Friend

I looked for you again
an unexpected email
one of your old friends
feeling guilty that you died
she didn’t know in time
didn’t call you back that night
oh, the sorrows and regrets
googling ‘citicow68’ and
there you are, just like that
your name, face
really just a glimpse on the internet
some personal details
almost like reading someone’s journal
your honesty, fears
trusting others to understand
I didn’t know
you wanted to die in your sleep
not something a mother and son would talk about
in everyday talk easier
to reprimand you
for watching so much ‘South Park’
and have you done your Statistics homework yet
both of us in school then
pursuing the carrots we called dreams
pushing you on, onward
never really knowing how far you could go
but what would happen to you, if I quit?
your patronizing grin
trying to rub the anxiety out of my shoulders
you didn’t need pushing, only encouragement
did I give you enough?
tell you how proud I was that you kept trying?
kept going when life knocked you down?
I didn’t realize, until after
how many times you got back up, over and over
with a smile, a kind word, a thank you
so I stare, for the thousandth time, at your picture
the one nearest to what appears when I close my eyes
see the real you just beyond the veil
your love intact
your peace assured
I get your message
return the email
tell her
no regrets, my friend
only happiness
only love
only peace

Brandon's Life in Pictures

My daughter created this beautiful slide show to honor Brandon on the anniversary of his death.
Click here to watch it. Make sure your speakers are on.

To Nancy

I don't need to touch it to know
it's just a picture
of a painting
of him and yet
through my blur of tears
something shifts
his tender gaze
like a caress
a glance
a softening around the mouth
as though he can indeed,
speak from the page
I dare not look away
the compassion!
the understanding!
the knowledge!
that in the aftermath's anguish
while I lament the 3000 miles between me
and my friend know
with hopeless certainty
that I can do nothing
I understand
suddenly
that He
has already done
everything was at her side
from the first moment
fog rising up from the tulles like angels
to wrap her in the arms of love
binding the wounds of her broken heart
Balm of Gilead
Beautiful Savior
Healer
of us all

First Born and Second Chances

Brandon was my first-born in the wilderness, son of my youth. He gave me motherhood in all its facets. He was my first pregnancy, my first labor and delivery, my first experience with breast-feeding and teething and diapering and loving thoroughly another perfect human being who depended on me completely for his life. On him I practiced, with him I was infatuated, from him I received much love as he was a cheerful baby, but on him I made the most mistakes. I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did. As he grew up he became more and more independent--sometimes too independent to my way of thinking--and the problems, experiences, the trials, the joys, the successes, and even the mundane, all became more complicated because soon we were a family of four and then five, and Brandon was not just the first-born, he was the older brother, the one we expected to set the example for the others, the one who, no matter how old he became, was always the first child. Whether he was 12 or 22, my experiences with him were always new. Always a trial run. Always a crap shoot if I was doing it right or not. But Brandon seemed to be able to handle it.

Later as I grew in wisdom as a parent, I lamented the fact that I could do a much better job with Brandon if only I had the chance to do it over again. I got my wish July 30, 1998 when Brandon survived a major car accident. Horror. We didn't know it that day, but Brandon was going to come out of his coma a 200 lb infant; we were going to do all the things with him that we'd done the first time around. He had to relearn everything and we were going to re-raise him only this time with an upped ante--magnified personality traits, a man who didn't realize anything was mentally wrong, intense temporal lobe rages that put us in physical danger, an inability to reason, and all with the same strong independent will as before and a physical strength that returned well before his mental capabilities did. God help us all if he stopped progressing at 15! Thankfully, he didn't. But even in the most difficult circumstances we found some humor.

