A House Upon the Sand

The moment my brother ended his life, the foundational level of safety and security I lived with for 36 years crumbled beneath my very feet.

I felt the innate protection of my big brother growing up. When I started elementary school, I was never picked on on the playground because everyone knew he was also there. In middle school, if a boy broke my heart or wouldn’t take no for an answer, I only had to mention a name in front of my brother and the problem would be mitigated. But even as an adult, that layer of security was steady and sure.

At 25, my first husband secretively walked out on me on a Tuesday afternoon. The first call I made after dialing my boss to let him know I wouldn’t be at work the next day, was to my Dad. I asked that he and my brother be there the next day with his truck and trailer to help me pack up and move my life out of my apartment. They came, no questions asked. My brother, with levity to lighten the shock and sorrow.

When entering my second marriage, I realize now I had a deeply-embedded and confident assurance that if anything ever happened like before, my brother would always be there to help me pack up my furnishings and pick up the pieces.

Us against the world type of thing.

Even after my brother and I’s relationship fell apart and I was forced to put strong boundaries in place with him, I still knew if/when anyone else failed me, if I was ever in a bind and really needed help, my brother’s rescue was only one text message away. No matter what. Even if we hadn’t talked in months. Even if he was on the other side of the country, he would board a plane to come to me within hours.

If something needed fixing, he would do it. He was the master of figuring things out. If I needed help hunting down a particular item, he would find it and ship it to me. For as many problems as my brother caused in my life over the years, he was able to solve just as many. There was comfort in that. Peace. Protection. Stability.

None of this was even a conscious or spoken thought for me. It was just a knowing. Deep and immovable. I didn’t even realize it was there until after he was gone and the very fabric of my confidence started to unravel. It took me a long time, and many soul-searching journal entries, to pinpoint that it was his absence driving those feelings.

I felt untethered.

Like I was free-falling through life with no safety net.

My safety net had been funneled into an urn and buried underneath the earth in southern Kentucky.

And now I felt alone and orphaned in a world where my Dad could no longer come and save me either. His help was lost to me in the tangles of his cerebral cortex, a condition they call Dementia.

Kids Church Songs and Deep Spiritual Truths

It is a strange unfolding to realize how much of your strength and stability is built on the shoulders of another person. How crushing it is to lose those things when they are gone. To realize how misplaced this vital thing had been.

How shaky a process it is to find all new footing, a new place to build upon. And how long and arduous the labor of stacking brick upon brick rebuilding your life once more. I still feel the tremors of aftershock today, threatening to tumble what height I’ve regained. Insecure of my work and the new site for my construction.

There is a song I sing to my son that I used to sing in Children’s Church growing up. It’s based on a story in the book of Matthew, chapter seven, a parable titled The Wise and Foolish Builders. The song comes with fun hand-motions that make it a real crowd-pleaser for toddlers.

The wise man built his house upon a rock
house upon a rock
house upon a rock

The wise man built his house upon a rock
And the rains came tumbling down.

The rains came down and the floods came up
[repeat 2x]
And the house on the rock stood firm.

The second verse is a contrast to the first. It sings of the foolish man who builds his house upon the sand, and at the end, “the house on the sand goes SPLAT!” (Insert riotous laughter and squeals of delight from three year olds.)

The point of the song – and the parable – is that God is The Solid Rock foundation upon which we can build our lives, so that no matter what storm comes, we stand firm.

How did I get this so wrong? I berate myself now, standing in the rubble of The After.

But I don’t know if that’s the right question – or accusation, as it is.

I think mostly, I have spent my life expecting if I was a good Christian girl, who followed the rules, and paid my tithes, and spoke the right confessions in the mirror every morning, I would be spared any “splatting” experiences in life.

But I think what I’m finding is the splatting still comes.

And, even without a brother, I’m never truly left alone to pick up the pieces and rebuild. Though my soul feels this way at times and my enemy wants to tell me it’s the truth. It’s not.

A Hurricane Flattened My House, Now What?

“We say, after we’ve experienced something, ‘Well, it all turned out for the good,” but you weren’t so sure about that while it was happening. When you’re going through it, it feels like death, and you can’t even see any life after this.’” – Steven Furtick

In my first book, Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them, I tell the story of my divorce and how I was so angry at God for letting it happen. Letting my life and dreams fall apart when I had followed all His rules. But as it turned out, I didn’t even know who God was at that time. And even as I ran fast and far and hard away from Him, He chased me down, to make my acquaintance.

