Loving & Losing Brendan: A Very Public Grief

Lamia by Genesis

Lamia by Genesis

The scent grows richer, he knows he must be near,
He finds a long passageway lit by chandelier.
Each step he takes, the perfumes change
From familiar fragrances to flavors strange.
A magnificent chamber meets his eye.
Inside, a long rose-water pool is shrouded by fine mist.
Stepping in the moist silence, with a warm breeze he's gently kissed.
Thinking he is quite alone,
He enters the room, as if it were his own,
But ripples on the sweet pink water
Reveal some company unthought of
Rael stands astonished doubting his sight,
Struck by beauty, gripped in fright;
Three vermilion snakes of female face,
The smallest motion, filled with grace.
Muted melodies fill the echoing hall,
But there is no sign of warning in the siren's call:
"Rael welcome, we are the Lamia of the pool.
We have been waiting for our waters to bring you cool."
Putting fear beside him, he trusts in beauty blind,
He slips into the nectar, leaving his shredded clothes behind.
"With their tongues, they test, taste and judge all that is mine.
They move in a series of caresses
That glide up and down my spine.
As they nibble the fruit of my flesh, I feel no pain,
Only a magic that a name would stain.
With the first drop of my blood in their veins
Their faces are convulsed in mortal pains.
The fairest cries, 'We all have loved you Rael'."
Each empty snakelike body floats,
Silent sorrow in empty boats.
A sickly sourness fills the room,
The bitter harvest of a dying bloom.
Looking for motion I know I will not find,
I stroke the curls now turning pale, in which I'd lain entwined
"O Lamia, your flesh that remains I will take as my food"
It is the scent of garlic that lingers on my chocolate fingers.
Looking behind me, the water turns icy blue,
The lights are dimmed and once again the stage is set for you.
Source: LyricFind

His light burned much brighter than most, his energy more electric

A little vignette about Brendan.I was watching Freddie Mercury Performances with Queen this morning. It's easy for me to see what an amazing performer he was. He brought his entire being on stage with him and expressed it. You could see he wasn't trying to imitate what he saw other bands doing in the '70s. He was just himself.
Then I got to thinking about Brendan and what I loved about him. He didn't care what anyone thought, he was just himself. Unmatched socks? Check. Glass bauble jewelry necklaces? Check. Tie-die tapestry cut up into square pieces for hanging out of his back pocket? Check. Shaving half his head in the middle of the night? Check. Oversized pants? Check. Green shoelaces? Check. He didn't care as long as HE thought it looked good.
I realized early on that there was no trying to "dress" him. I honestly didn't even attempt to give him my opinion about his clothes. I couldn't bear for him to look any other way. One time he told me he was thinking about getting contact lenses again. I only knew him as someone who wears glasses. I liked that sort of geeky look he had wearing them. I asked him not to forego his glasses. That's the only fashion statement advice I offered and he listened to.
When Brendan was kind he was the kindest, when he was irritable he was the most irritable. When he was a jerk he was the jerkiest, when he was loving he was the most lovable. I sincerely believe that is why he had so many friends that adored him. He dared to be himself.
He was a full-on skater who didn't mind when he face-planted and broke his front teeth. He didn't care how many bones in his body he would break trying to perfect a trick. He told me he had broken at least 52 bones while skating. (He broke many of the same bones over and over again). Although it sounds like an over-exaggeration I can completely imagine that it was true.
I always wanted to be a person who was their full-on self like Freddie Mercury, Brendan, and a colleague of mine Josh. All 3 of them are dead now.
I know we all know one person that lives through the entire cells of their being~~body, heart, mind, and soul~~ and expresses it fully, no apologies! Wouldn't it be great if we could all be that same way? Then we would have no regrets on our deathbeds. We would have lived a life that is uniquely ours. We are as different as we are the same. If there is a God, I imagine our fingerprints being the main clue that we are supposed to live from our full individuality, Warts and All (as the Brits would say)

I watched a movie the other night that I thought was a comedy. One of the characters falls in love with a man 20 years younger than her.

