Altered Photo (Milena Lee)

Because You Always Referred To Yourself As Crazy

If you were still on earth, this is the very post I'd send you on messenger today......
Because you always referred to yourself as crazy, and that always caused me hurt and sadness. I would respond: "Brendan, you're not crazy!! You just think differently that's all!". I couldn't stand it when you talked about yourself like that. Because for you of all people to say it, meant that you really, really, REALLY did mean it!!??

So this ones's for you B:

For Those Of Us Disparaged for Our Grief

Saying Goodbye

Haiku Portraying You....

Haiku Poetry I've Found....Which Portrays My Feelings Of B...

I cry out in tears
A primal ache in my soul
Tears flow down my cheeks
They carry in them
All the words I cannot say

(inspired by Deborah from Grief In Haiku)



You are filled with doubt
of the magic inside you,
but it's all I see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I heard no music
Until the music was you
All Love Songs Are True.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So bright is love,
we see the shadows of the dead
even in the dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(All of these are Peter Galen Massey Poems)

My heart tried
to hold you
long past leaving
across empty space
against goodbye.
(Cindy Smith)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May the echo
of my heartbeat
resonate in you forever.
(JS Parker)

Have They Never, Dear B?

Dearest Brendan,

I never called you that name much.
It was always: honey, cutie, cuteness,
sweetie, sweetheart, Chinese Spice,
My Fine Young Cannibal,
and Lai-Wing...

Anyway, I digress...

The point I want to make is that,
most people think I should be over
the grief
of losing you...

It makes me angry.
I feel angry all of the time.
I'm sarcastic and short tempered
with people.

Have they never lost a dear,
dear love?
Have they never lost someone
that they touched constantly?
Kissed constantly?
Loved constantly?
Thought of constantly?

Have they never loved anyone
Whom they gazed upon intently,
Wondering how creation put
that 'one' together in that perfect way?

I don't believe they have.
And maybe they never will.
Those that think I should be
through the grief by now.

"Is he really worth all of this?"
"It's just Brendan..."
"This, all for Brendan?"
"What was so great about him?"

Those kinds of responses.
And these.....

"He wouldn't want you to be sad...."
"He wouldn't be this sad for you."

You deserved to be loved dear B,
And you deserve to be grieved.
And I love you dear B.
And I always will........

Time Does Not Bring Relief

Change of Address

CHANGE OF ADDRESS
You didn't die
you just changed shape
became invisible
to the naked eye
became this grief
it's sharpness
more real

than your presence was
before you were separate to me
entire to yourself
now you are
a part of me
you are inside my self
I call you
by your new name

'Grief...Grief! '

although I still call you
'Love.'

~Dónall Dempsey

Artified Photos of Brendan

Brendan's New Year's Text 2018

Mystical Eye Tattoo

Collection of Grief Art

The "Boy" Kitty aka: Jackson

Brendan's Gift of Trader Joe's Gingerbread Gifts

February 8, 2018 FaceBook Post About Brendan's Accident

I'm receiving so many texts throughout the night asking me what happened. I'm realizing that I need to post all that we know about Brendan's accident. Brendan called me Monday night at 7:00pm telling me that he was catching the bus to take him home and that I should meet him at his house. When I got to his house at 9:00 it was dark. I was immediately worried. I began calling him on his cell and also through facetime. He wasn't answering. You know Brendan, he always answers the phone. Anyway I had a terrible feeling of dread. I kept calling and calling his cell phone. Finally someone picked up. I thought it was Brendan but no. It was a nurse at Santa Clara Community Hospital. He told me that Brendan had an accident and that I had to come as soon as possible.


Of course at first I assumed he was at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, but the nurse told me he was airlifted to Santa Clara CH. I was in so much shock, desperation and terror that I called Brendan’s good buddies Darren & Vinnie to come pick me up from Brendan’s as soon as possible; trying to get the words out of my mouth; to tell them what was happening.