This time, when the Hurricane of Grief following my brother’s suicide came blowing in and flattened the house of my life, I didn’t blame God. I didn’t spend a long time writhing in anger at God. Only because I’d been there and done that and know how futile an exercise this is. He’s not really the one to blame. No, this time, I felt His calm, loving, steady presence next to me. Sitting with me. Crying with me. Aching with me. Never leaving my side.

This was not the life or the outcome he wanted for me, or my brother. He was just as hurt by my brother’s pain, and the pain that my brother’s choice is now bleeding onto my family and I.

He didn’t shy away from my rage or my cursing at my brother. He wasn’t disappointed or appalled at my reaction. He was there. Willing to sit and weep with me for as long as I needed, and ready to take each shaky step after the other, once I got back up again. He isn’t bothered by my lengthy timeline of grieving.

He is there, to show me each thing I need to see as I moved forward in healing – like how I had built a false sense of security on my brother’s protection and presence for starters. My house upon sand. But not one time do these revelations come with condemnation or rebuke. They come with grace and patience. He was, and is, always, only a kind and loving companion. Solid. Firm. Unwavering in his commitment.

Kind of like a rock, I guess.

And a little song I know tells me rock is a good foundation to pick for building your life-house upon.

Inventory Your Losses

The Shot Heart Round the County

When my brother was 17, he made a half-court basketball shot that changed his life.

He was not a basketball player, save for the one year he joined the team in elementary school, when he learned it was not his passion. But like a lot of kids, we had a hoop in our driveway and grew up shooting H.O.R.S.E. and P.I.G. on the makeshift blacktop court with cousins and friends.

In our small, sleepy Kentucky town, high school basketball games were practically a social engagement. Everyone goes. Same with football.

Local businesses sponsor the team and host special events at the games to boost attendance (and for advertising, of course.) One of those events was the half-time, half-court shot sponsored by the local Chevrolet dealership. Every Friday night, one or two lucky crowd-members would be called by their ticket number to come down to the court and attempt the shot. A successful shooter would be rewarded with $10,000. It had been attempted a hundred times or more – even by former decorated athletes. No one ever came close to making it.

The night my brother’s name was called, he unassumingly stepped up to the line in his wrangler jeans and cowboy boots. He took a couple steps and thrust the ball straight out from his chest as hard as he could. The ball made a beeline for the backboard and, just above the hoop, it suddenly dropped through the net.

It was so absurd and unexpected my brother stood dumbfounded as every single body in the bleachers erupted to their feet in a rowdy cheer. Hundreds raced down to the court floor to slap his back and congratulate the dazed teenager. Shake his hand. And dozens of people joked about asking for a loan from the winnings check. (Apparently, I also asked for a year’s supply of gum, per the write up in the local paper! HA!)

The dealership owner probably pooped himself. But, he made good on his word and delivered the check a couple weeks later.

The tab was on my brother that night when he went out to celebrate with his friends, and a couple dozen of his newest acquaintances. And the next night. And the next night. It took less than six months for him to spend the entirety of the reward and rack up debt trying to keep the charade going.

I often think about how that financial windfall changed the trajectory of his life. The story is common enough – many lottery winners end up deeply in debt or destitute.

My brother never stopped pretending to be rich after that night. And it cost him a lot more than his eventually-wrecked credit score.

Journal Entry from March 5th, 2021

It’s a pretty well-known fact that grief comes in waves.

I guess that’s because you don’t grieve losing a person, like they were a one-time singular event or thing. You grieve every single loss you would have had with that person. Every piece of them you lose gradually in your life.

Yesterday, I heard a basketball bouncing on the street in front of our house.

I started crying as mental movies of my brother and I shooting H.O.R.S.E. in the driveway of our childhood home played in my mind.

But mostly, I was crying for my son’s loss.

Uncle John likely would have been the one to teach him to play basketball. And I imagine they would have spent countless hours shooting H.O.R.S.E. together as he grew up. My heart aches for the loss of that experience.

I’m starting to recognize other individual losses:

Last night, I grieved that I’ll never hear his voice again, as I listened to the voicemail clips people were sweetly sending me and that I had in my own messenger.

I’ll never get to hear him say “later dude” or “hey maaan” or recite any of the million movie quotes we would quip back and forth.

It hurts to question why John would not want to get to know his Baby nephew. Why he wouldn’t want to spend his life with him.

My Grandfather ran away from home when I was about 12. I remember thinking, sure, I understand why you would want to leave your wife, but why did you never want to see or spend time with me – your only granddaughter – again for the rest of your life? Or your only daughter?