Shortly after Brandon first came home after three months in the hospital, he went from using a wheel chair to walking with a walker. His balance was very poor. The doctor had emphasized how devastating it would be if Brandon fell in the shower or anywhere and hit his head again. For that reason, one of us always followed him to the bathroom to stand guard in case he started to fall. Chantel even put on her bathing suit and helped him in the shower a couple of times. I remember one time in particular, Brandon went into the bathroom and I was close behind him. He was physically progressing rapidly and was irritated when any of us were in there with him. In frustration he turned around and hollered, "Well, you followed me in here-- do you want to hold my penis for me too while I take a piss?" There he was! The old Brandon! Shortly after that, he quit using the walker and we gave him back some privacy.

Another time, Larry, who had became Brandon's full-time-every-kind-of therapist, (fodder for another post) decided that he needed to increase the level of Brandon's physical activity. Brandon had surpassed every physical goal, from being able to walk to the corner and back, to walking around the track down at the school, to walking around the block and up the hill. Larry often brought the wheelchair with them in case Brandon needed it to get home, but one day he decided to sit in the wheelchair and let Brandon push him. That was the day that a neighbor drove by and scowled at Larry as if to say, "What a mean father you are, making that poor crippled boy push you up the hill!"

Remembering those times makes me proud of how the Dayley family sacrificed for Brandon and how hard he worked to 'come back.' It makes me marvel at how determined he was to overcome his limitations and to what degree Larry and Chantel and Clayton gave to make that happen. It makes me reflect with gratitude on the power of faith, the hundreds, maybe thousands of prayers that were offered up for all of us, and it makes me hopeful that I will have the opportunity to help the families of other head-injury victims, even if it's just a word of courage to them.

I do feel sad to remember how open ended our grief was in those days. The Brandon we knew had died, but his body had not. Although people sent numerous cards, and offered many prayers and messages of condolence, there was no funeral and no closure. We wore our grief like shackles, with no one to explain to us the grieving process or how to get through it. At the time, Brandon's accident was the worst trial I'd ever been through. I didn't think I'd ever go through anything more difficult than that. I was wrong. But would I go back and change those days? Fast forward over the early years to a place where Brandon was mature and confident and hopeful? Not a chance. I learned so much with him and from him, and from my family also. Those years were a gift, a blessing in the form of adversity. Brandon should have died in that car wreck. The day I stood at his gravesite and spoke was the day I realized that he didn't need to have been here, to struggle like he did these past ten years. It was the rest of us who were given the opportunities to grow. We became more patient, more understanding, more willing to give and do and love, more forgiving, more filled with compassion. And isn't that the idea? To return home with honor to our Heavenly Father and Mother, having received the experiences we came to earth for? Sometimes I ask myself: If I had the chance to relive those years, knowing what I know now, would I? My answer is always the same: You bet your life. And mine too. In a heartbeat.

Influence

Years ago when I was fighting with my oldest and almost regretting motherhood in its entirety, a counselor explained that within every family is a member who acts as the thermometer. That person takes upon themselves the role of checking the family's health with the ultimate job of doing whatever is necessary to keep them all together, even if that means, and for us it frequently did, that the mission is accomplished through strife and contention, which takes the focus off the areas that aren't working as well, and transfers the attention to the one causing the problems, much like a decoy--Hey! Over here! Not ideal, of course, but it works. But what happens when the one playing that role one is gone? Does someone else take it on, or is the family left to stand or fall, depending on its strength as a whole? Is the thermometer role just for the growing years, or is there always someone around trying to take a temperature?

I think about the first family picture taken without him, at the cemetery in Idaho where we'd driven in order to bury him in the only town he ever truly called home. A blustery afternoon. We squint into the coldness of a spring sun; elevation 5000 ft. Windswept hair. Mouths drawn crooked like the stick figures we'd become. I wonder if his absence has changed the dynamics somehow, of if we have become what we would have regardless. Memory says that his presence all those busy uspside down years, and his great needs during the past ten years, served to keep us together in a unique way. Maybe its supposed to be this way now. The four of us. In ways it is easier. No fighting between siblings. No phone calls from the neighbors, the police, the hospital. I think about the photo again but it is wrong. The wind gusted that day and hollowed a space where he should have been standing, with his strong arms around one of us or another. On better days I'll tell myself that he was there all along. It was only mortality and lack of faith blurring my vision. But other times I'll always wonder: What happens to the family when the thermometer breaks?

