Tag Archives: loss of mother

Guardian Angel, Part 2

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My brother and me circa 1983

My brother and me circa 1983

I never noticed the “other” tab on my Facebook message page until this morning when I was deleting some old messages from my inbox. When I clicked on it, I found messages dating back to 2012 from a handful of people I don’t know. One was from a Jack C., whose name I recognized from a friend request I had long since deleted. Curious, I opened it and discovered he is the grandson of my estranged brother’s ex-wife. He included her phone number and asked that I please call her. That was all he said. The message was dated June 24, 2013.

I knew I had to call, but I sat in my office paralyzed with fear. As much as I wanted to know if my brother was all right, I dreaded even more learning that he was not. I had not seen or spoken to him in the eight years since our father’s funeral, at which point he was clearly still battling addiction. What news did his ex-wife have to share? Did I want to hear it?

Shortly before Christmas, my cousin told me my brother and his ex-wife were back together, and I thought about contacting him then. My cousin gave me their address, but I never sent a card. I considered it again in March, around the time of our deceased mother’s birthday, wondering if he was remembering and missing her too (I wrote about that here). This week he was on my mind once more. Monday and Tuesday marked our father’s birthday and the anniversary of his death, respectively. In my mind, it was no coincidence that I stumbled upon Jack’s Facebook message just two days later. My dad is telling me to make the call, I thought, so I did.

After she recovered from the shock of hearing my voice, my former sister-in-law happily chatted with me, and we took a few moments to catch up. I was glad to hear she was doing well, but what I really wanted, of course, was news about my brother. All of it was good. She said he has been clean and sober and working steadily for more than five years. I burst into tears of relief and joy, feeling the weight of worrying and wondering about him lift. It would have been one thing for my brother to tell me he was off drugs, but hearing it from a woman I respect, trust and know is not a user made me sure it was true.

I asked how she found her way back to him; they were divorced after all, and he had hurt and disappointed her as much if not more than he had everyone else in the family. It turns out that our aunt, who raised me after our mother died and always supported my brother even at his worst, played a big part. Before she died, my aunt begged my former sister-in-law to give my brother another chance. After he went into rehab, she did, and without her love and compassion I doubt he would be where he is today. My brother doesn’t just have two parents as guardian angels. Our aunt is watching over him too. She sent his ex-wife back to him. I truly believe that.

Before we ended the call, we talked about getting together. She mentioned that they had seen pictures of my children on Facebook via 11-year-old Jack, whom she called an Internet whiz. She said my brother was afraid they would not hear from me because so much time had passed since I got the message, but she told him to “keep praying on it.” They have never met my two teenagers. By the end of our conversation, I felt as if that were a possibility.

I called my husband next, for courage and support, and then dialed my brother’s number. The sound of his voice had me in tears all over again. He was laidback and casual, stoic like our father, but that didn’t stop me from saying all the things I have wanted and needed to tell him for so long. I apologized for staying away, explaining that I was protecting my family. I asked if he understood, and he said he did. I told him I never stopped loving or thinking about him and that I never will. I said those things even though I knew they might embarrass him or make him uncomfortable. I said them because I had to. If I have learned one lesson through all the loss I have experienced, it is that the hardest words to say are the ones that matter most. You are never sorry to have said them, but you always regret no longer having the opportunity.

I hope to have more chances to become reacquainted with my brother after our talk today, but I know I need to proceed cautiously. Addiction still shadows his life. It always will. Today on the phone, though, I heard the big brother I remember. I can choose to believe in his recovery, and I do. I can choose to allow him back into my life, and I really want to. I owe thanks for that opportunity to 11-year-old Jack for sending the best Facebook message I almost never got. I am also grateful to my brother’s and my guardian angels — our mom, dad and aunt — who I believe helped me find it.

I Just Wanted You to Know

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Dear Mom,

I have been thinking of you a lot this week, I guess because Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I even got out that photo album you made. Do you remember the one I mean? It’s filled with shots of you and Dad from before you got married, on your wedding day and during your honeymoon. There are lots of photos of friends I never met and family members I barely remember. There are pictures from when you modeled in New York and when you worked at Michigan Bell. What was your job there again? Dad told me once, but I can’t remember. I love all the photos of you and him goofing around on your honeymoon. Where did you go on that trip? I think Dad said it was Niagara Falls, although I can’t tell from the pictures. It’s fun to see that you had a silly side. You both look so happy and in love.

