A Terrible Void

Yesterday I got in the car and turned on the Randi Rhodes show as I do every day after work and she was talking about Tim Russert. But as I got closer and closer to B's work I got confused - she and her guest were speaking in the past tense. So I immediately called my brother and asked if he was near a computer because they were talking about him in a strange way. "He didn't DIE, did he??"

And then he said that yes, he had died - a few hours ago. We chatted, he said he wasn't able to get ahold of our dad, so I said that I would try. I did get ahold of him and he was as heartbroken as I was.

I'm sure that if you don't follow politics and aren't a political junkie like we are, this isn't a big deal and doesn't resonate in your heart the way it does in mine. But this is a terrible loss, trust me. Tim Russert was not only the moderator of Meet the Press, but the director of NBC News and was the most influential voice in politics in regards to his fellow reporters. They all looked so lost and bleary eyed yesterday during the non-stop tributes to him.

Of course, it's also upsetting because he was so young, only 58. He was the same age as our parents and that will also give anyone pause.

Coming back

So... I'm back. I haven't felt like writing in so long because it just felt wrong to be writing about the little daily parts of life when I knew so many people in so much pain. I just couldn't bring myself to do it because it all seemed a little irrelevant. My brother flew home for Brian's funeral, which was yesterday morning, and has been spending a lot of good quality time with Adam and their group of friends. I'm so glad he decided to come home, even if it was brief. I think it's important to go through these things together, and I feel like he never could have dealt with such a tragedy by being so far away. It's only too bad that I won't get to see him, as he flies back early tomorrow morning.

Things have been rolling forward, as always, here in central NY. We're still tackling the great weed-out of '08, which has been very effective. Ever since we moved in together a few years ago, B and I had never really weeded out our old clothes, crafts, sports equipment, etc. So we've been hitting the task pretty hard the last two weekends, but there is still a ways to go.

My mom gave me the wise advice to catalog everything we're donating to the Salvation Army so that we can get the tax write-off. If you go here, it brings you to the Salvation Army Valuation Guide where they give you a list of items and tell you how much you can count as a donation per item. I took that info and made a whole spreadsheet in Excel with built-in calculations so it does all of the work for you. If anyone out there has a clean-out ahead of them and wants me to send it to them, let me know. Right now we're up to 7 boxes of items totally $2010! Once you have your list they'll stamp it for you when you donate the items, which legitimizes your write-off.

Have a good weekend, especially to B's dad who celebrates a birthday today! Another year wiser.

Complexities

I think we usually assume that life and it's parts occur in a bubble. The protagonist is pure and the antagonist is evil - cut and dry. Although I knew that those simplicities were never true, I felt the depth of that yesterday. All day I felt so sad about Brian, and yet work went on. My whole family was frantically trying to talk to my brother yesterday to see how he was doing and when he finally called me back, his empty voice just broke me heart. I just wanted to beg him to move back to the East Coast so we wouldn't all be so far away. And the thing is - there is nothing anyone can say. Nothing. Both of my parents called me to say that they wished that we could be together just to sit in the same room and appreciate each other and laugh and give hugs. (To see Brian's obituary, which includes a photo and the place to give donations, click here.)

But as sad as I was, and continue to be, joy over the littlest thing still has a way of sliding in. As we were cooking our dinner of sesame coated salmon and Thai noodles with peanut sauce, we got a knock on the door. "Maybe it's a package." The delivery people often confuse the two doors to our house and when there is a package of ours at the other door, our neighbors knock on the front door as a little signal.

I knew what it was since a charge recently showed up on our credit card statement - the wedding invitations. Now, the relevance here is that I LOVE paper. I love it. If I could be paid to make cards and wrap presents, I would be in blissful heaven. I get this catalog called Bags & Bows which is nothing but present-wrapping material and I tear it open when it arrives. So anyway, to me, this package was a big deal.

So I tore it open, put together one of our photo invitations, tied the specially colored ribbon that B suggested we buy aaannndddd... Perfection! Perfect! It's so beautiful that I can't stop looking at it. I love it. Love!

So I'm blissfully happy over something as simple as our invitations and similarly sad and depressed at the tragedy that is effecting people I love. I have the same urge that my parents were talking about - I just want to get in the car and drive to Plattsburgh to give my sweet Adam a hug. But truth be told, I take comfort in the fact that life is not segmented in bubbles of good and evil. I think that's what keeps us grounded and allows us to keep moving forward.

* A very big happy birthday to my brother who turns a quarter century today and also to B's sister who turned 27 yesterday *

You will be missed

Brian Mehan died today at 4pm. The family had stopped receiving visitors 2 days ago so we knew it was close. Please say prayers and send love to the wonderful family and hundreds of friends he left behind. I can only hope that the tragic loss of such a vibrant 20 year old has positive life-changing effects on those he knew. Click here for pictures I posted a few days ago.

A Little Perspective

I need to apologize in advance for writing this post. Blogs are kind of the nicer side of life. No one writes about their financial problems or theirs fights with their husband, or how sometimes they just want to smack their friends. And I've been holding off on this for three days now, but I can't stop crying and I just have to put it out there.

The 20 year old brother of my brother's best friend Adam is dying of cancer. He only has a few days to live. Adam and my brother grew up together and I love him like my own brother. His younger brother contracted testicular cancer a year ago and became one of those rare, horrible cases where he's not going to survive. My family (mom, cousins, aunts) have been at the hospital everyday and my brother is flying home soon for the funeral. It's only a matter of days now.

I was telling my dad yesterday that I can't chalk this up to yet another rare tragedy because I just feel like I know SO many young people who have died tragically before their time. This is the second friend of my brothers to lose a sibling and the third young person's funeral he'll attend in a year. It's starting to feel like a mass exodus.

So anyway.... there's nothing that can really be done. No one can prevent young people from dying too early and nothing has been able to stop me from bursting into tears every hour. But I thought it could be yet another reminder of all those cliches that we forget so easily. Love your family, don't be afraid, make bold moves, and forget about all of the little bullshit things that we worry about far too much.

Adam is on the far right, my brother is right next to him.

My cousin Lanai (on the left), dancing with Adam's brother Brian.