The Progress of the Soul

It's been two years since I got that phone call.

I can still can hear my father's voice, the way it sounded as he choked out that my brother had committed suicide.

Two years have passed and the grief of it, it still feels fresh.

Sometimes I remember the silliest things. Every time I eat pancakes, I think about how sometimes on Sundays, my mom would make pancakes and I'd get into this stupid, covert pancake eating contest with him. Even though he was almost nine years older than me, I'd try to eat more pancakes than he could.

Sometimes I was successful, but most often, not.

He was incredibly fastidious about his hair. Ridiculously obsessed with it. He always had to have his hair cut "just so". He used to spend so much time on it that I swear, he was a metrosexual before his time. After his death, when we went to see his body, I noticed how short he had cut his hair. I think it was the shortest I'd ever seen it. But it was a perfect haircut which was so like him.

I remember how he knew everything there was to know about cars, how he was an Adina Howard fan...how everyone liked him because he was incredibly charming and easy to get along with.

I often wish unspeakably horrible things on whatever high school friend it was that introduced him to drugs.

I remember the first time my parents staged an intervention and took him to rehab. I remember feeling so afraid but so hopeful that the complete insanity, the pain that had engulfed us all would be over. I know my parents felt the same way. I remember how my mom cried in the car after we left the hospital.

If only the thousands of dollars spent that first time had cured him. But unfortunately, the person does not just get a shot and then walk away from it all. That is not how overcoming addiction works.

After a few months, he'd come out into the real world and we'd all want to believe that "this time" was going to be different.

He would be alright for a month, maybe two, maybe three. But then, he'd start to look different. His eyes would get a dullness to them even though he'd be hyped up. His moods would swing erratically. He'd start talking in this grandiose manner. And we'd all know. And our hearts would break just a bit more.

Rehab turned to jail time and the sentences got longer as he got older. When he died, I hadn't seen him in ten years, hadn't spoken to him in several months. The last time I talked to him, he'd joked about coming to California to visit. I'd joked back that he'd better not because we had a three strikes law out here.

He began telling me about his big plans to turn things around for himself.

I'm sure the, "Yeah, whatever," came across in my voice even though I probably said something like, "That sounds great! I know you can do it!"

And so I keep this picture of my brother in my prayer book. I suppose I hope that always being close to those blessed words, even in the moments when they aren't being said, will aide the progress of his soul.

Truly, my brother had been so unhappy for so many years and I thank God he is finally at peace.

Forty-three

Just a few more minutes and July 18th is officially over again till next year.

Today would have been my brother's 43rd birthday. It's a prime age for an exhaustive midlife crisis or, to put it more positively, a prime age to undergo a reinvention of yourself. My brother did neither a full-blown crisis nor reinvention. Instead, last year, he made the sad decision to end his life.

More than anything, I thought about my mom today. As much as a birthday is the celebration of someone's life, a mother gives birth to the person doing the celebrating. I particularly thought about my mom as I lethargically watched two balls of energy: my sons.

My boys sang songs and played guitar while acting out their "Rockstar" game. You know how to play "Rockstar" don't you? If not, it's their game where they say, "Hey, let's be Smashing Pumpkins," or, "Hey, you be Sting and I'll be Slash." Uh-huh. Yes, that Slash. But don't worry, there were no cigarettes hanging out of mouths or anything like that.

There was some naked wrestling on the floor and the ever present echo of their G.I. Joe inspired rallying cry, "Go, Joe!" And finally they played "Volcano" while jumping on the couch. The floor lava was so burning hot that falling off the couch meant instant death.

Once upon a time, my mother surely watched my brother in much the same way.

I can't remember the last time I saw him on his birthday. Either his own personal circumstances or my own distance always seemed to ensure that I didn't see him blowing out birthday candles.

It makes me think about how you never know how long you'll have someone in your life.
We are not guaranteed the pleasure of each other's company for any length of time.

