Once Upon a Time in Paris
The last few weeks of my brothers’ lives played out like the conclusion of a dramatic Hollywood script, a plot with a twist. The road trip they took, two weeks before the first death, became the beginning of a larger journey, the one in which they would both leave this world. ~ excerpt from the back cover of The Jim and Dan Stories
Rick, from Verb-ops, read “The Jim and Dan Stories” (the book I wrote about my brothers’ deaths) in Paris while on assignment for his job this past summer. That’s the short answer as to how the book came to be there.
Rick is an artist and was sketching at Les Deux Magots on the Bloulvard Saint Germain, “thus the eraser and glass of Sancerre,” when he snapped the above photo of “The Jim and Dan Stories,” lying on the café table. Now I am eating lunch at my kitchen table studying the photo and sketching these words that I hope will explain how I feel when I look at it.
The café table looks like a runway on which Jim and Dan, who both died in 2001, have landed in their other-world form. They have no arms and legs, no need to eat (even in Paris). Their surreal existence is now dependent on others. The couple in the background calmly eating are unaware of the book, as if it doesn’t exist. Are they real? Are they living their lives still, as I type? How do I know? Where did last summer go? Have Jim and Dan’s lives been erased?
When I sent Rick’s photo to the Love-Link, our family group e-mail that we started when Dan was sick, my sister Sherry responded by saying, “Jim and Dan seem to be traveling more than us.” Are they living an alternate reality somewhere? What are the chances? What do we know? After 5 years my family and I are still trying to figure it out.
Post Note: So far as I know, books have been Germany, Norway, Nova Scotia, and Alaska. Where else are they destined to go, I wonder?
October 16th, 2006 10:35 pm
I love this post. Imagine your memory and life story traveling around the world. Awesome.
October 17th, 2006 1:09 am
This made me think of a post by a friend of mine at
http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=C100728&entry=20088&mode=date
I like to think that in an alternate reality or another plane of existence, my friend Helen, who so wanted to get to Paris for so long, has finally realized that desire.
October 17th, 2006 8:32 am
Interesting post. Which I think only proves that long after we leave this earth, our spirit remains.
October 17th, 2006 9:10 am
I went to the link Elissa, but couldn’t comment at the site. Have you seen the movie Amilee? A traveling gnome figures in it.
October 17th, 2006 11:59 am
Your book has been to heaven and back.
Next stop? Oprah Winfrey.
October 17th, 2006 12:44 pm
Wow.
This makes me pause, and think, and feel just sort of in awe of the span and breadth of life and death.
I believe that my father lives through my memories of him, but specifically when the words are shared with other people. I believe it not in my mind, but in my heart, which is a mysterious being that I don’t quite understand fully.
I wonder if you sort of feel that way too?
October 17th, 2006 1:03 pm
Yes, I believe my brothers exist as long as we remember them, talk about them, and feel them. And through the book, the strange existance they now embody, ripples out further, becomming larger than life in a way.
But I also imagine they are SOMEWHERE enjoying the freedom from physical restraints and witnessing all this earthly stuff. Maybe they are frustrated at not being able to tell us or interact with bodies (as we are equally frustrated at not being able to interact physically with them). Like you Josephine, my mind doesn’t believe this, but something at my core does … or at least I lean towards believing it. It’s the mystery I will spend my life trying to penetrate.
When I was a child, I thought heaven would be paperdolls and candy. The child within me thinks my brothers are traveling, going to baseball games and gambling at Atlantic City.
October 17th, 2006 4:17 pm
Thank you for that post about your brothers. I’ve been struggling to write about my son’s suicide for some time. I must read your book. And now, you are the only other person without a cell phone, and here I thought I was so special. I think I’ve found a soulmate here.
October 17th, 2006 5:24 pm
Gol darn…I guess I could have taken your book along and set it up at the Trevi fountain and took a picture! A missed opportunity there! We can start an elf-type thing.
October 17th, 2006 5:29 pm
I’m probably missing some pieces here, being a new reader to your blog. But I can relate… I lost my sister and father within 8 momths of each other (2001), and another sister 10 years ago. I really like to think of them having adventures and maybe watching over us, whispering hints in our ear once in a while. The hole they left is part of my life now, somewhat like the negative space in an doily.
Enjoyed reading this post.
~S
October 17th, 2006 7:13 pm
I imagine that they are looking down at the book on that table and saying, “Aw, look what Colleen did.” I like ti think they’re having a grand life albeit in another realm so fabulous,we can’t even imagine. A complete different plane.
October 17th, 2006 7:48 pm
Seeing that photo must have set many emotions roiling. I have an experience that happened to me after my husband died and I will blog about it at some point. I do believe that they return to us in odd ways for the rest of our lives.
October 17th, 2006 9:15 pm
I really like that picture and it feels like we are keeping our brothers alive here on earth. Thanks again Colleen for your forever love & for writing the book!!!!
October 18th, 2006 5:21 am
How wonderful Colleen…I cannot imagine what your feelings had to be when you saw this photo….and what you wrote is so beautiful and expresses what you felt so touchingly…Beautiful, my dear…(And how thrilling to see your wonderful book sitting on a table in Paris…my my my…!)
October 18th, 2006 8:06 am
How wonderful to think of our spirits visiting all over the world….People seeing glimpses of our lives.
Wonderful post Colleen. I believe in heaven so I don’t think people can see the pain or bad things here anymore….but the good moments…the moments when we are alone on a walk or thinking of a loved one…I believe they brush back by us with love. I think they know when we think of them or call to them. I think they are waiting on us.
Take care and I will see you soon! If I were home I would be going to Fandango up there…that looked like so much fun. (Though I kept calling it Floydaboo)
October 20th, 2006 1:51 pm
The fellas traveled with me to Orlando once too. That’s where you ran into the cow.~,:^)
The Jim and Dan Stories is a wonderful book. It is never in one place at a time. Thanks for sharing it all with us.
March 12th, 2014 11:44 pm
[…] 7. I may have not been to Paris since 1974, but The Jim and Dan Stories, the book I wrote about losing my two brothers a month apart, was there in 2006. See HERE. […]