A bunch of guys showed up at Brendan’s place to get me. I got in Darren’s truck followed by Vinnie, Jason & Jon. We raced over the hill as fast as possible reaching the hospital an hour after I talked to the nurse. I ran into the Emergency room. The kind Social Workers and nurses escorted me to a room. I can’t even describe the state I was in. The guys joined me and we waited for the Doc to tell us what was happened. An amazing Dr. came and told us with tears in his eyes that Brendan was struck by a car and that he wouldn’t live. They had him on life support. We all fell apart as you can imagine. They finally let me go in and see Brendan. Just when I reached his bedside Corinne his mum called me. So I was there together with his mom calling from 3,000 miles away beside ourselves with grief. I know by reading this right now you are all as devastated about this story as I am and of course Brendan’s family. Brendan’s Uncle Julio came to keep me company after the guys left for home.


I slept at the hospital going in to see Brendan now and then. Of course I barely slept. His family flew in from Boston and was there by noon on Tuesday. His Uncle & cousin also came along. Uncle Julio contacted CHP to find out what happened. The officer told us that Brendan had been struck by a car while crossing the street at 41st Ave. He apparently hadn’t used the crosswalk. The car that struck him did stop. There was no foul play suspected. There were other witnesses as well. This is all we know because the accident is still under investigation.


This is what I think happened: Brendan left work to catch the bus, it’s possible he was trying to run across the street to catch it. Brendan’s knee, as you know, is so impaired from 4 knee surgeries that he can’t run. Of course he can skate but he just can’t run. I don’t think he timed his crossing and was struck by the car.

This is all we really know. More information will be forthcoming…..

The Brendan Lai-Wing Leung Photo Collection

The Brendan Lai-Wing Leung Photo Collection

Here is the link for all of Brendan's Photos. You are welcome to explore them.



https://photos.app.goo.gl/1fwLYZEz1h4lVRA73

I Don't Want To Share Brendan With the Wind or the Earth Below My Feet

A woman from the grief support group I attended, sent me a poem from her mother that was written before her death. In the poem the mother instructs the children to listen to the wind for her voice; to look at the flowers because her beauty exists there. I appreciated the poem but this was my response to the woman: "I think that I must be a selfish person. Because personally, I just want Brendan to be alive looking like he always has. I don't want to share him with the wind or the earth below my feet. I don't want to share him with heaven (if there is such a place); I just want him here. So selfish of me I know. I guess that's the limitations of being a human. I just want our loved ones to be here to comfort us right now. I'm guessing that you would rather be able to just talk to your mom and hear her voice? At least that's what I want for myself. I want to hear Brendan's laugh again, yet it doesn't seem that anyone has recorded him laughing or even conversing. He's in a considerable amount of YouTube videos but it's all the professional sport he was part of. I wish I had recorded our daily times together where he was talking, laughing, being himself."

For the self there is never birth nor death.

Upon waking every morning, I continue to be plagued by my inability to make sense of Brendan Lai-wing Leung's death. I find myself turning once again to the years of training and studying I undertook while in my 20's living in a Hindu Ashram. There I studied the ancient Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita, just to name a few. I've fluctuated over the years from believer to non-believer and back again. I was raised a Christian yet never satisfied with it, I pursued the philosophies of the East and settled on Hinduism for a time. My interests expanded from there and I delved into Buddhism and Sufism then Greek Philosophy & Agnosticism. Yet here I am once again revisiting my early life among the Hindu Philosophers, teachers and ancient scriptures. None of us knows what happens when we die. We can't be sure no matter what religion or belief system we claim to be. But of the "explanations" of our 'self' beyond the body, I find enormous comfort from the Bhagavad-Gita. Here are two examples.

For the self there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does the self ever cease to exist. The self is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. The self is not slain when the body is slain.

BHAGAVAD-GITA 2:20

It is said that the self is invisible, inconceivable, immutable and unchangeable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.

BHAGAVAD-GITA 2: 25

Reading these verses doesn’t completely eradicate my pain and suffering over the loss of Brendan. It comforts me a little though. I was recently listening to an Adiyogi teacher who compared our existence, contained in the human body, like this: Think of our existence as floating soap bubbles. The soap bubble floats around until it’s thin membrane pops. The air that was in the bubble then becomes part of the surrounding atmosphere. If we believe we are only the soap bubble we underestimate the immense true existence that we are. We are so much greater than the confined air in the bubble. We are tricked into believing that we are only the bubble, and that what is contained within the bubble is all that we are. But we are far greater than we can ever imagine. Therefore it is a celebration to be released into the endless expansion, released from a 'finite' self to an 'infinite' self.