I didn’t know then that my Grandfather was a haunted man. Haunted by the war, and POW camps, and alcohol. He told himself we were better off without him.

I’m sure that’s what my brother thought as well.

I’ve battled that same thought before, so I am familiar with how easy a lie it is to believe. But it’s still a lie.

What you just read were all the thoughts I had bouncing around my head on March 5^th, 2021. Two days after my brother’s remains were found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I would journal over the next weeks and months about each part of that loss I grieved. It would be two years before I made a full inventory list of my losses. Making that list was one of the most cathartic journaling exercises I’ve done.

When my brother decided to end his life, I didn’t just lose my brother, I lost:

My protector, my safe place
My friend
Samson’s Uncle
The me that existed before
My mom that existed before
My dad that existed before
My husband that existed before
My car detailer
My errand runner
My gift buyer
Big Brother Hugs
Our family unit/dynamic
Sweet Summertime family gatherings
“Normal” holidays
My movie quote partner
Family game/card nights
Our foursome for golf
My electronics expert
My automotive expert
My identity in our family – little sister to only child
Help/support with my aging parents
My biggest laughs
Most of my memories from childhood/my early 20’s
The person who believed in me/cheered for me most
Clarity of thought
My capacity for what I can/can’t handle
My husband’s brother-in-law
My picture-taker
My problem-solver
My figure-it-outer
My husband’s helper
My mom & dad’s helper
My ability to experience a “normal” maternity leave, postpartum experience, first year with my son

And on and on for two more pages. Some of the things felt so shallow and selfish to write down. But they were real losses to me, despite how trivial. And I needed to say them out loud and make space to grieve each one of them. My subconscious mind felt each of these pains immediately upon receiving that late-night phone call. But it would be a long and gradual process to identify and name them.

Grief is a lot of work. And it’s hard. Writing helps.

***

This post is part 5 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

It’s Got to Be Like Planning a Party, Right?

Confetti, Hope and 3/16

My mom plopped down across from me in the nursery looking hurried and determined as she readied to leave my house. She and my Dad had stayed with us three of the four weeks since my son was born, but today they were rushing back home. It had been less than 12 hours since the phone call that changed our lives. They were trying to beat the news back to my Grandmother – my Memaw – so she could hear about the death of her only grandson from them instead of Channel 12.

They didn’t make it, by the way. The story broke before they could drive the three hours to their house in Southern Kentucky.

“I don’t want a funeral, I want a celebration of life,” She said, “And I want you to do it.”

“Oh! Ok.” I responded, not knowing what else to say, but certain I would do whatever she needed of me in that moment. I had never planned or preached a funeral before, but I had done plenty of public speaking and I reasoned, it’s got to be like planning a party, right? “I’ll figure it out.”

My sister-in-law, Susie, said I was in survival mode. The way I didn’t react at all and could just go about normal duties like my entire world hadn’t just been flipped upside down.

Turns out, it happens often after the loss of a loved one. A normal part of grief. Your mind isn’t able to process the traumatic event, so it shifts into hyper-efficiency as you plan details and arrangements, share the news with relatives, and go about your day-to-day. Once the flourish of activity ends, the numbing and coping mechanism stops and reality sets in. Most of the time.

“And, I want you to read his letter.” she added.

“Oh.” I looked pointedly at my mom, “Are we…….saying it out loud? His letter doesn’t leave much to the imagination, so we are telling everyone he did it on purpose?”

“I don’t have anything to hide.” Her clipped reply caught me off-guard, but filled me with a strange pride. This was not a normal response in my family. We have been hiding things on behalf of my brother for most of my life.

Her final request was that we play the hymn, I’ll Fly Away.

In the following days as I prepared, I prayed God would give me the right words to say and that I would be able to deliver them without my voice shaking on that day.

3.16.21

It would be two weeks before we received my brother’s ashes – there was some back and forth with evidence and autopsies and processing time, etc. Once they were ready, the crematorium in Arizona shipped them – like, FedEx, I’m not kidding – and they ended up getting delayed at a depot, missing the delivery window for the service.

My brother was literally late to his own funeral, which was on par for him. We made a joke of it that day.

His remains would be buried in a second-hand gravesite that had belonged to my Memaw’s family. The cemetery is only one lot over from her house. We walk over there once a year on Memorial Day to put flowers on my Great-Grandparents grave. (They didn’t serve in the military, it’s just tradition in those parts.) I grew up playing in that cemetery anytime we would visit my Memaw and Grandad, riding my bike or running laps around the circular drive. My Memaw already has her headstone fixed on her plot – even though she’s very much alive – and now my brother’s body would be tucked in the earth right beside hers.

