Chapter 13: Day 3: 4:35PM continued

I Iook over at Del and say “When I asked you to say a few words today, I told you it would be just about Con. I told you that I would leave Duke’s eulogy to others. And I will. But with your permission I would like to say a couple words about my nephew.” Del stiffens. No doubt she is worried about what I am going to say and yet she cannot really deny me. Liam puts his hand on her arm to reassure her of my good intentions and with that she gives me a nod to proceed.

“Covid took so much from all of us. Everyone in this country, in the world for that matter, we all  have a story or many stories about how Covid injured them. Everything from the inability to do day to day things like going to the grocery store or losing their source of income to losing someone they love. In Con’s case it was probably merciful. Covid ended his suffering. But Duke died of Covid too. Not from the infection itself but its side effects of fear, isolation, and despair. They conspired with his brain chemistry to create a toxic mix that ended him.”  

“Perhaps it was a blessing for him too. All of us here know how he suffered.”

Moving my gaze to Del I say “And for a very long time I blamed myself for his loss. I practiced tough love with him. I would not talk to him unless he was sober. I did that because the family felt that was the best way to approach his disease. I did so despite the fact that Conor told me that approach would never work on his son. That it would just make Duke want to prove us wrong.”

“Had we lost Con and Duke in normal times it would have been much easier for us to bury the pain of their loss. We could have immersed ourselves in our work, friends, exercise, shopping, chores and all the mundane minutiae of everyday life so that the sorrow and grief we felt is diluted like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Covid would not allow us to do that. Coffee breaks were held in your kitchen. The gym was in your basement or spare bedroom. Your supermarket was Instacart. Your favorite restaurant, Doordash. Amazon became your mall.

For most, it was the first time in our adult lives, if not our whole lives, where we were forced to take a beat and evaluate our life and what we wanted from it. Suddenly people were stuck with partners that they had been escaping from every day through work and other means and forced to spend time with their significant others. Not surprisingly divorce rates skyrocketed which in my mind is a positive outcome.” And looking at Del I add “People who don’t belong together shouldn’t be together.”

“You don’t need to look far for other positive things to come from Covid. Like the “great resignation” where people left their jobs because they had the opportunity to realize that what they were doing did not give them anything more than money and they wanted more from life. They resigned in search of greener pastures. It created the “gig economy” where people were willing to earn less to have a better quality of life. Jobs became remote and instead of being tethered to a job that required hours of commuting every day or living in a place they did not like, folks could use that time for things they enjoyed or finding a place to live where their heart could soar when they stepped out their front door.”

“Covid did not give me those gifts. I was already a part of the gig economy. I did something I loved when I wanted to do it. I lived in a place I loved. What it gave me, as it gave to so many others, was an overwhelming amount of alone time. Twelve months where the only human company I had was two dimensional and on screen. I was alone. While Nadine and I talked multiple times a day and wrote each other lengthy emails it could not replace physically being with someone you love. When someone is in your arms it is far easier to share your fears and doubts. When someone is far away, and alone just like you, you don’t want to burden them because there is no hug to steady them, and you don’t want them to worry about your troubles because you know they have their own challenges.”

I chuckle ruefully and say “Turns out spending all that time alone when those you love are dying and the world is locked down in a global pandemic will play with your mind. Who knew? For me I started having lengthy conversations with Fennie. Nothing really all that unusual. She and I have had one sided conversation since she was just a puppy. But as my time away from others lengthened, and my ability to distract myself diminished,  hurts, slights, wrongs, missed opportunities and even lost loves began to invade my thoughts. They became the things I interacted with each day and wove themselves into the fabric of my life. I called them my ghosts because they haunted me. I guess I could have buried them if I had tried hard enough. Hide them away in some psychic cubbyhole. But they would always be there, and past experiences taught me they would escape their hiding places at exactly the time you wanted to see them least, creating more regrets, more hurt and bigger problems. “

“I decided, since I had the time and had nothing better to do instead of burying my ghosts, I would get to know them and try to figure out why after years and even decades they were still with me. And, if I could, come to peace with them. Understand the paths I chose and perhaps, if I were lucky, help me come to terms with my mistakes, so the road ahead would be a little less bumpy.”

“This morning, I went to Mt. Haleakala to see the sunrise. I went because it was a place Duke thought was special. A place he loved and shared with me in one of his epic text rants about how seeing the sunrise changed his perception of the world. I went there because I hoped I might be able to have a “conversation” with him. I needed to come to terms with his decision to leave because, I still feel guilty about his death. I had far too many unresolved could haves, should haves and would haves for his spirit to rest easily with me.”

“Haleakala is an improbable place. According to Hawaiian mythology it is where the god Maui convinced the sun to slow down so his mother’s laundry would dry, and the crops would grow faster. It snows there despite sitting on the equator and it is where they have a view on the universe found nowhere else on earth. Not surprisingly, at least for me, I ran into Duke’s spirit. When I asked him why he was there, he laughed and said, “where else would I be.” Of course he was right. I had conjured him. For a while we just stared into the stirrings of a new day and enjoyed each other’s company in silence.”

Just before dawn, as the clouds down below were bathed in the pink of the newborn day, I finally had the courage to tell him the reason I had summoned him. I told him how angry I was with him for leaving us in the way that he did. He had so much more he could give us. So much he could have contributed to the world. Giving up like he did was selfish and horrifically painful to those he left behind. The Duke I loved was compassionate and kindhearted. How could he have done such a thing to us?  He was patient with me. Of course he was. He said I could not understand because I did not share his brain disease. His bipolar disorder took him places, dark places, that I could never understand because our thought processes were so much different that his.”

“I told him I would continue to try to make sense of his departure, but I was not confident that I ever could. As we spoke dawn broke. It was more glorious than he described to me. More magnificent than the pictures he had shared with me. It was then, in the light of the new day I told him the real reason I had come to Haleakala. I needed his forgiveness. I should have known tough love would not work for him. Con had told me, that compassionate engagement, not confrontation, was the way to reach him. I should have listened better. Tried a little harder and maybe I would not have failed him.”

“I thought he would forgive me. He knew how much I cherished him. Forgiving me was a nice thing to do. He said that if it was in his power to forgive me, he would, but he could not. The only person who could forgive me was me.”

I looked up and looking at our small congregation and said “I miss my brother Con. He has been a part of my life for so long and I love him so deeply that I doubt there will be a day in my life when I won’t think of him. But he had a good run. Better than most and I am at peace with that. Duke’s death is still too hard for me. Despite our conversation I still struggle to understand and perhaps I never will, but I will continue to try. Just like I will continue to try to find a way to find forgiveness for myself for being nice when I should have been kind.”

Del was glaring at me. I told her I only wanted a few minutes to speak about Con. A eulogy that she had lost the right to give years before. I should have mentioned to her that I also wanted to say a few words about Duke, but I didn’t want to have a fight with her about it. She would have wanted to know what I was going to say and there was no doubt in my mind she would have fought me about it. Not only were the metaphors I used not a part of the fundamental Christian liturgy but the words I had chosen carefully may have hit to close to home. Surely, if I felt personally responsible for my nephew’s death she should have felt more. And no matter how carefully I chose my words, she knew that I was telling her I felt she had forsaken her son when he had needed her the most. I also knew that at some point, if I were to find peace, I would need to find a way to forgive her. Which is why, despite her clear anger with me, I give her a wordless hug.