Bye-bye, Brother

It's weird how long it's been since I've written. Written anything. Anything anywhere. I guess I did jot down a few notes here and there while I was in Hawaii last week, but nothing too profound. It's incredible where life takes us; how much it changes us without our even realizing it. We preoccupy ourselves, searching for the very things that envelope and change us while we're oblivious to their immediate presence. When will we learn to pay attention?

I presently sit in front of a computer at a desk littered with notes about various customers and their internet problems. There's a note on my monitor reminding me to call my dear friend and congratulate her on the birth of her baby girl. The note is several months old. I'm quietly playing a self-created mix of Jon Schmidt music on my DVD-rom and enjoy the flirtatious tones wafting through the air. My Dave Barry desk calendar graces the top of my desk, placed next to the photograph of my family before Penny married Greg. Behind the calendar is a picture of my Amanda in the straw hat and blue outfit and a picture of Cade, Aubrey and Ashley all pulling funny faces.

To my right is a wall, complete with hanging calendar and corkboard. The corkboard holds pictures of my new nephew and a former coworker and I. There's also the company phone list, the employee birthday list, and the map of our APs and distances we can service. I have cut and pasted on the corkboard the obituary for Faith Kathleen Montgomery - my dear friend, Jed's, only niece. She came into this world and left it again less than 24 hours later. The obituary hangs next to a picture of me and my dead brother, playing "family" with a nephew and two nieces at my other brother's wedding two years ago.

I miss him.

I spoke at Dana's funeral. He died on July 9 2003 in a car wreck. They say that when he flew out of the Jeep and hit the ground, he broke his neck and immediately died. Is it good he didn't "suffer" if it means his survivors were robbed of the opportunity to say one last goodbye? To give him one last kiss? To tell him one last joke? I wonder what he thought as he hurtled toward the ground - or if he was even capable of thinking. I wonder if it even dawned on him when the trailer started jacking around behind the Jeep that it could ultimately cause his death. I wonder if he was as relieved as I that no one else was on the road; that no one else was involved or hurt in the accident.

I wonder if God let him watch as my parents pulled up behind the wreck and saw him on the ground. I wonder if he watched and heard as my father called my sister-in-law to let her know that morning's kiss would be her last from her dear husband. I wonder if he watched, heard, and cried when my daddy called me to tell me the sibling I held closest to me had passed away an hour earlier and some 300+ miles away, leaving me stuck in Salt Lake City, powerless to comfort and unable to be comforted. I wonder if Dana hears me every night as I'm saying my prayers, begging God to let me be with him again one day.

My brother is a good man. It's no wonder God couldn't wait to have him back. Does that make God selfish? Perhaps...but I don't think so. I think it means God teaches us some lessons the hard way.

Dying

Bill Kringlen passed away Monday night. i heard about it last night while i was managing the PF. when i took Chris the money his eyes were still red and a bit puffy, sadness evident in the half-hearted, yet consoling embrace we shared on his front porch. he like a father to me - Bill like a father to him. i can't imagine if it were Chris.

i have never had a personal encounter with cancer. some associates and mere acquaintances have battled the disease with futile earnest, yet i have never seen it "upclose and personal." last year my next-door neighbor, Carol, 60+, never married, never laid, book addict and skilled gardener, fought breast cancer. for a while her truck and she were merely missing from the house. they appeared again, along with a variety of bandanas that adorned her head. the nephew would come over, mow her grass, visit and whatnot, but i merely waved. i guess i thought i couldn't. eventually, the bandanas came off, and her stubbly silver hair sparkled in the sunlight. she sat on a lawn chair on the front porch on warm nights.

the hair - it's all back now. no sign of the struggle she faced, nor the valiant fight she won. it will probably come back and take her life. it seems that's the typical process. fight it and win...it will only come back with a determination you cannot match.

i never took her the zucchini bread i thought would be a nice gesture. she doesn't know, but i will always remember. i will always pray for her.