Loose Leaf Notes

I thought of my brothers, Jim and Dan, a lot during our road trip out west. Every time I saw an unusual cloud formation, I thought of Jim, the amateur weatherman with a flag at the Blue Hill Observatory erected in his honor after his death 4 years ago. Listening to music on the truck stereo, I thought about Dan, who died a month after Jim, because Dan was the one who used to turn me on to all the latest good music. I especially thought of him when “Let it Be” came on, the song my sisters and I sang to him just hours before he passed away.
It’s hard not to look out a stretch of endless highway, or stand on a mountaintop with an expansive view and not look for my brothers. In these situations the lack of them looms as large as the mystery of death feels close.

 
On the road trip, we drove our new/used Toyota Tundra, the same kind of truck that Dan drove when he and Jim came to visit me in Virginia just weeks before the first death, which made me remember the following conversation I had with Dan, excerpted here from “The Jim and Dan Stories.”

 
…Dan was proud to show off his new 2001 golden-beige Toyota Tundra to me. “I never would want a brand new car or truck. You need so much insurance and have to worry about every scratch,” I complained.

“Well that worry is out of the way,” Dan said, referring to the big scratch on the fender. Then he said something about it being the last truck he would have, so why not get the truck of his dreams.

He had wanted Jim to have the Tundra if his liver transplant didn’t come through, and he took out a credit life insurance policy on it, just in case…

 
Ironically, I was writing this entry, while riding home from Colorado in the Tundra, on my brother Dan’s birthday, but, being on a road trip and barely knowing what day of the week it was, I didn’t know it. Later, when I checked my email, I saw a message from my sister Sherry to our family Love Link with the heading, *Happy Birthday to Dano.* No wonder I was thinking so much about him, I thought!

 
My brother Jim, who was a lover of storms, was more at home with the elements than he was with people. As the stories progressed, his essence began to emerge as the mysterious changing qualities of the moon… Dan was compassionate and generous. His bright light was personified by the sun. A silver and gold thread began to shine through the dullness of my grief and weave itself through the stories… The mythical presence of Jim and Dan, expressed through dreams, symbols, and the coincidences that my family and I shared, supported me in my grief and became the signposts out of it. (Jim and Dan Stories/Introduction)

 
Because Dan was not married, he named my parents the beneficiary of his new truck. After he died, the Tundra went to them. But at ages nearing 80, they weren’t about to drive a big truck and were able to get two cars, one for each of them, in trade for Danny’s. One is gold and the other is silver.

 
Two brand new cars sit in their driveway as big as life. One is gold and the other is silver. The physical manifestations of Jim and Dan in spirit? Two vehicles, or magical chariots to carry my parents safely and comfortably through the rest of their old age? The gold dust of sun? The silver dust of moon and stars? What magic is being woven? (Jim and Dan Stories)

Post note: Silver and Gold became the name of the small press my husband and I started and the web page in honor of my brothers, which is a contact site for my books.