Caterpillar

The grieving process is personal and solitary, and yet, I am the MOM. And somehow, that means that I should have the answers, or can find them, in spite of my own grief, that I can kiss the hurts and make them all better. I read my daughter's blog entry recently and cried, for her sorrows and mine. I wonder if I haven't been there enough for her, if somehow in our separate journies we've put on a good front for one another when maybe we needed to cry together. Or maybe she is grieving in the best way for her and the fact that she can write about it with such honesty is evidence of strong, emotional and spiritual health. Still, I am shocked to realize that yesterday was the six month anniversary of Brandon's death and I lived the entire day--me--the one who is organized and sentimental and aways starts new endeavors at the beginning of the month or the week, yet, somenow, I missed the day's significance. How did that happen? Lying here in this room three thousand miles across the country from Maryland, I realize that Michele has made a collage of pictures for Rolan, all the people of significance in his life, and I'm grateful. She hung it low on the wall, at his eye level, and mine at this moment; thoughts of Rolan remind me of the continuity of life even when I feel the world has stopped revolving; his sweetness is balm to my spirit. One picture grabs my attention--taken in 2005 when Clayton was moving to San Diego. We had a party for him then, at the Martinez Marina and we posed together, the five of us. Fire and water. Moonlight and sun. I have a copy of that photo in my apartment in Baltimore but today I see details I hadn't noticed before. The uneven slant of Brandon's shoulders after the accident, the minuscle web of lines in Larry's and my faces, the result of full lives--the kind I haven't always prayed for, but began to, perhaps in my thirties, when I began to look back and see not just the expense of adversity, but the gifts I've received in the process. And even though my awareness of the costs grows every year, death and sorrows, divorce and illnesses, it is a full life, the only kind worth experiencing. I know that the faith my daughter wrote about has the power to heal us and our broken bodies and broken lives. It's the same faith that sent a dawn breeze through the open window this morning when only the lower edge of the night sky was turning gray, then lavendar, then pink. It's the same faith that assured me of Clayton's birth long before its reality and I can't imagine his never being here--especially now. The words "my son" have taken on a whole different meaning. The faith that turns the world on its axis is the same faith that causes trees and plant life to reach up, in spite of wind and rain and ice. And I still want that, life in all its raw beauty, even the blackness against which all other lights shine.




I look at the photo again. Brandon on one end, body language defying his limitations. A strong arm around his smiling sister who appears to be almost bursting in the joy of being with her brothers. Brandon pulls her against him, while her upper body leans slightly against Clayton. Clayton in the center, deep smile, arms wide with one around Chantel and the other around me. Larry standing on the other end, leaning into me and suddenly, I see it. We are the caterpillar. Parts that move independently, but dependent upon one another. Together in spite of our seperateness, coming together to make up the whole, even if just once in awhile. Brandon is close by. Chantel and Clayton are loving and strong. Larry is a part me. Forever. And for today, it is enough.

I found out

yesterday that Paul, a friend of Brandon's, died recently. I was devastated, especially for Paul's aunt and her family who are cherished and long-time friends. I've tried several times to write about all the feelings that emerged as a result of this news, but there's a limit to what should be shared in a blog. Sometimes life's most sacred events call for privacy and intimacy between friends and this is one of those.