Although it's a great comfort to know his soul's still progressing along it's journey to true happiness, and while I pray for him still, somehow it doesn't change the fact that I always wanted him to be happy in this world, to recognize his nobility here in this existence, to be the son, brother and father he surely wanted to be.

Truly, time does not heal all things.

Stopping Sunrise...I Wish

I want to stop time. I don't want tomorrow to come. I'm dreading it. Can I stop the sun from rising?

What is tomorrow? Tomorrow is my first day back at work after two weeks of vacation. I'm glad I took the time off because it took me almost a week of not going to work before I stopped waking up at 5:45 in the morning without an alarm clock. Having time off has helped me relax, and I swear, I'm going to start doing yoga or something to try to be less stressed out because by this past Thursday, I started mentally reviewing my to-do list. My insomnia bounced right back.

Being on vacation has also meant that I've spent a bunch of time with my two sons. It makes me feel like I might vomit, or cry, (or do both simultaneously) the next time someone says, "Wow, I don't know how you do it all!"

The truth is, I can't do it all. I try but I'm not superwoman. And, I'd be fooling myself if I couldn't admit that I can see a positive difference in my sons since we've gotten to talk and play and go to the park every day. They are usually such good boys and so sweet, but they seem happier than ever, more relaxed. They've stopped asking me if I have to go to meetings or if I have to work all the time. It breaks my heart when they do that. I don't want them doing that anymore, vacation or not.

What else does tomorrow have in store for me? Well, tomorrow is also the first anniversary of my brother's suicide. My brother and I weren't particularly close, but that doesn't make it any easier. I worry about calling my mom and dad tomorrow. I worry about how they're doing.

It's been hard over the past year to have this conversation:

Do you have brothers and sisters?
Yes.
How many?
One brother, one sister.
Oh, what do they do?
My sister is a deputy sheriff...and my brother is...well, he's deceased.
Oh. Sorry to hear that.

Then there's a palpable awkwardness. I hate that awkwardness.

Sometimes I've found myself flat out responding that my brother committed suicide. Sometimes I've felt like such a liar to just say he was deceased when it really it's felt like so much more than that. No matter how I slice it, people don't know what to say in response.

Tomorrow the sun will rise. I will go to work, put a pretty smile on my face and pretend that I'm so happy to be there. I'll say a prayer for my brother's soul. I'll tell myself that my sons are lucky to have such a hard-working mommy as a role model of what women can achieve. I'll say, "Fine. How about you?" in response to the casual queries of how my day is going.

Somehow the day will pass without my heart breaking a little bit...I think.

Go Forth

In twelve hours I'll be at Clark-O'Neal funeral home greeting well-wishers and hearing their many words of sincere and sweet condolences.

The director of the funeral home, Mr. O'Neal has this phrase he uses. "Go Forth." As in, "As you all are preparing to help your brother go forth." It's the verb that's been on my mind. After viewing the body last night...it really is past-tense. Gone.

The gentleman who will be reading my brother's obituary, Brother Sage, his father died just a couple of days ago. He's still coming to read the obituary. That is truly generous of him. He'll be attending his own father's funeral on Thursday.

Truly, I am so grateful for the love from so many people. I am lucky to have such true friends.

Sister of Night

Most of my life, I've had trouble sleeping.

Insomnia has been a real problem for me since I was in 7th or 8th grade and I have never taken anything for it. I've had times when it seems like Insomnia goes away but then she's always back. There were times in middle school and high school where I would stay up all night several days in a row. I don't think my parents ever knew I had problems sleeping since it always appeared that I went to bed. If they did know, they never said anything to me about it. I don't think they did because I turned out my light at around 9:30, the time they turned their lights out as well.

You and I know that just because the light was out, that didn't mean I was sleeping. I'd get in bed and then, the best part of my "day" began: I'd put on my AM/FM transistor radio headphones and listen to the radio or else I'd pull out a wonderful novel and read. Sometimes I'd do both at the same time. All night.

