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Mar. 10th, 2008 01:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violachicIts been two years. Two years ago today, we were notified that his body had been found in a Baghdad garbage dump.
It is difficult for me to imagine that time could have flown so quickly; I suppose I've had a few other things going on, to concentrate on, to distract me. Perhaps it has been best that way, keeping grief on the back burner until I was strong enough to experience it. I hope I'm strong enough now, because I'm experiencing it. For the first time in two years, I hurt so much over it all. I hurt over his death, I hurt over what we went through in the four months leading up to it, I hurt over the dishonesty of the US government, I hurt over all the hate calls I had to field at the office during the crisis. I hurt that I was too sick to attend memorial services for him, with my colleagues and friends. I hurt that I couldn't do more to save him, irrational as that is.
Last year I posted something simple and short. I wanted to remember, I wanted the world to remember. I was still sick enough, and under the influence of heavy enough medication, that I wasn't feeling much of anything. Oh, maybe I put up my own wall, too, it is certainly possible. But what is true is that this year, being much healthier physically and emotionally, and having gotten out from under the worst of my mind-numbing medication, I am feeling it acutely, in a way I haven't since that first awful week.
I very sincerely hope to God I never have to experience anything that horrific ever again.
What is also true is that here I am, two years later- two years- still trying to find a way to grieve that isn't going to rip me apart. That seems bad, to me. My brain says "two years later, you should be feeling sad, but dealing with it". Two years. And I don't know how to deal with it.
Church this morning was especially difficult. The Gospel reading was from John, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. During the reading, my mind kept fixating on the phrase "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
My theology is all wacked out on this one.
Jesus goes on to raise Lazarus from the dead, after speaking slightly cryptically to Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, who assume Jesus is talking about the afterlife, how all will be raised in the last days. That's hard for me to accept, theologically and philosophically, right now.
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Its not fair, I know. But if I'm going to grieve properly, I need to acknowledge how I feel in order to move on.
What I can and do take comfort in, is that my Brother died for what he believed in. He was such an incredibly serene man, and believed fiercely in what he preached, and wrote about it all in a compelling way.
"Words are inadequate, but words are all we have", he wrote just a few weeks before he was kidnapped. Words. Its not easy to know what to do with the words, but they're there. We just have to figure out a way to make sense of them.
So don't forget him. Don't forget Rachel, or Oscar, either, who both also perished in the month of March, both also fiercely living out what they believed. Don't forget, and don't let anybody else forget; it is the best thing to for their memories. So I'm not going to let you forget, because they are worth remembering. And besides, maybe that will help my grief, too.
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
amen
It is difficult for me to imagine that time could have flown so quickly; I suppose I've had a few other things going on, to concentrate on, to distract me. Perhaps it has been best that way, keeping grief on the back burner until I was strong enough to experience it. I hope I'm strong enough now, because I'm experiencing it. For the first time in two years, I hurt so much over it all. I hurt over his death, I hurt over what we went through in the four months leading up to it, I hurt over the dishonesty of the US government, I hurt over all the hate calls I had to field at the office during the crisis. I hurt that I was too sick to attend memorial services for him, with my colleagues and friends. I hurt that I couldn't do more to save him, irrational as that is.
Last year I posted something simple and short. I wanted to remember, I wanted the world to remember. I was still sick enough, and under the influence of heavy enough medication, that I wasn't feeling much of anything. Oh, maybe I put up my own wall, too, it is certainly possible. But what is true is that this year, being much healthier physically and emotionally, and having gotten out from under the worst of my mind-numbing medication, I am feeling it acutely, in a way I haven't since that first awful week.
I very sincerely hope to God I never have to experience anything that horrific ever again.
What is also true is that here I am, two years later- two years- still trying to find a way to grieve that isn't going to rip me apart. That seems bad, to me. My brain says "two years later, you should be feeling sad, but dealing with it". Two years. And I don't know how to deal with it.
Church this morning was especially difficult. The Gospel reading was from John, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. During the reading, my mind kept fixating on the phrase "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
My theology is all wacked out on this one.
Jesus goes on to raise Lazarus from the dead, after speaking slightly cryptically to Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, who assume Jesus is talking about the afterlife, how all will be raised in the last days. That's hard for me to accept, theologically and philosophically, right now.
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Its not fair, I know. But if I'm going to grieve properly, I need to acknowledge how I feel in order to move on.
What I can and do take comfort in, is that my Brother died for what he believed in. He was such an incredibly serene man, and believed fiercely in what he preached, and wrote about it all in a compelling way.
"Words are inadequate, but words are all we have", he wrote just a few weeks before he was kidnapped. Words. Its not easy to know what to do with the words, but they're there. We just have to figure out a way to make sense of them.
So don't forget him. Don't forget Rachel, or Oscar, either, who both also perished in the month of March, both also fiercely living out what they believed. Don't forget, and don't let anybody else forget; it is the best thing to for their memories. So I'm not going to let you forget, because they are worth remembering. And besides, maybe that will help my grief, too.
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
amen
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Date: 2008-03-10 02:22 pm (UTC)At the time, I'd been wanting to go back on anti-depressants, and he warned me against it. There are all sorts of way to delay grieving, and what my friend was saying is that you'll eventually feel crushed, whether it's immediate or years later. And hopefully, when the grief comes hardcore, you're strong enough to bear it.
Tom died as an example, I think, of a better way to live one's life. It's probably a harder way, but those ideals—love, peace, solidarity—are what we should all be striving for. That's what I take from all that horror, anyway.
*hugs*
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Date: 2008-03-10 03:17 pm (UTC)*hug*
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Date: 2008-03-10 08:11 pm (UTC)Also in March the war began...I'm all caught up in mad organizing to get ready for the anniversary actions, but underneath the tumult of activity is this grief, this knowledge that if you stop for a moment, sit quietly and think about why it is that we organize and why it is that we act, there is an overwhelming surge of grief. There's no way to think of the real impacts of the war, and of occupation, without finding grief. Sometimes, sometimes I think that our inability to give the grief it's proper place in our movement, which is to say, right here by our side, tucked, maybe, into our armpits, or emblazoned on our foreheads, attached to the flags we fly, pinned to our chests with hat pins...our inability to do that, to own and embrace and grapple with our grief...makes our movement(s) a little bit...soul-less. I find I can't really trust the people who I organize with if I do not get the sense that they sometimes feel this grief, that they are aware of it's role in our movement.
all of which is connected but also different than the grief when you are thinking about someone you know. A comrade, a Brother. I'm really sorry for your loss. I remember that time. And to me it doesn't seem so strange that your grief is welling up now. I hope you're able to give it enough room, and that your grieving process eventually winds it's way to a peaceful place.
..remember...
Date: 2008-03-11 01:20 am (UTC)I remember reading about the impact of tom on others..
I'm glad you are finally able to go through in, and hope that you will draw more strength from it.
God knows you've been through enough in the past couple years to be as strong as an army.
I love you.
kind of on a separate note: Have you thought about going to seminary? It seems more and more to be a part of your calling in recent years. (or a writer??)
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Date: 2008-03-11 06:59 am (UTC)*Hug*
Thank you for helping us to remember.
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Date: 2008-03-12 09:17 pm (UTC)I think the Lord was there. In the person of Tom Fox.
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Date: 2008-03-12 09:18 pm (UTC)