Together....

Brendan's Skateboard on the TV Series Movie Set DEVS. Filmed at McHenry Library, UCSC Aug 2018

Sometimes I find random things like this 

in the stacks 

at McHenry Library & I think of you.

the me I was before you died....

The Art of Missing You

There Is No Easy Path Through Grief

Grief:
We do not move on
We move forward.

There is no easy path through Grief

Whoever Survives A Test, Whatever It May Be, Must Tell The Story. That Is His Duty

"Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must 

tell the story. That is his duty." 

Elie Wiesel

Lightening In A Bottle On A Skateboard: B. You Are Still My Co-Pilot

This statue is called "Emptiness" 

It is a great attempt at describing how a parent feels after losing a child.

Original artist : Albert György Bronze Statue located at Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Grief: What Everyone Should Know

If we give ourselves and others the space to grieve in whatever way they need to, 
without judgement,
We are not only honoring the eternal love that binds us (them) with those who have died,
We are also helping in the process of bringing meaning to the lives of our loved ones (or the loved ones of others)
and our (their) continued existence without them. 

by Tanya Villanueva Tepper 

see the following 15 minute presentation
Grief: What Everyone Should Know
________________

Grief must be shared
Not judged.

_________________

The Great Healer
of our Grief
Is Validation

Not Time

_________________

Grief is not a competition

_________________


Grief:
We do not move on
We move forward.

___________________

Grief,
like the ocean
never ends;
It shifts & changes
It ebbs & flows
& we never know
when we are going
to be hit with
another wave.

Found at Mermaid's Cove, Wilder Ranch August 25, 2018

Photos....

This Feeling Called Grief

by  Paul Brown

This heartache this sadness
this feeling of pain
to think I'll never hear your voice
or see your face again

The loneliness without you
is beyond belief
I can't come to terms with
this feeling called grief

It's so hard to describe just how I feel
without you beside me
time has only stood still

I sit for hours in your favourite chair
talk to your photo
wishing you were there

I touch your clothes & start to weep
I hug your pillow
& try to sleep

Life must go on
I suppose it's true
but a day doesn't pass
without thinking of you

To treasure your memory
I must carry on
but nothing else matters
now that you've gone. 

"Mythically, the center of one thing leads to the center of everything. Seen in this way, the illness of one person becomes the ailment through which all that ails a community can be addressed; the wound in one person can become the door through which everyone can find the center of life again. Thus, the afflicted one becomes the center of the community and the opportunity for everyone to commune with the origins of life. That is why people used to say that the afflicted are holy; they are one way through which holiness and healing keep trying to enter this world."

- Michael Meade, "Why the World Doesn't End"

Stardust...

“We are made of the same stardust of which all things are made, and when we are immersed in suffering or when we are experiencing intense joy we are being nothing other than what we can’t help but be: a part of our world.” 

― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

For you Brendan...

Feeling......
..................
Empty

You were one of a kind; an irreplaceable magical being

How I'm Feeling Today....I miss you Brendan....

You were one of a kind....an irreplaceable magical being

Trust Me As I Grieve

From the website: "What's Your Grief" Article in:

Trust Me As I Grieve 

 8/21/18

By Laura Abbruzzese

I recently passed the 14 month mark of losing the man that I love. I feel very strongly that I have done well and have made the best choices that I could during this time. I am proud of my resiliency. I have made a strong effort to live my life and stay positive. This essay is about the misunderstanding of grief by people who have not experienced this kind of significant loss, yet offer advice about moving on with life after death.


I know it is done with love and the desire to see me live out the rest of my life without this heavy burden of loss and tragedy. I already know that this burden will always be with me – nothing will ever change that. But I have to tell you something else. Something important.


Here it is: you cannot create a road map to a place you have never traveled. There is no road map for my journey and I am figuring it out as I go. All I ask is that the people in my life trust that I am doing everything I can to live my life and go forward without my favorite person.