My mom requested the event be small – immediate family, and John’s girlfriend, only. There was confetti and balloons, music and singing (I found the Etta James version of I’ll Fly Away), a little crying, and fake, press-on mustaches. (That’s a story for another day.)

The pastor from my parents’ church and I co-led the service. This was my message:

“My brother committed suicide” is not something I ever wanted to be a part of my story. Neither was getting divorced.

But what I’ve learned in the last decade and a half is that God can take the broken, unwanted parts of our story and use them anyway, if we let Him. For our good and His glory.

He even promised it right in His Word through the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans: He causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

I’ve learned if we share the vulnerable parts of our story out loud, we give other people who are hurting and broken permission to share theirs as well.

It makes them feel less alone.

So that’s what we’re doing today. We are saying the TRUTH out loud so that we can begin to process and heal together. And bringing the truth to light so it cannot stay hidden to fester in the dark.

It’s our secrets that keep us sick. And we want to be healthy and whole and free from the bondage of secrecy.

….

My husband recently pointed out that in just a couple weeks, it will be Sammy’s first Easter. But it will also be our first Easter without John.

I cried when he said that. I hadn’t thought of it yet. I am heartbroken and even angry that now these special moments of joy will be forever entwined with sorrow. Marred. Tainted.

Easter, or, “Resurrection Sunday”, as my brother would call it, has always been a big holiday for my family. We celebrate right here in Somerset every year.

It’s dripping in tradition for us.

We always buy new Easter outfits – most often complete with hats – and wear them to church. We sing hymns about the cross and the blood and Jesus’s triumphant resurrection. We take communion. We hunt eggs in the church yard afterward. We take pictures on Memaw’s back deck. We eat a big lunch and spend the day together, if not the whole weekend.

In recent years, we have played cards for hours, as that’s become our family’s most beloved pastime.

For half of my life, that’s all Easter was for me. A day of religious and familial tradition.

But the last decade or so, I have started studying and meditating on the meaning and significance of Easter and Holy Week.

Easter is earmarked by many themes and symbols: Love, Sacrifice, Blood, Redemption, Forgiveness, Grace, Victory, Freedom, Covenants, the Cross and the Crown, the Lamb and the Lion….

But for me, the strongest resounding theme of the whole holiday (at least this year) is: Hope.

Easter represents the Hope of the Promise for reunion.

After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God vowed to make a Way to be reunited with His beloved creation, humans. He set a Plan in motion, a Plan that culminated thousands of years later with the Roman crucifixion of His Son on that old rugged cross.

That Friday, as the sun went dark, all of Israel, all of Jesus’s followers, and all of Heaven (except the Father himself) were hopeless.

If that’s where the story had ended, we too, would be hopeless. Our bodies would die and that would also be our end.

But we all know that three days later, Jesus walked out of Hell and out of His grave, and God’s Plan was completed. His Promise was fulfilled.

And because we have accepted that promise as our own, we now live with the Hope of life after death. And an eternity of union and fellowship with our Father.

And because we know John was also in on that Promise, we get to live with the Hope of being reunited with him again one day as well.

So today, we are celebrating the time we had with him here and the Promise of an eternity of laughter and joy and adventure with him there.

We can rejoice, like John’s letter asked us to.

Miraculously, my voice didn’t quiver one time.

Afterward, we walked back to my Memaw’s house and had lunch on the back deck. We ate fried chicken and lingered in the warmth of the sun and family.

The next week I journaled,

On March 16^th, 2021, we celebrated my brother’s life. The 40 years, 6 months, and 10 days we had with him here on earth.

We celebrated the fact that we know where he is, and that we will get to see him again one day.

The day was perfect and beautiful and Holy in a way that only God could orchestrate. (71 and sunny in mid-March!)

Only after-the-fact did my cousin Kara point out that the celebration was on 3.16.

The 16th verse in the third chapter of the book of {JOHN} is one of the most well-known and well-quoted Bible verses in history. It is the first that most children are taught to memorize in Sunday School. You can probably call it to mind and rattle it off right now without much thought.

It’s the core of the Christian belief system and THE reason we will be reunited with my brother in Heaven.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Amen. Selah.

See you when we get there, brother.

***

This post is part 3 in a series that starts with: http://racheldawnwrites.com/blog/reads-like-fiction/

Little Sister, Please Remember

A Response to “Big Brother, Don’t You See….”