It is just a week before their wedding. He leaves the house at night and starts to walk down a one-lane country road. He is struck by a truck and then taken to the hospital. They are unsuccessful at resuscitating him.

In the film, the actor playing the dying lover is suited up with the same medical supports as Brendan was. The next scene is his wife-to-be sitting to the left of his body. She is holding his hand, unable to move, unable to say goodbye.

Of course, this is when I lost it because my experience was so similar.

This is the song that played during the scenes.

A few months later she is filmed sitting with her friends and she says, "Sometimes it seems like he was never here, and sometimes it feels like he never left."

When the Party's Over

Billie Eilish

Don't you know I'm no good for you?
I've learned to lose you, can't afford to
Tore my shirt to stop you bleedin'
But nothin' ever stops you leavin'
Quiet when I'm comin' home and I'm on my own
I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that
I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that
Don't you know too much already?
I'll only hurt you if you let me
Call me friend but keep me closer (call me back)
And I'll call you when the party's over
Quiet when I'm comin' home and I'm on my own
And I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that
Yeah, I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that
But nothin' is better sometimes
Once we've both said our goodbyes
Let's just let it go
Let me let you go
Quiet when I'm comin' home and I'm on my own
I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that
I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that

"For Grief" By John O'Donohue

“For Grief” by John O’Donohue

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

“For Grief” by John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008).

Missing Brendan on July 9, 2021

I was listening to David Bowie on the way home from work yesterday. Brendan was such a huge fan of Bowie’s. We used to binge-watch a music DVD of his studio recordings and live performances that I found in our University Library’s Film and Music section. Anyway, the music transported me to these endearing memories I have of Brendan and his passionate music choices. He had such an eclectic taste. My heart ached so much as I listened to the Bowie Collection again. All my senses came alive with memories of Brendan all at once. If you’ve ever had that happen you know how painful it is.

If you never knew Brendan, I’ll describe him once again and his impression on me: Half Cartoon Character, Half Luminous Being. A unique gem of a person who you either understood or just didn’t “get”. It’s cliche but you know that saying, “They broke the mold when they made him.” I get choked up thinking that there will never be another Brendan. In one way that is good, I guess, because he will always stay unique. In fact, he was so unique that he didn’t remind me of anyone I had ever met in my life. I’ve worked on a University Campus for 23 years and have met thousands of people. I often feel like I meet the same 10 people or types of looks and personalities. But no one was or is as unique as Brendan. That’s what continues to be so painful. The nice thing about seeing Corinne and Al is that B reminds me a bit of both of them. It’s funny to me how much Brendan and Al are similar in their quirkiness. And then you see where Brendan got his heart. Without a doubt from Corinne. He also looks like both of them. Brendan’s eyes were from Corinne, Brendan’s manner of walking is from Al. Brendan also looks similar to his Chinese great-grandfather, who I have a photo of.

The Live Performance of Moonage Daydream is probably one of the most brilliant pieces by Bowie and Brendan and I never got tired of it. I can’t really listen to much of the music that Brendan always had cranked up on his sound system because it still hurts to listen to it even more than 3 years later. I miss him so much at times that everything in my body hurts. It’s so bitter-sweet. I love the memories but I hate the way it makes me feel. I realize that I may grieve for him throughout the rest of my life. Maybe not as intensely depending on how long I live.

Can I make a suggestion to those of you who are recently bereaved? Go into it as it takes you into the core of your heart. It will hurt like hell but go there. As you continually go there you eventually find that the person you loved and lost is there waiting for you. It’s pretty much the only way to grieve because if you don’t the grief will go somewhere else in your body or your life and it will mess you up or make you sick. You have no other choice when you are bereaved. I’m pretty sure I survived this grief by finding a grief therapist and early on joining a free grief group through Hospice. Also being able to grieve with family or friends who also loved Brendan. Of course, the amount of love you have for the person you’ve lost is the deciding factor in how you will grieve.

I’m sharing this in the hopes that it might help someone.