If you have never experienced the sudden and tragic loss of someone you love, I am afraid it is not your place to tell me when it’s time to move on. A little more than a year after his death, being told by some of my dearest friends that it is time to stop grieving nearly destroyed me with anger and sadness. They asked, “When are you going to take his belongings out of the apartment?” They said, “Stop posting memories about him on social media!” They said other things like, “don’t let it define you”, “you are not getting any younger”, and “maybe it’s time to stop being sad”. Okay, point taken. However, one thing I have learned through trial and error is that

it is not possible to just stop the grieving process. 

Still, as a favor to my friends, I can continue to travel this road alone inside my head where you cannot see it or feel the discomfort it may bring. I understand how you may not be ready to appreciate the window of experience I am offering you.


I guess you are right, not everyone needs to know how much it sucked last weekend to go through the closet and put his most worn clothing into a plastic bag for donation. And I still have more closets and storage spaces to go though. I cried for every shirt and every pair of jeans I folded and placed into a bag. I smelled each shirt to see if it still had his scent. I found one that had a faint scent of his cologne. I kept that shirt along with all my favorites and put them in a storage bag to keep. I labored over which ones to keep and which ones to donate. 

But point taken, I will no longer share this kind of experience publically so as to make anyone else uncomfortable.


I do have to mention that if you have gone through a divorce or loss of a relationship, please do not compare that loss to the death of a partner. It is not the same. You still have the luxury of being angry with an ex-spouse or partner. You have the luxury of ignoring emails or even finding them and yelling in their face or slapping them across it if you want, because they are still alive.

It is different. It is painful and awful. I have been though that kind of loss too. I have the experience to tell you that it is not the same. As much as I would like you to recognize this, I would never wish my kind of pain on someone that I love. So, I am also happy that you cannot understand.


I also want to tell you that you are only judging my place in grief by what you see on the outside. You see that I am holding on to the most precious pieces that I have left of him – his clothes, his books, his writings and artwork, his golf clubs, his pictures and my memories. These things do not hurt me or make me sad. They comfort me and make me feel safe and connected to him.


You do not know what transformations have taken place for me on the inside. You do not see how resilient I am and how well I have done. For every negative or sad thought I have, I combat it with a positive mantra. I have developed a great deal more understanding and empathy for others. I run almost every day and use that time to shift my thinking to peace and acceptance.


I am making plans for the future and he is coming with me. He will always be part of me.


I miss him and so I will cherish all my memories and possessions that remind me of him and our life together. It does not mean that I am not moving forward. He was the biggest part of my life and I am not going to suppress that. Suppressing only makes it ooze out in negative ways. No, I am going to carry it forward with me. Maybe I am sad some of the time, but I am also able to be happy. Let me figure this one out on my own.


Let me be sad if I need to be sad. Let me keep his things for as long as I need to keep them. This is not something that needs to be rushed. It will evolve in the way it needs to evolve. Trust that I am doing what is right for me.






By Laura Abbruzzese is a native of Chicago, IL. Laura lost her partner, Jeff Metz, suddenly at the age of 48

For My Co-pilot & Adventures in the Honda

Love Song

Klimt Eastwood

Knowing how much you loved Clint Eastwood, 

I knew you would adore this piece of artwork. 

I Miss You My Adorable Sweetheart Cutie

I Miss You My Adorable Sweetheart Cutie

I just wanted you to know that.............

Our Song....

Brendan loved David Bowie. I used to play Bowie in the car for him all of the time. I never told him this, but I considered "Heroes" Our Song.


David Bowie

Heroes

I
I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing will
Drive them away
We can beat them
Just for one day
We can be Heroes
Just for one day

And you
You can be mean
And I
I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers
And that is a fact
Yes we're lovers
And that is that

Though nothing
Will keep us together
We could steal time
Just for one day
We can be Heroes
For ever and ever
What d'you say

I
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
Like dolphins can swim
Though nothing
Will keep us together
We can beat them
For ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes
Just for one day

I
I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be us
Just for one day

I
I can remember
Standing
By the wall
And the guns
Shot above our heads
And we kissed
As though nothing could fall
And the shame
Was on the other side
Oh we can beat them
For ever and ever
Then we can be Heroes
Just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be Heroes
We're nothing
And nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying
Then you better not stay
But we could be safer
Just for one day

Rainer Maria Rilke on Partnership

Brendan, if we had ever gotten married, this is how it would have been for us......