Little sister, please remember

big brother isn’t perfect
nor will he ever be
if you put him on a pedestal
one day he’ll let you down, you see.

Little sister, please remember

He’s a human being just like you
You need to let him be
Give him room to grow and grace
To make mistakes, he’s free.

Little sister, please remember

if you adhere him to your standards
he will never measure up
always falling short of
filling your half-empty cup.

Expecting him to be perfect
So critical we are
But who are we to judge?
Or to be setting the bar?

So little sister, you have a job to do
and I pray you do it well
appreciate his good
and only praises tell

Love him great
and cover his faults
and when he’s mean
Know it’s not your fault

Sister, when he falls and scrapes his knee
you be the one to help him back up.
And when he fails at 33,
you be the one to help him back up.

For Big Brother he needs
approval too
He needs to know
he’s doing well by you.

Little Sister please remember,

He’ll always be your brother,
and friend if you’ll let him
So stay close to one another
And in time you’ll see the lesson:

That the fights never mattered
and the bickering was in vein
God created you for the other
to mold and shape and train

Preparing you for things in life
that were put here just for you and he
Each a purpose to accomplish
and people who need who you will be.

Little Sister please remember,
It was never really about you and big brother anyway.

Big Brother, Don’t You See

A few weeks ago, I sat watching my niece and nephew play together. I smiled and felt a sting of pain simultaneously as I watched the way she looked at him. She never left his side; she needed to be everywhere he was, doing everything he was doing, at every moment. And to use an antiquated expression, you would think he hung the moon by the look in her eyes.

“It starts that young”, I marveled aloud to my husband.

At 20 months she already idolizes her almost 3 year old brother. I wondered at what age he would become cognizant of it, and how he would take to that responsibility – knowing little sister is always watching. I wondered if he would be loving and inclusive like he is now, or if he would be cold and dismissive and indifferent like my big brother had been to me. My eyes stung with tears as I wished so much for him to be the prior. I thought about how much that yearning to be just like him would grow and manifest in different ways as she got older. And I prayed a silent prayer she wouldn’t fall into the trap I did of needing acceptance and affirmation from the one human being who withheld it from her. I prayed she would know she is loved and wanted, even in the times Big Brother wasn’t showing it.

Later that week as that memory replayed in my mind, I started to put these words together, “Big Brother don’t you see….” I decided to sit down and write a letter to Jeremy, a lesson or reminder for him that Big Brother is a big responsibility. I knew it would be read to him now and he would not fully understand, but I imagine him pulling this letter out over the years, as he grows and his knowledge and understanding develops. As he enters different life stages, these words will take on new meaning with each reading.

I was only a few stanzas in when I found myself weeping inconsolably at my computer. I realized I was writing this letter to my 35 year old brother as much as I was to 35 month old Jeremy. I was saying all the things I wish he had known and been conscious of as we were growing up.

As I was writing, my heart broke thinking about how much pressure all this was on little Jeremy – to be all these things, to be EVERYTHING to his little sister. And I suddenly saw a piece of the puzzle I had never seen before. I saw how much pressure and unrealistic expectations I had put on my own Big Brother. I thought about how hard that must have been on him, always being on a pedestal and living in a glass house. Never having any room to make mistakes and learn without immediately feeling like a huge disappointment. And in that moment I wept for him also.

So I penned a response to the first letter for Penelope called, “Little Sister, please remember….” Things I wish I had known, and what I want Penelope to know and and be mindful of as she grows.

It’s taken me a while to settle on just the right words and I wrestled with whether or not I would share it with the world, or just them. My husband read it and was deeply moved and convicted about his relationship with his little sister, he said he thought it was a good reminder for every Big Brother (and little sister) to have. So here you go:

Big brother don’t you see?

Big brother don’t you see?
her little eyes are watching,
watching everything you do.

Big brother don’t you see?
she wants to be just like you –
always emulating –
a lifelong game of monkey see, monkey do.

Big brother don’t you see
the way she follows you around
and looks up to your example?
Your feet never touch the ground.

There’s no more super a hero,
in a cape or tights
Though she loves father,
it’s brother she longs to be just like.

So, Big Brother, you have a job to do
and I hope you do it well
with all your heart and soul
and your striving never quell.

say your prayers
and brush your teeth
mind mamma well
don’t forget your q’s & p’s.

hold her tight when she cries
when she’s scared in the night
because in those little eyes
you make everything alright.

She won’t be little long.

So love her well
and show her right,
and always be the one
to settle the fight.

When you’re older,

hold your temper
and mind your words
because everything you say
matters most to her.