I left the album on the couch the other day, and Isabel found it. She said I look like you, but I think she resembles you more. It is strange, but somehow comforting, to see myself and my daughter in photos of someone I don’t remember and she never knew. I wonder if she thought the same thing. I was overwhelmed with emotion looking at the album with her, knowing that you had thoughtfully placed all the photographs on the pages, adding funny captions, telling your life’s story. It was as if you were there beside us. I felt you, Mom.

Afterward, I hugged Isabel and told her how proud you would have been of her. I told her what a sweet, loving person she is. I told her how happy she makes people. I try to say things like that to her whenever I think of them, Mom. I say them because they are true, but also because you never had the chance to say them to me. I know you would have.

I just wanted you to know, Mom, that even though I was too young when you died to have any real memories of you, you have always been a presence in my life. I have the photographs of you and, even better, I have the stories Dad and others told me. I share them with Isabel and Sam from time to time because I don’t want you to be just a picture on the wall to them. I want them to know what a strong and talented woman their Grandmother Jeanne was. That is so important to me.

Aunt Thelma, my undeniably amazing second mother, used to say “life is for the living,” and I think that is true. We should focus on the loved ones who are still with us. But I also believe we should never forget those whom we have lost.

I just wanted you to know I am thinking of you, Mom, as I often do. And I wanted to tell you how much I love being a mother. It brings me peace, Mom, to be able to give my children the love, the comfort, the support you weren’t able to give me. It makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be.

I just wanted you to know.

Always,

Kathleen

she never knew.

Guardian Angel

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Jeanne Marie, RIP (3/26/27 - 4/28/70)

Jeanne Marie, our mother and guardian angel, RIP (3/26/27 – 4/28/70)

The rusted remnants of my brother’s car sat in our uncle’s barnyard like a mangled shrine to the recklessness of youth. I don’t remember the make or model of the vehicle, only the crushed roof and the weeds growing around and through its crumbling orange shell. He didn’t die or suffer even a minor injury in the accident, his second rollover, or any of his other many crashes. Our father bought him car after car and found him job after job during his teens and early twenties, but nothing lasted for my brother. Nothing fit. Not after our mother died.

Today would have been our mom’s 87th birthday, and I have no idea where my brother is. I wonder if he realizes it is her birthday. He was 12 when she died; I was 2½. I don’t know what he was thinking or feeling because I was too young to remember anything from that time in our lives. But I know from the stories my family tells that he was her golden child, and he adored her as much as she doted on him.

Today I am a 46-year-old mother, three years older than our mom was when she was diagnosed with leukemia and died six weeks later. I have two teenagers who need and love me, who want and deserve everything from me. I know, or can at least imagine, how my brother felt by picturing my children’s lives without a mother or an emotionally involved father. My brother acted out to get our dad’s attention before our mom died, but it was typical young boy shenanigans. After her death, the trouble he managed to find intensified. He skipped school. He partied too much and started using drugs. Eventually he dropped out of high school. My father insisted that he work, but he could not hold a job. With every disappointment, my father’s detachment from and animosity toward my brother grew. My brother wound up marrying a girl he barely knew and moved to Texas to work for her family. He left Michigan, just as I would eventually, to escape the sadness, to find peace.

Something broke inside my brother after that. I’m not sure when it happened, since he estranged himself from us almost completely. But at some point, his drug use turned into the darkness and desperation of full-blown addiction. My devastated father said he was always broken, but I don’t believe that. I still care about the brother I once knew, who teased me relentlessly and loved me fiercely, even if I cannot welcome the man he has become into my family’s life.

This April will mark 44 years since our mother’s death. She will have been gone one year longer than she lived, and that is a strange and unsettling realization. I wonder if I should try to contact my brother, if he is thinking about her too. It has been almost eight years since I last saw him, at our father’s funeral. Although in my own grief-stricken state I refused to acknowledge it, it was obvious to my husband and others that my brother was still wrestling with the same demons that caused him to wreck cars and lose jobs in the early days. We made the difficult decision to keep our distance after the funeral. But when I heard last year that his second ex-wife had taken him back, I tracked down her address in Arkansas. I thought of sending a Christmas card, but I never did. She is a devoted, kind-hearted woman who always saw the good in my brother, and, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, he is a master manipulator.

I don’t go to church or pray, at least not to a god of any sort, but I do consider myself spiritual. I believe our mother watches over us and keeps us from harm. I made my own share of wrong choices and wound up in some potentially dangerous situations in my younger days, but I always found my way home safely. I don’t know where my brother is, but I think he is all right. Maybe that is just me putting a happy ending on something over which I have no control, or maybe our mother really is our guardian angel. Either way, I want to believe that something lasted for my brother, that something finally fit. I have to.