All in a Thursday

I am in a rut. A blogging rut. I have so much to say that it is nearly bubbling out of me. But they are not happy things to say. So I keep stopping myself. Nobody wants to read about it. The unhappiness. But then again, I am not forcing you to read. And if I do not write it, none of the happy stuff can come out either. So, here it is. Consider yourself warned.

Where to begin? Two weeks ago I suppose. Two Thursdays ago Jeff was in Paris. It was not as romantic as it sounds. Paris is not always romantic. He was there on business. The kind that kept him in meetings from 8 in the morning until 10 at night. He did not see much of Paris. And I was home. Holding up fairly well, really. He had been gone for a week, the children were all alive, we still loved each other. Mostly. I had to call the medical examiner that day. I should have called the day before. We couldn't do any of my brothers paperwork until we had a cause of death. There is all kinds of paper work involved in death. And it was time. They said up to 12 weeks. And we were there. I had called a dozen times already, over the past 3 months. Ol' Dodge Christensen and I were friends now. Dodge. That was the doctors name. Really. I felt good about that. It made the call easier getting to talk to a man named Dodge. Except this time. This time there was a long pause, a transfer here, more waiting there. And I knew. There was an answer this time. They had a cause of death. And it wasn't the one I wanted. The one anyone wanted. Not even my brother. Not really. But it was still there. "Pending" felt nice in comparison. Suicide did not feel nice. It felt so shocking and familiar that I felt like it was brand new all over again. Like I had just found out that my brother was dead for the first time. Dodge was a gentleman. He waited for the shock to set in. He waited for me to pull it together. He answered all of my questions three times. And then three more times. Just to make sure. I didn't want to call again, I had to get it all this time, make sure. For my mom. She needed to know. I had grown comfortable with "pending," we had come to terms with each other. But that had all slipped away. Comfortable isn't a part of suicide. I will have to come to terms with that now. Dodge told me what they found. He had overdosed on his prescription meds. No, it wasn't an accident, he assured me. In the kindest way possible. Accidents do happen, but not with these amounts. The numbers made it clear. Suicide.

At first I was angry. So angry I wanted to scream. Scream at Michael. So loud and angry that he would understand exactly how much I was hurting. How much our parents were hurting. Our parents. These people that had loved us and raised us and would never be the same because of what he had done. Did he think of any of that? Did he? I don't know. I won't ever know. I like to think he did. Now. Now that I am not so angry. The anger didn't last very long. That is nice. But the newness of it did. I still feel like it just happened. That finding out has made us live a part of it over again, without that distant hope there to ease some of the pain away. I think he thought of us. Of his daughters. He was just too far to come back.

So there it is. That is our answer. It is a hard one to reconcile. It is an answer full of so many questions. And it makes me miss my brother so wholly I realize I never understood what it meant to miss someone before this. And that is how that story ends.

And a new one begins. On that same Thursday. I got a call at 7:00 that evening from Brooks' ENT. I knew if he was calling at 7pm that what he had to say would not be good. Who stays late to give good news. He had finally received the results from the ABR that we had done at the hospital weeks earlier. It turns out Brooks and Jeffrey have the exact same hearing loss. Exact. Which is strange. Baffling, really. That is how the doctor sounded, a bit baffled. He asked if these were my only two children. I have four, I said. I am concerned that this is genetic, he said. Testing would be a good idea, for all of them. Genetic testing, just to be sure, to know what it is we are dealing with. And of course hearing aids for the baby. Of course. I didn't cry until I got off the phone. And then I broke down. Big whaling sobs. Mourning the perfection of my baby and my brother and my utter helplessness in all of it. And then I called my mom and we cried together. For both of our boys. For our mother hearts that love and mourn and feel so very much. All in a Thursday.