Loose Leaf Notes

Following the posting of THIS poem about my sister’s death in 2015, I received a few comments on this blog and on Facebook asking about my brothers Jim and Dan’s back to back deaths, which happened in 2001. I actually wrote a book about it that was used for years as part of a Radford University curriculum in a grief and loss class for counseling students, but the book has largely been out of print for nearly a decade now. I only have about six copies left of the nearly 1,000 that were printed. There is lots of writing on this blog about losing Jim and Dan and others in my family, which can be found on the Losing a Loved One side bar category, but, after thinking about it, I decided to post the first chapter of the book. It wasn’t written as part of the book, but serves to set up the story. It was originally written for the Floyd community newsletter, A Museletter and was published in my hometown paper, The Hull Times as a tribute. It became a jumping off point for the book, The Jim and Dan Stories, which is part an account of my brothers last weeks and their deaths a month apart (which played out like Hollywood script), part memoir of growing up together on the South Shore of Boston in a large Irish Catholic family of 11, and part a chronicle of the first six months of deep grief and coping with it.

1.

Grief and Faith

My brother Jim’s abrupt, accidental death shook my faith to the core.  Every New Age and Catholic childhood belief I ever had came into question. My brother Dan’s death, just a month after Jim’s, restored my faith.  I watched Dan go purely and on his own terms after his body would no longer do the simplest of tasks.  For me, Jim’s death was better understood in its higher purpose only after Dan died. But whether the death of a loved one comes with understanding and faith or not, the grief is the same.  I’m thankful for my grief, which is also my deepening.  I’m reminded of what Wendell Berry said about grief in his book “Jayber Crow,”  “One by one we lose our loved ones, our friends, our powers of work and pleasure, our landmarks, the days of our allotted time.  One by one, the way we lose them, they return to us treasured up in our hearts.  Grief affirms them.  Preserves them. Sets the cost.”

The Two Journeys

Dan led the physical trip.  He was sick and was on the list for a liver transplant.  He wanted to spend time with his older brother, Jim, a single parent who had not been away from home since he was stationed in Korea during the Vietnam War.  He wanted Jim to see some of the country, while also creating some good memories for himself, because he knew in the back of his mind that their road trip might be his last.  Even though their travels were cut slightly short due to Dan’s illness, Jim fulfilled many of the goals he made for that trip–seeing Atlantic City, Washington D.C., The Gulf of Mexico, visiting me in Virginia, exploring the Dixie Caverns, having a reunion with a favorite cousin he hadn’t seen in 20 years, playing golf with my husband.  Jimmy was killed in a tragic machine shop accident two weeks after returning home.  My family and I were comforted knowing that Jim, who was often vocal about the struggles in his life, had some last good memories and left this world on a positive note.

Jim led the spiritual trip.  He had the same liver disease that Danny did, but it was not progressed to the same degree.  He had a hard time seeing Dan so sick and feeling as if he were viewing what could be in store for him.  But that wasn’t to be.  It seemed that on some unconscious level Jim decided to check out early.  Did he sacrifice what time he had left by going first, always the big brother?

Jim’s funeral brought Dan, who was living in Texas, back home to Massachusetts to see his immediate and extended family, and many of his friends, one last time before his own death.  Although Dan had not recovered from the earlier trip he took with Jim, he mustered the strength to be a pallbearer for his brother and to receive the love and attention that was showered on him by family and friends. Jim’s death created a physical resting place for Dan, as burial plots are bought in pairs.  Danny, who had thought he wanted to be cremated, changed his mind after Jim died and spoke with relief at knowing he had a final resting place with his brother if his liver transplant fell through, a place where all nine of us Redman kids had played together while growing up, the Hull Village Cemetery.

We also feel that Jim created a spiritual place for Dan as our sister-in-law, Jeanne, a hospice nurse, asked Danny the morning of his death if he had seen Jim.  Danny nodded “Yes.”

I miss both my brothers terribly, but I’m glad they have each other.

The Gift of Grace

Watching someone take their last breath is an intimate life passage, not so unlike birth, with lots of swaying, praying, comforting, and waiting.  When a person bravely faces their own death (especially after suffering), a grace is born that can be felt by those present.  I was supported by that grace throughout Dan’s funeral services, but because I have since learned that the energy of grace can wear off, I like to remind myself of the gifts that Dan gave me in his last weeks.

