My brother Henry died two years ago today, April 6. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just before Thanksgiving. He died seven months and four days after his 70th birthday.
His death still doesn’t seem quite real.
Two years should be long enough to internalize something like the death of a brother, but I don’t seem to be any closer to that than immediately after he died. It’s as if there are two realities, one where he is dead, and another where he is still alive.
The strangest thing for me to contemplate is that in a little over a month I’ll be the same age he was. If I survive until Christmas of this year, I will overtake him and he will no longer be older than me.
Such a sad anniversary. In the Jewish tradition we light a yahrzeit candle that burns for 24 hours. It is meant in a way to contain the grief for that time. I have been lighting one for my father for 28 years and now for my mom. We light the candle at sundown the day before and burns all night into the day of death and then it is out by sundown. Love and memories last forever in your heart. Somewhere in the universe Henry knows and feels your love.
Robin — Maybe I should start that tradition as well. I have been feeling an urge to make another pilgrimage to the New River Canyon, where I symbolically scattered ashes last fall.
Mark– I’ll gladly send you a Yahrzeit candle if you can’t find one there. There’s something about seeing that small flame flickering through the night that really lifts the heart. I think a pilgrimage to New River Canyon sounds lovely.