We were already "being" like this together. I think that's why it was the best of harmonious relationships. I love you always and forever my sweetheart cutie. I miss you to the depths of my soul and beyond.


“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.” 

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Meeting Loved Ones After Death

To meet your loved ones isn’t just to meet the embodied form you knew them to be; it is to meet their wider self. And, just as the wider reality will feel like home to you, so too will the wider selves of your loved ones be completely familiar to you (in an extremely comforting way). In fact, you will feel closer to them than was ever possible within human life.

Do Not Fear Death — It Feels Like Waking From A Dream To Die Is To Awaken In The Reality Of Your Wider Self.

Death Experience: A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Death Experience

A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

We know nothing of this going away, that
so excludes us. We have no grounds

for showing Death wonderment and love

or hate, since it wears a fantastic mask

of tragic lament that astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please us.

But when you left, a streak of reality broke
upon the stage through the very opening
where you vanished: Green, real green,
real sunshine, real forest.

We go on acting. Picking up gestures
now and then, and anxiously reciting
that which was difficult to learn; 

but you're far away,
removed out of our performance,

it sometimes overcomes us, like 

a knowledge of reality settling in. ,
so that for a while we only play at Life,
not thinking of any applause.


Rainer Maria Rilke

First Stanza of the Poem

Parting:

How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',
and feel it still: a dark, invincible,
cruel something by which what was joined so well
is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.

You Are Made of Time, Which Never Ceases

Brendan, Corinne, Aunt Amy & Uncle Julio

A Favorite Short Video of Brendan by Jason Miller

I think this is my very Favorite Short Video of Brendan filmed by Jason Miller. It looks like it was filmed quite a few years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/milla.time.31/videos/1810806855616307/?t=6


Another sweet one that Brendan sent to his Aunt Amy on February 14, 2013

https://www.facebook.com/brendan.l.leung/videos/4193923457989/UzpfSTY4ODc2MDI5ODoxMDE1Nzc1ODgyODYzMDI5OQ/


Another Jason Miller Clip of Brendan:
https://www.facebook.com/brendan.l.leung/videos/10210318430028753/

Love Song With No End

Love Song With No End...The 6th Month Mark…The Eternal Void

Dedicated to Brendan Lai-Wing Leung

All the senses engaged. All the senses miss you.

I describe your ‘beingness’ as akin to a variety of spices from every culture on the earth….. Flavors, aromas, in a myriad of combinations, that no one has thought to put together before, that’s you!

Your black hair, slight curl, streak of whitish grey, as if just the faintest trace of star dust gathered in 12 strands of your hair.
Full lips, where did you get them? Somehow they don’t go with your fine features and yet they do……

One day you’re boyish, the next day you’re an old man.
One day your solemnly contemplative another your exuberant embracing your friends,
Skateboard: riding high on the wind….determined, angry, determined, angry...which is it? I can’t tell.
Oh that’s right, depending on which way the rays of the sun reflect off your face.


Mind drifting….but where? Your thoughts?
I think I know but I can’t follow them;
because you’re already somewhere deep. Somewhere…
Your soul talking to you in another language that you’re trying to understand.

You’re out of step with the world; in your own dimension….
and none of us knows where that dimension lies.
We sense it though, it’s a mystery that draws us to you,
yet so unfamiliar are we that our own thoughts can’t touch it.

Our own thought waves can’t meet yours,
Our souls understand one another but there are no words;
no human words for that place where we could talk if we had them.
But we don’t have them….

How then shall we communicate. How shall we communicate?
Connecting stars, thought waves….
weightlessness, and gravity;
weightlessness, then gravity….


___________________________________________________________________________



You’re maneuvering with edgy skills,
contemplating,
absorbed, 

free thinking,
independent mind.
In your world, no one else's.

There is no time... no time, 

just freedom and forever.
Freedom and forever….

Baggy pants, cinched at the waist. Belt buckled at the tightest setting.
Shirtless in the universe
You’re forever, forever, forever…

It is normal to have regrets when a loved one dies. Things that we wish we would have said or done. I already knew this. Everyday I ask myself, "What do I wish I had done or not done for or with Brendan?"  I had been planning to ask him to watch this video for months and months before his death. He and I loved British TV.  I figured that because Alan de Botton has such a charming British voice, that Brendan actually might sit for 3 minutes and watch this.