.  He gave me the gift of bringing my brother Jim to visit me in Virginia and the precious last memories I now have of that.

.  He gave me the gift of realizing my parent’s profound and loving appreciation (what child ever has enough of that?) for myself and my sisters for flying to Texas to be by Dan’s side till the end.

.  He gave me the gift of learning firsthand that service to others is not draining and that when serving others we are given the resources to do what is needed for however long it is needed.  Because I have lived with chronic fatigue for twenty-five years, this was an important lesson.

.  Learning how loved, how irreplaceable and how talented Dan was from his Texas friends and co-workers gave me a new awareness and appreciation for him.

.  Witnessing Dan’s battle to live and then his bravery in facing his own death made me want to be a better person.  It gave me an unshakable knowledge of the reality of impermanence and a model of acceptance that I can take to my own death.

.   His softening and receptivity to our caring for him filled me with gratitude.  For such a stubbornly independent guy this was truly a touching gift.

.  He gave me the gift of restored faith in what is unseen and holy, as I witnessed the visions, conversations, and support he was experiencing in the final hours of his life from what/who was unseen to the rest of us.

The heartbreaking loss of my brothers has given my whole family the gift of deepening the bonds we share.  We have been strengthened by the loving support of so many wonderful people who have come to our aid.  Our grief has taught us what is the most important and powerful thing in life: Love.

The Weatherman and the Humanitarian

“How many old cars did Jimmy rust out while following storms?” Father Joe asked, lightening the mood at Jim’s funeral.  The Weather Man…Observer of the world…Transformed in a flash…Like the tongues of lightening licking the sky…Spliced in with All That Is…Listen to his whispers in the rain…Look for his essence in the patterns all around  you… are lines from the poem that Jeanne wrote and recited at the cemetery.

Jimmy’s love of weather was notorious. He kept meticulously detailed weather records dating as far back as high school.  When he was seven years old, my mother watched as he rigged up a red string to a stick in the yard.  “What are you doing, Jim?” she asked.  “I’m seeing which way the wind is blowing!” he informed her.  He wrote narrative weather observations, got several of his weather photographs published, and volunteered giving tours at the weather observatory that sits atop Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts.  At the time of his death he was documenting a record breaking heat wave which broke the day after he died.

If Jim comes to us now in the weather, in the clouds and storms and waves that he so loved and documented, Dan comes to us through the homeless.  When I see the underprivileged, I am reminded how Danny always left money in his truck ashtray to give to them.  I remember Dan’s generosity and how he always tipped big in honor of our mother who worked hard as a waitress for forty years.  I know of at least one woman, who was sometimes homeless, that Dan supported on a regular basis.  She came to his deathbed, kissed him and said, “I love you, Dan.”

Dan’s legacy is the inspiration I now have to continue to help others in his memory.  Jim’s legacy is to never lose my sense of wonder in nature.  I look at the world now through the physical eyes that my brothers no longer have.

Flying the Plane

I sat with Dan for hours when he was too tired to talk at St. Luke’s Hospital in Houston. Sometimes he would gesture with his hand to “Come on,” which I knew meant, “Give me some news.”

Me: “Well, let’s see…I’m settled into your apartment now.  I love the home you’ve made for yourself.  I noticed you have pictures of your family all over.”

Dan: More gesturing.

Me: “Okay.  I’m finding everything I need.  This hospital is pretty comfortable, with a rest area and a decent cafeteria.  It feels a little better than waiting in an airport, which I’ve been doing my share of lately.  But then again, it does feel like we’re waiting for a plane (meaning Dan’s new liver which would be his ticket out of his suffering), doesn’t it Dan?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.  That plane was never to arrive.  It turned out that Dan was too sick to be a good candidate for a liver transplant and too weak to withstand the surgery.

Several weeks later, back at home in Virginia, my husband, Joe, seeing me writing, asks, “Are you writing a poem?”

“Well, sort of.” I answer.  “But I may as well be flying a plane, trying to put this into words.”

After a few more tears, I wrote this all down.  Then I went back to Joe, who I knew was beginning to worry about my despondency, and said, “Hey Joe, I’m beginning to fly the plane.”  He knew what I meant.

And so, life does go on. – Colleen Redman/ Read chapter 2 next HERE.