The first few weeks after Brendan died I kept writing in my journal the sentence. “Where are you Brendan?” Where are you? Where did you go? You were just here and now you’re gone? Every night after work and before going to bed pages and pages of the same thing written over and over again. After a couple of weeks of this one evening, I was falling asleep to some soft, mellow music and I heard Brendan like he was just right there, not even far away, about 1 foot away and he said, “Wendy, if anybody knows this place, it’s you. You already know all about this place.”

It was then that I suddenly realized if I was going to continue to have Brendan in my life I was going to have to create a whole different relationship with him. He was no longer going to be the same as he was on earth in a physical body and all that comes with it. I can’t help thinking he was really happy about that. I don’t think he fit into the structure of Western Civilization very well. Money and Career didn’t matter at all to him. It was all about friends, family, and playfulness. And that can only get you so far in the material world. Especially in the Western World. So I was happy for him that he didn’t have to deal with those things anymore.

I decided I was going to trust myself and if I sensed he was nearby I was going to pay attention to it. I instinctively knew that I was the one who was going to have to change and trust my intuition and not rely on anyone to tell me how to sense spiritual things. Because you know how it is with these sorts of things. You have people who are atheists and my experience is just going to be a joke to them, or they think that I don’t understand Science, or maybe I’m hallucinating or wishful thinking. Then you have the religious people who are super invested in you only connecting to the spirit in a Christian way or a Hindu way or a Buddhist way. And if it doesn’t match their religion then they conclude that you’re naive or talking to the devil or something. So I knew if I was going to continue to keep in contact with Brendan that I had to change and start practicing listening to my soul. Nothing super profound has happened, so no one is going to be knocking on my door asking me for a movie deal. It’s not like I’m now a medium who channels spirits.

The only thing I learned (profound or not) is that our soul already knows that “other” place. And the other place is really super close. You can definitely sense it if you spend time alone and in quiet spaces. Meditation and pulling yourself away from the outside world really helps. Of course, that's difficult when you have to work 40 hours a week and raise children, etc etc. (This is when a pandemic and isolation has its advantages)

I had to stop framing the “other” side in terms of religious teachings. Also, Brendan stopped becoming someone ‘up in the sky’ or somewhere ‘else’. It took me 2 years to realize that he was a part of me now. I really started feeling him in my heart. Which sounds cliche and corny and I wish I could explain it better but I can’t. I resisted that feeling for so long, I didn’t want him to be a part of me, I wanted him to be Brendan and physically look how he always did on earth.

I remember at Brendan’s Scituate (South Shore) Memorial Gathering, Al Gibson came up and started talking to me about Brendan being a part of all of us now. I was selfish and didn’t want him to be a part of “all of us”. I just wanted him to be the same old Brendan in the same body, being the same person he was. After months and years of grief, Things have evolved for me. When I think of Brendan now it’s either right next to me or at one with me in my heart. When I say ‘at one with me’ I don’t mean only me, I realize that every one of us is connected and if we wanted we could experience it by focusing on our heart space. It takes practice though. So Al Gibson may be surprised that I still remember him saying that. (It really irritated me at the time because of the grief I was feeling but I understand what Al meant now)

I think there are a lot of people experiencing this with their loved ones who have passed on but they don’t tell anyone, they don’t share it because people have reactions to these sorts of things and end up shaming you for them or thinking you’re crazy and who wants that kind of judgment placed on such a sacred experience?

Sometimes I’ll be minding my own business, (usually late at night making some herbal tea before bed and suddenly I feel a really strong presence right next to me. I’ve learned what Brendan’s presence feels like to me so now I can identify it.)

I also don’t want people who loved Brendan wondering why they aren’t experiencing this kind of thing, but I think it’s simply because we expect the experience to be something startling, a big, grand vision and hearing perfect sentences spoken out loud. Seeing an apparition of our loved one in front of us with a message. But we have to remind ourselves that we are in this strange material world with 5 senses and that the spiritual world is much more subtle and works in a different way. So instead of expecting our loved one who has left earth to conform to our earthly expectations, maybe instead we need to become more spiritual and sensitive to the spiritual world which we are always a part of.