Early on in our relationship Brendan said, "I don't know WHAT you SEE in ME?"  I've written plenty about my love for Brendan. I wonder what he would think of this short video.....If he is indeed present in my life and can still "visit" our world, then I would hope that he would be watching this over my shoulder......

Link to the short Video I Was Planning To Have Brendan Watch......

The Transcript......by Alain de BottonOstensibly we all want love. But oddly, one of the hardest things to do is not
hold it against people when they do actually turn around and reciprocate our feelings.
It can be immensely hard not to think that those who offer us love are in some ways weak, mistaken, needy, craven or just defective. 
It can feel a lot easier when love was unrequited and our primary preoccupation was a thrilling dread that the admired person hadn't even noticed us. 
But now there's finally no doubt anymore, it's really clear they do like us, and something troubling has arisen.  We're feeling a bit sick, we're tempted to say we got them wrong. They can't be the admirable people we thought they were.  But the issue isn't really to do with them at all. It lies somewhere else entirely in our relationship with ourselves.
Their affection seems suspicious, incomprehensible and a touch repulsive, because at some level this isn't what we're used to.
It doesn't tally with our view of ourselves. Love can be hard to receive when we're not fundamentally convinced of our own love ability. We spend our time seeking out those who can make us suffer in ways that feel familiar.
It becomes natural to assume that a kind lover has missed something. Perhaps then to try to behave in disgusting ways just to make sure they understand we're really not who they thought we were. 
In short, how could anyone be so great if they have the bad taste to think well ofsomeone like us?  
But we have to allow ourselves to entertain another option. Perhaps this affection we're receiving is not a sign that our kind lover is weak, or wrong, or has no other options. 
Perhaps it's a sign that they've seen something in US which poignantly and tragically we don't yet quite see in ourselves;  and have never been allowed to believe in by figures in our past. 
That we are deserving of love.  
There is hope in all this.  Hope that we can come to trust our lovers more than we trust our own first nervous self-destructive impulses.
We can interpret their love not as a sign of their delusion or weakness, but as evidence of an inherent lovability in ourselves, to which our past histories have blinded us; yet to which their love and tenderness can now awaken us.  
We don't, invariably, have to hold it against others when they see some point in us.

When I mailed the Skateboard Heart (that Scotty made) to your sister on Saturday (August 4th) the UPS store told me that there was no way it would make it to her address by her birthday, August 7th. They said that just maybe it would get there on Wednesday Aug 8th, but most likely Thursday, Aug 9th. You can imagine my amazement when the gift arrived at your sister's home on Monday Aug 6th.

Tuesday, August 7th was 6 months since you've been gone.  I cried on and off all day. I had to constantly hide somewhere at work so I could cry.   Wednesday 8/8/18,  was the same horrendously painful day for me. I took a walk at lunch, put my sunglasses on so I could cry, and roamed the campus near the art center. I was trying to look for a "new" subject for my lunch time nature photos. I saw this log along the trail next to the cow pasture. I always think it has such character. I've walked by it dozens of times before. I decided to walk up closer to get a better photo and noticed the "Brendan" green color. I could see that it was a pretty weathered ribbon. It occurred to me that the green ribbon symbol must represent a "cause".  I took the photos seen here and decided to check on the meaning of the ribbon when I got back to my office. You can imagine my amazement when I saw some of the symbols the green ribbon stands for. 

Brendan's Dragon.....

I found this book just the other day, randomly placed down on an end shelf far away from it's correct call number placement.  It's books like these that make me feel like you speak to me. Leaving clues here and there so I know you're still around. 

Your mum posted this on FB today saying, "Sounds like our boy."  I couldn't agree more B. This describes you so accurately. 

I Don't Need You To Fix Me,
I Just Need You To Love Me 

While I Fix Myself

Brendan's Motto

It is 6 months since you left us. 

It is still as painful 

as it was when it first happened. 

Desperately missing you!

I'll love you forever & never forget you 

Brendan Lai-Wing Leung.

Permission to Mourn