My brother Henry died today, Friday, April 6. His wife, his two sons, his daughter in law, and his wife’s son were there. Leah and I were not. We had been up to Chattanooga on Thursday. I thought there was a risk that he might die before we got back if we skipped going on Friday, but we decided to wait till Saturday. Now we will be going up on Saturday, the day of this post, to be with the rest of the family.
I said my goodbye to Henry last Tuesday when he was still able to respond. I told him I loved him and he said he loved me. By the time Leah and I went back up on Thursday, he was no longer communicating. He was a ghost of himself by then. He was wasting away. His arms looked like the arms of a 90-year-old man. He was nothing like the boy I knew many years ago or the man I knew from just a few months ago. It was hard even to make the connection.
Left undone: Clearing their overgrown back yard, making a cherrywood chest of drawers for his son and daughter in law, writing his life story, poring over the many slides our father took, seeing any grandchildren he may one day have, and living through a long, happy and productive old age.
I have not come to terms with the whole process of learning about Henry’s disease and his inescapable prognosis, and even less so with his death. It’s like my thoughts simply run into a wall. Behind that wall are all of the facts, but I just can’t get over the wall to them.
There will be a memorial service. Terry said Henry had already planned for that long ago. His body will be cremated. He wanted the ashes to be spread at the New River Gorge in West Virginia. We don’t have a particular connection to that place, other than driving over the New River Gorge bridge on US 19 on the way back and forth to Pittsburgh when Henry lived there. But it’s a beautiful place, and one day we will have a connection with it.
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again
Oh Mark this is such sad news even though it was expected. Roger and I send our deepest sympathy to you, Leah, and your brother’s family and all who loved him. Loss stings in a way we never expect, even though we know it is coming. We will raise our glasses tonight in your brother’s honor. Here is a poem by Mary Oliver for you. I think it works for all our loved family members who take their journey before us.
Poem for my Father’s Ghost”
–Mary Oliver
Now is my father
A traveler, like all the bold men
He talked of, endlessly
And with boundless admiration,
Over the supper table,
Or gazing up from his white pillow —
Book on his lap always, until
Even that grew too heavy to hold.
Now is my father free of all binding fevers
Now is my father
Travelling where there is no road
Finally, he could not lift a hand
To cover his eyes.
Now he climbs to the eye of the river,
He strides through the Dakotas,
He disappears into the mountains, And though he looks
Cold and hungry as any man
At the end of a questing season,
He is one of them now:
He cannot be stopped.
Now is my father
Walking the wind,
Sniffing the deep Pacific
That begins at the end of the world.
Vanished from us utterly,
Now is my father circling the deepest forest —
Then turning in to the last red campfire burning
In the final hills,
Where chieftains, warriors and heroes
Rise and make him welcome,
Recognizing, under the shambles of his body,
A brother who has walked his thousand miles.
Really sorry about this.
Robin — I like the poem.
Paul — Thanks.