I wrote this last night in the middle of the night, not as poetry, but trying to define the experience which was too real to call a dream, and too wonderful to say it wasn't.

realm skipping again
in my sleep
Brandon and Paul are laughing,
making puns of human vocabulary
suddenly archaic and unnecessary
here
in this ivory twilight between rest and dawn
more laughter between them
brown eyed boys to men and
I hold my breath,
and love this place, this interaction,
and whoever gave me permission to see it,
thank you! Oh,
if I could linger just a bit
longer pretend
I belong here too but,
too late
I have returned
to where moonlight embellishes
these periwinkle walls
and a mound of pillows cradles
this mortal frame
I will sleep now
even though more laughter,
the kind that only men can make,
deep chested and uproarious
continues to echo
my return

How I am is Relative

An often heard question has been on my mind lately--the one Chantel wrote about recently: How are you? I have two responses to that every time someone asks me. First, there's a certain deliberateness with which they speak, a slight inflection in their voices that isn't there when they're saying, How are ya? "How are you?" are the first words to remind me that someone loves me. Someone is reaching out and genuinely wants to know how I am and I'm touched by that, even more now that the funeral is over and most people are getting back to their normal lives. But the question always takes me by surprise, maybe because I'm functioning so much on auto-pilot. It's like a little shake of my body that says, Hey, your son died and how do you feel now? The second response to the question "How are you?" provides a brief window of opportunity to stop and do an emotional/mental check in--healthy for someone who is determined to do the work of grieving no matter how difficult, and I know that the person who has just asked the question is waiting for a real answer from me which prompts me to stop and consider. But the answer is more important to me than to them, because it keeps me in the experience of grieving and hopefully moving forward. What surprises me is how suddenly I go from thinking I'm fine to crying deeply--like the flip of a light switch. Isn't the answer to the question, "How are you?" relative to what life is dishing out at the moment? If judging by what I'm doing or not doing, I probably appear to be doing well: I don't stay in bed. I don't hang around in my pajamas, although I wouldn't hesitate to do that for one day if that's what I needed. (So far, I haven't needed to.) I'm not binge eating, drinking, or playing hours of mindless computer games to 'numb out,' and I'm not putting Brandon up on a pedestal as a guy who was the perfect son. He wasn't. In addition to daily activities and being Grammy, what I am doing is a lot of writing, a lot of crying, talking about him when the opportunity presents itself, and googling Brandon's name, (you get a different list if you google 'Brandon S Dayley or Brandon Scott Dayley compared to Brandon Dayley). What I've come to realize over the past week is that those who check in with me help to keep the grieving process moving forward, but nothing makes the pain go away, and no remembrance of the difficult times make the sorrow lessen either. Just like the birth of a new baby doesn't 'make up' for the infant who died, there's no earthly happiness that can compensate for the hole in my soul either. The only way over grief is through it--and that's fodder for a later post because 'getting over it' is a myth. Getting through it is what I'm attempting to do and honestly, it still sucks out loud and probably will for a long time. There's no timed grieving process that I have to adhere to, no right way to do it, no goal in mind and for that I'm thankful. I'm taking it one day, sometimes one hour, at a time. Keep asking me how I'm doing. I need your love and I welcome your concern. Just don't be surprised when I answer truthfully: not very well.

First Day Home

My sorrow threatens to overwhelm. I vacillate between sobbing, that grief that only another parent who's lost a child would recognize; actively working to help my daughter deal with her own loss in the only way I know how; and functioning with a numbness that borders on the edge of crossing over.

My grandsons don't understand, only that their routines are non-existent and their elders are sad and quiet. Owen asked me how long I was going to cry about Uncle Brandon. I did not have an answer for him.

The ward here is ready to help however they can, with childcare, meals, and anything else we need. One would think the first days are the worst, and certainly I have experienced moments--making funeral arrangements, seeing Brandon's lifeless body, the closing of the casket--but now that we have done all that our Mormon and American cultures require, it feels that I am expected to carry on as before, but I do not know what that looks like or how I'm supposed to feel. I don't know for sure, but I think the real grieving is yet to come, something I both welcome and reject. I had a very strong son in every way and his passing has left a hole larger than the man that he was--and that's saying a lot.