If it was a purely radio night, I'd turn out my light and I'd stay up listening to talk radio on random AM stations or I'd listen to music on WBMX (now V103), and later, B96. In fact, those late nights of radio were how I first began listening to the Hot Mix 5 and fell in love with house music. Some nights, I'd listen to the "Quiet Storm" on BMX and wonder if I'd ever have someone who would dance to Keith Sweat's "Make It Last Forever" with me.

Other nights, I'd listen to WNUR and I'd hear Depeche Mode on the radio and imagine myself sitting in some club in England, dressed in all black with my hair dyed a nice bright pink, chatting it up with Dave Gahan and writing dark poetry with Martin Gore. I remember hearing 30 seconds of Al B. Sure's song "Nite and Day" back when he'd been chosen as a Sony Innovator in '87 or '88 and the song was part of a Sony commercial. The next day, I went to school and asked folks if they'd heard it and of course they hadn't. Then, a few months later, he was insanely popular. (light skin + good voice = fame in Black America). As a geeky-feeling teenager, it meant something to me that out of everyone I knew, I'd heard him first.

I also loved listening to those late night radio therapist shows...the precursors to Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura. You know, those, "Hi, this is Molly calling from Berwyn and I really have a hard time getting along with my mother-in-law" type shows. And Chicago had it's own sex talk show with a Dr. Ruth type. I can't remember which station it came on or the host's name but I was very curious about the topic. Like many parents, my folks never discussed sex with me. They bought me a book...one of those, "Your Body is Changing" type books and gave it to me to read. This show went quite a bit beyond the info in that book. Quite a bit. So, I took lots of mental notes, filed away for my future reference and, I hoped, my future use. It seemed very dangerous and risque back then, especially to my thirteen year-old never kissed a boy ears, but the questions and answers would probably be considered tame by today's standards.

Of course, it wasn't always a radio night. I usually read one book every day back in those days. I wanted, no, needed to be somewhere else. Another world, another time. Another place. My family went to the library almost every week and I'd drag home a good selection of seven or eight nice, thick, parent-approved titles. I'd choose historical fiction like the The Count of Monte Cristo or Middlemarch, turn the light out and pull the covers over my head. Using a flashlight would not have worked because of the need to replace the batteries. I had my night-light hooked up to an extension cord and so I could just turn it on and read under the covers without being detected. I'd disappear into a world of beautiful ladies and the tall, dark, and handsome heroes who dueled for their honor.

I read almost everything by Thomas Hardy, the Bronte's, George Eliot, and Jane Austen in this way. I read my first Barbara Cartland (The Enchanted Waltz) and Georgette Heyer (The Grand Sophy) novels in this fashion, and thus began my life-long romance with the Regency period. And, if I read a book once, there was no problem re-reading it a few months later while listening to Julian "Jumpin' Perez spin on the radio... Imagine reading The Mayor of Casterbridge while listening to Xavier Gold belting out the classic house tune, "You Used to Hold Me."

Crazy, I know, but after an evening of solitude with my reading or radio, I'd climb out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and get ready for school. I'd go to school, get those good grades, come home, do my homework, help cook dinner, wash dishes, take a bath, and then repeat the same thing over again. Sometimes, when it was bad, I wouldn't sleep for two or three days straight. But usually, 2-4 hours a night would be fine. I did this for years.

I went to college and of course, the culture was one of staying up all night. I fit in perfectly and sought to imbue new life into the concept of pulling an all-nighter. Why stay up all night reading and studying? Sadly enough, I was tired of that sort of thing. I'd barely walked down a street by myself before I went to Northwestern at the grand old age of seventeen. I'd never been to the mall by myself and I'd never chosen my own clothes. I'd been out to eat at a restaurant less than ten times. I was ready to get out into the world, take some risks, make friends and develop myself socially. I wanted to be the opposite of what I had been like in high school and, in retrospect, I can see how my Baha'i beliefs and upbringing really sheltered and protected me when I decided I'd had enough of being sheltered. You see, I had discovered the fun that could be had flirting with boys (and having them flirt back). But mostly, I had discovered the house and techno that was played in clubs and the dancing that accompanied it.

