Joy and Grief
My brother Jack and me in 1963. Oh the joy! Look at that TV!
I am the first born of a family that became 6 children, two parents, and an assortment of dogs over the years.
My brother Jack was born 13 months after me, so we were kinda like Irish twins, in that we were closest in age for a while and hung out together a lot as kids. We actually liked each other and didn’t fight or compete too much, as I recall. He was also my partner in crime for a few capers when we were quite small, and again later on as teenagers. Jack was soon followed by another brother, two sisters, and then a brother at the end. All in 8 years. That was how they did it back then in my neighborhood, and we were actually a medium sized family!
I went to school with kids whose families had 8, 10, 12, even 16 children. Every single young girl in that neighborhood learned how to take care of babies and children early, or most of us did anyway. It’s no wonder at all to me that by age 15 I knew I didn’t want to become a mommy. I was quite confident that my family would have plenty of people to keep it going for at least a few more generations without my contribution.
I am reminiscing about all of this, because my brother Jack is gone.
This past weekend, my sisters and I hosted an online Memorial for Jack, who passed away this past April. After years of health issues, he was starting to feel and look much better, and we were so happy to see him bouncing back from years of struggle. We expected him to be around for a while, but he took a nap one day and never woke up. His roommates found him when they got home. I am so sad.
Grief is such a deep dive at times, there’s a lot to get through. This week I’ve been through gratitude, ugly crying, regrets, love, sadness for how his life was such a struggle for him, and then letting go of any judgments I had about that. I’m at the gratitude part again, so I can actually sit and write this.
The Cahill siblings in 1992. Jack is in the purple plaid shirt. We joked that we were the dysfunctional Brady Bunch, but that we knew how to put the “fun” in dysfunction.
Family and friends, including old friends and neighbors of ours and Jack’s, attended the online memorial.
The stories people told gave me so much, and helped me remember the joyful times too. There were so many, including quite a few stories I’d never heard. I got to learn new things about my brother, and maybe this is the way that could happen. Sometimes our stubborn selective brains just want to show us the negative bits, the regrets, unfinished business, things we would like to not have said, things we wish we did say, wishes for each other and the person we are missing. But none of that can change, it’s done and gone. The only thing to change here and now is the way we see it, and what we choose to look at.
This is why we need to tell each other stories, and to listen to each other’s stories. Everyone has a different camera angle, everyone had their own relationship with the person we are all missing.
My siblings and I were raised to be creative, and it’s pretty easy for each of us to imagine and create something out of nothing.
Our mother was an artist, our father a designer and inventor, and we grew up making lots of art and craft projects. When our grandparents were still alive, we would get together and do special things for big milestones. For our grandparents’ 60th anniversary, their big birthdays, when it was a big family event, we would write and sing a song together at the party. It was always fun and joyful, people loved it.
To me and my siblings, this was fun and easy. We divided up the tasks: there were those who did the writing, a few who directed or coached, our cousins and significant others who joined in too. We had a lot of help and encouragement, it was an effortless thing. We didn’t need to be perfect about it, it was for fun. Sometimes our rehearsals would happen out in the parking lot of the banquet hall the whole family was gathered at for the event, right before we went “on stage”. One person would have printed out the words for everyone who was singing - we’d usually take a well known song and rewrite the words to honor whatever occasion and people involved. There’d be a lot of laughter and some beer, before heading back in to sing to the family member or members being honored. Everyone there loved it.
My absolute favorite photo of Jack and myself as little kids. I’m almost 4, he’s almost 3.
Memories like this are pure joy, so much laughter and love.
I thought of all of this as the online memorial happened. My sisters and I had asked everyone for photos of Jack, and family members, including his sons, found more photos. Everyone sent them to me, and I made a slide show, plus a playlist of a couple of tunes Jack loved. Then we had a couple of run throughs, including a family meeting where my niece showed us all how to become strawberries in a Meet room. That was our first planning meeting, we were all feeling a bit raw, and the strawberry ‘costumes’ helped us find some release and joy.
Because what we are really doing in a memorial is remembering the joy we have of knowing this person. There are tears and grief and sadness among the joyful memories, and all of it is true and real.
The Strawberry Planning Meeting. Those strawberries couldn’t stop laughing.
I admit I wasn’t considering or thinking about the joy part of this at all.
I was experiencing my first loss of a sibling, and it felt so different from any other loss I’ve ever had before in this lifetime. I am certainly not alone in this, my remaining siblings each have their own version of this, as does the rest of the world. Grief and loss are part of life, it’s a given. Grief reminds us that we loved.
But the joy was a lovely pleasant surprise for me. After the event was over, and I took a long nap, I began thanking everyone who’d attended. A number of people remarked on the joy they’d seen, in our photos, smiles, in Jack’s face throughout his life. Other people saw something I was having a difficult time seeing just yet. My memories of the times we all had together are mixed with the grief of those times being gone forever, as well as the gratitude of how much I had, how much we all had, growing up together.
Yes, there’s some things that aren’t fun to remember, and I do my best to forgive, release, and heal those old wounds. I’m reminding myself to spend time remembering the fun, the joy, and what it is possible to create with others.
Thank you for everything, Jack! I am grateful to have known you.
“Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”
