. My friend and I haven't really had much contact beyond Facebook for nearly 10 years. We were co-workers at the job I had before coming home full time with my first child. And my grandmother's cousin? The last time we spoke was at my Grandmother's funeral when I was 17. I thought of her fondly, but we didn't keep up much. Her funeral was about her friends and her life and I was glad to meet them and know them.
If it were a year ago, I would not have attended either function. It would have felt awkward and uncomfortable. I would have been thinking about myself and my little bits of shame that I had not been a better friend or cousin, worried if people thought my blue tunic was too happy a color for funerals and did I look nice enough. But as I was driving to the visitation I realized more deeply that funerals are about none of that.
When we had the service for my brother, the church was filled to bursting. Standing room only. Aisles filled with fellow police officers, friends of ours from childhood, friends of my parents, other men and women who were officers from other counties who didn't necessarily know my brother that well but stood in solidarity for a fallen brother, and Marine brothers, from his time in the service, who stood stoically in the back. I never once looked at those faces and thought "They don't deserve to be here." I thought, "My brother was loved and thought well of. If only he could see this now. If only he could know how much he was loved and respected." and also "My family is so well loved." The faces of the people who came and hugged my neck are a dark blur of tears. But I look over the register they signed and remember that they were there. That they cared.
And it matters that they were there. It matters. My friend V looked out over the people in the visitation and saw my face and smiled. I hugged her neck and she began to comfort ME over my brother. I accepted her comfort and she accepted mine. We talked, quietly smiled and she gently, with one finger, caressed the face of the body her husband, smoothing his breast pocket as he lay there. I wasn't repelled. I was...not glad...that's not exactly the right word, but in some way it was the right word. Glad that she had this moment with his body, with friends, with remembering him and celebrating him. And knowing she didn't care that we hadn't kept up for 10 years, but that she was glad I had come.
I was glad to drive 30 minutes for 10 minutes with her. Glad it brought a smile to her face that we could talk in her time of grief. Glad that in some way, it uncovered a bit more grief for me so I could tend to that part of me that is still broken and healing. It was important to go. And so I will continue to.
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