By the end of my sophomore year at Northwestern, I was tired of borrowing people's passports and having bouncers eye me for ten minutes while trying to decide whether or not my face matched the picture. I hated begging them to let me me into a club. I obtained my first fake ID a month after I turned 19 by taking a friend's social security card and gas bill downtown to the State of Illinois building. I was scared but the desire to be guaranteed admission to clubs was far more powerful. My official State of Illinois ID had a name that didn't belong to me but it was my face in the picture and that's all that mattered. So, I began my nights of dancing till four or five in the morning. I'd get to the club around 11 or 12 and then would dance all night. Without sitting down.

Thursday night was KaBoom. This guy I knew from Evanston, Erjan, worked there and took me there one night. He was convinced I'd love it. He was completely right. Maybe he wanted me to like him too...I don't know because I was hypnotized by the bass coming out of the speakers, the entire look of the place...the lights timed with the beat of the music...and it was all about dancing for me. I could have cared less about anybody else in that entire place. I wasn't there to get drunk because I didn't drink and had never had a drink. I wasn't there to get high because drugs kill your soul. I wasn't there to meet a guy because most guys only wanted one thing...and we didn't want the same thing. I only cared about one thing: dancing.

I started out dancing on the floor, but it was too crowded to really move around. Plus, there was the added problem of someone possibly spilling their drink on me and I really really hate the smell of alcohol. (I always have.) Running into someone's cigarette was also a potential problem. Erjan took me into the VIP room and got me a VIP card but it seemed like the focus there was on hook-ups. Not into that at all.

The first time I ever danced on one of those 5'x5' wooden platforms six or seven feet off the floor was one night at KaBoom about two weeks after I started going there. I was annoyed by the two women up on top of it, grinding and humping each other and doing pseudo cheerleading moves, especially since there was lots of space to really move if you wanted to. Erjan dared me to get up on the box and dance like I wanted to instead. I agreed and told him that I'd bet the girls would get down in five minutes. I got up there and danced my butt off and they were really annoyed but it was some of the best music I'd ever heard and there was no way I was going to not dance. I loved going there at the height of the Chicago techno scene in '93 and '94, particularly when Val ("Psycho-Bitch" as she was known back then.) was dj'ing. It was really powerful to see a female dj in such a male dominated scene and she was GOOD!

Friday night was China Club which was probably my least favorite club. It was always too crowded and too commercial and there were too many kids from Schaumburg who'd get stupidly drunk and try to start fights.

Saturday night was Shelter. I have some incredible memories of that place. After KaBoom closed down due to a shooting outside (again, dumb suburban kids trying to be cool), I'd go to Shelter on Thursday night and then again on Saturday night. They had the coolest DJ booth (you had to climb this 20 foot ladder to get up there) and I was in love with John Curley. Shelter was the only club I ever took guys to. I didn't really consider it to be a "date" because I was going to go dancing whether the guy came along or not.

All women test guys to see if they are the right person for them and Shelter was a test of sorts. I'd take someone as if to say, "Hey, this is a side of me. Do you like this side of me? Can your ego handle me taking you to this place and then ignoring you for hours while I go dance up there and look hot for all the world to see?" Gosh, I think I must have thought I was in a movie or something. Really, the whole scene was so unreal, it might as well have been a movie.

The last guy I took to Shelter was Elarryo. He put up with me dressing him up in a "cool" outfit that I thought would look good at the club. I put his dreds into two ponytails. He didn't blink at my outfit although he did just stand there and look mean while I was dancing. So, I felt bad and instead of dancing, I mostly hung out with him in the VIP room and we did a great deal of people watching...he still talks about that evening. (I guess he passed the "test" because I married him---but it was always different with Elarryo because he'd known me for so many years).

After the clubs closed, 4 a.m. on Thursday and Friday and 5 a.m. on Saturday. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to go sit on the beach and watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan. I wanted to go grab breakfast at the old Melrose Diner on Belmont--that old guy worked there late at night and they had the jellybean candy dish at the counter. I liked hanging out at Tempo downtown on Chestnut sometimes too. It was cleaner and the food was better. Sometimes, I wanted to go to the gym and run on a treadmill, even though I'd been dancing for 4 or 5 hours.

Now the years have passed and I don't go out to clubs anymore. But I still read all night. And now I write all night as well. Insomnia creeps in and cloaks me with her familiarity. Last night, Friday night, my sister suggested I take two Tylenol PM since I'd slept a total of fifteen hours between Sunday the 8th and this past Friday. I did take them and it still took me two hours to finally fall asleep. When I did, I had incredibly vivid dreams...the kind of dreams I've only had when I was pregnant, and then only because certain hormones are so strong that they cause them.

They were dreams about going to senior prom with Kayvan Hayati and how I used to write his name over and over again in my notebooks.

Dreams of being seveteen, sitting and talking with Matt Lloyd and slowly realizing, he doesn't really want to just talk to me...and me being completely unsure of what to do with that realization.

Dreams of walking across Northwestern's campus , everything a brilliant, verdant green.

Dreams of dancing in the Rat Trap at Willard Hall.

Dreams of being with all the old crew, Donald Michelin, Elarryo, Jian Khododad, Kelsey Taylor, Kendrick Webb, Arya Czerniejewski, Faith Holmes, Kyle Dickerson, Camille Henderson, Paula Henderson. It's hard to believe that was all sixteen years ago.

Dreams of going to Shelter and playing pool and dancing with Sakib Shirazi.

The dreams were so real...I didn't want to wake up. They felt less like dreams and more like some sort of hallucinations. I was back in those times, back in those heady days of adventure and discovery. And I didn't want to let them go.

I never have really understood why people take drugs or get drunk on a regular basis. Of course, I understand it on one fundamental level, but not on another. I have always wanted to be fully present, fully aware, fully responsible for my actions, no matter what they were. I spent so many years of my life trying to forget things that once I really began to live, once I really began to smile and laugh and cry, not because of choices that had been made for me but because of my own choices, I wanted to remember every moment of it, both the good and the bad. And last night with those dreams, I understood a bit more why people do the things they do...It's so easy live in fantasies...to remember things the way you want to remember them instead of how it may have actually happened.

The more I think about it, my vain imaginings have always taken shape through my obsessions with books, music, and writing. And like an addict, if I don't get my fix...if I don't read, if I don't listen to music, or if I don't write in a day, I go through a form of withdrawl. I feel out of sorts. I'm irritable. Snappish. Bitchy. Unbalanced. My mind starts to catalog all of the things I'm worried about. All of the things I have to do. All of the things I'm afraid of. And Insomnia returns to visit me.

No, I haven't slept tonight.

I did something I didn't want to do today, well, technically I did it yesterday...you see how the days blend together? I can't get it out of my head...and I've written about all these other things before getting to this point. You see, my brother's body arrived from Detroit Sunday afternoon, and I went to see it at the funeral home this past evening. His body is badly decomposed and yet, he was still so handsome...of course, it was him but, it wasn't him. The soul that made my brother who he was, wasn't there. It was only the physical frame that has housed his troubled spirit for so many years.

I didn't want to go view the body. I told my mother I wasn't going to go. I told anyone who called me today that I wasn't going to go. I still went. I suppose my curiosity got the best of me, much as it often does. You see, I didn't want to have the picture of the body in my head. I don't like to put images like that in my psyche, and, given that he shot himself in the head, I wasn't sure I wanted to do this. But I did it.

His body was on a stretcher, covered by a sheet, in a back room of the funeral home. We walked down a hallway and through a door. As we walked, I held onto my niece Cassandra's hand and my Aunt Brenda's hand. My dad walked in front of my mom and I kept wanting to yell out, "Hey, grab mom's hand!"

We stood to the side of the stretcher and Mr. O'Neal, the funeral director pulled the sheet down to uncover the face and neck. I haven't seen my brother since 1996 and there was such a sense of time stopping. I was, in that moment, unaware of anyone else in the room. I found myself focusing on his hair...shorter than I'd ever seen it, slightly graying around the temples. His closed eyes were beginning to sink into their sockets. I could see the back of his head, misshapen now, and all of the huge threads where it had been sewn shut again. I will never forget that. No book I read, no song I listen to, no story I ever write will take away the image of those huge threads.

And I suppose that's the way it should be.

Self-Scripting

Tonight, I used my writing skills to create a draft of my brother's obituary. It starts out simply enough: ...passed away in Pontiac, Michigan on Sunday, January 8, 2006 at the age of 41. The rest has been more difficult to write, mostly because it's been hard to figure out what to say. I can't be untruthful about his life but there is a certain respectful and proper way to write an obituary. Because of the way things have been, it's hard for anyone in my family to really know who he was over the past few years. Hobbies? Interests? Accomplishments? Hmm.

So, of course, I googled, "How to Write an Obituary." I sort through a few different web pages. I find out that I can buy an obituary writing download for $4.99.

Um, no thanks.

Then, I poked around the New York Times obituary section. I scroll through a few and don't see any that really are what I need but it gives me a feel for the language. And, I'm inspired. By golly, who knew so many candidates for sainthood lived in NYC?

Next, I get to this page that suggests that people should write their own obituaries so they can represent themselves to the world in the way they want. I find this interesting because it's flipping the script and having your final say on how you want the world to see you, instead of letting others have that last word.

We’ve all seen an example of this in the past week with the furor over this A Million Little Pieces book –even though I was never interested in reading it despite Queen Oprah’s seal of approval. This guy wrote his memoir and a memoir is, for all intents and purposes, a super-long obituary on your life up to that point. He’s writing about his experiences being an addict. Did he lie? Did he exaggerate? Hmm…isn’t that what most addicts do? And speaking of exaggeration, I’ve read that Orlando Bloom may play Frey in the film version. I’m not sure what drugs got injected into a studio exec but I’ve seen pictures of Frey and he’s nowhere near looking like Orlando Bloom.

I can’t help but think how most of us would be tempted to over-exaggerate or bend and flex the truth if we were to write a memoir. How many of us would be tempted to do the same if we were writing our own obituaries? And, is this same potential over-exaggeration and truth-bend temptation eliminated by relatives writing the obituary instead? I mean, everyone’s obituary reads, “Loving father. Devoted sister. Adored cousin.” Hmm. Yep.

My “pro”for self-scripting the obituary is that in theory, it could be an interesting way to make sure you are keeping yourself on track with personal goals. For example, my obituary could say, "Liz, three-time New York Times best-selling author of..."

Or not.

It's up to me.

Prayers Are Always Needed...And Are Welcome

I'm unexpectedly back home...

A week ago I was thrilled to be putting the Midwest behind me. Now it comes rushing back into my world with such urgency, such immediacy. You see, my brother died this past Sunday. I think I'm having a hard time actually believing this, and there's no way to say it...he committed suicide.

Even if you are a random passerby and are just reading this while surfing blogs, please say a prayer for his soul and for my family. If you aren't so random, we really need your support and prayer.

This afternoon I got off a plane and my heart broke when I had to go see my mom. My heart broke to see my dad trying to be so strong. My niece, nineteen years old, crying one moment and the next, talking about a guy she works with that she's interested in (or he was interested in her?) and then more tears.

The people from the funeral home were nice but I felt like such an observer in a conversation I was actively participating in. I just couldn't believe I was having the conversation about what he should wear in the casket. I thought to myself, "Are we really talking about this?"

The soul doesn't need a suit of clothes to go to God--we are the ones who need it. He is on his spiritual journey. I know he's with God and I am grateful for that.