Loving & Losing Brendan: A Very Public Grief

Dream 2/12/19

I'm in the McHenry library and it looks like a military base. I get word that Brendan was in a serious car accident and is permanently injured. It sounds like he has many broken bones and may not be able to move again. But in the dream he is alive. I keep calling him on his cell phone but he never answers. I keep texting him. I know he is very far away. I keep calling the "hospital" where they say he is staying, but I'm not allowed to talk to him. Throughout the dream I keep thinking of him, trying to visualize his injuries and what he may need and I want to go to him but I can't. His folks talk to me about Brendan moving in with me because he will not have any place to go when he comes out of the hospital. He will be too handicapped to take care of himself.

Dreams of Attempted Phone Calls to Brendan

I keep having dreams of Brendan the past couple of nights. In the dream I find myself driving from Mission Dr towards Davenport, Hwy 1.

I realize he hasn't called me in months. I keep forgetting he's dead. I keep forgetting his phone number..... has to be dialed differently and on a different phone. I even use voice to text asking my phone to call Brendan. I get this sense that he is in school (college) pretty far away. He's very busy.

The phone that I use is old, damaged, the keys don't work properly. It looks broken. I get the sense that I have been trying to call him on and off for quite awhile.

Brendan visits tonight

Feb 9,
1 year since I've seen Brendan and also the last time I saw him.

Today I felt B around me a lot. I was starting to doze off and I felt him approach me on the left. He touched my hair, leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I said out loud...."Brendan, I miss you, I love you; I miss you, I love you; I miss you, I love you................" and on and on for 5 or so minutes.

As soon as I wrote this and clicked 'Publish' my bedroom door closed by itself.

Grief Is Love's Unwillingness To Give Up

"Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up.

It's creating a space where you can love someone in their eternal absence."

What is grief in relation to love?

From the website: 'What's Your Grief?'

What is grief in relation to love?

Quite often I think they’re the same thing.

When people think of love they often think of hearts, romance, and warm-fuzzies, but love is far more complicated.

Love is positive and amazing, yes, but it can also cause the worst kind of pain.

Perhaps the most painful kind of love is called grief, which happens when the object of a person’s love is taken away with no hope for return.

Grief is love.

Grief is love and the confusion caused by not knowing how to love someone who is gone. Grief is love’s frustration, bitterness, anger, and resentment at death’s destruction.

Grief is love realizing, if it wants to thrive, it has to be creative and find new ways to connect and be fulfilled.

Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up. It’s stretching bonds and redefining limits in order to create a space where you can love someone in their eternal absence.

I know you may not believe me, because right now grief seems like a nightmare. I’ll admit that some days I don’t believe myself, but then one of our readers says something tender or shares a loving memory or does something supportive for a fellow reader and I’m reminded that underneath it all, grief is love.

Some of you reading this may be feeling alienated, isolated, sad, and alone. We want to remind you, though, that underneath the stress, frustration, anger, disappointment, despair, guilt, loneliness, and sorrow – quite often there is love.

1 Year Later----Remember Brendan Lai-Wing Leung

Sequence of Events from the date of the accident to the date of our final goodbyes to Brendan Lai-Wing Leung. 1 Year ago.

Monday, Feb 5, 2018 at 7:01 PM. The accident. B is airlifted to Santa Clara Community Hospital. The dreaded phone call. Racing to the hospital. At 10:00pm, Neurosurgeon tells us B won’t survive his injuries. Brendan is on life support. B’s Uncle and I stay with him overnight in the hospital.

Tuesday, Feb 6, 2018. The morning after the accident. Brendan is on life support. B’s family (Corinne, Al, Bridget) arrive from Massachusetts. Doctors/Surgeons confirm that Brendan will not survive his injuries. They give us updates throughout the day. We all gather around Brendan; spending the day talking to him, holding his hands, taking photos of his tattoos, giving him our love and reading messages from B’s friends and family around the country & parts of the world.

Wed. Feb 7, 2018 We continue to gather around Brendan. Friends begin to visit to say goodbye. Doctors inform us that Brendan is declared dead 11:05am

Thurs. Feb 8, 2018 We continue to sit with Brendan as organ donor organizations make plans with Brendan's family.

Friday, Feb 9, 2018 We know it’s our final day with Brendan. Donor recipients are confirmed. At 5:00pm it’s time to officially say our final excruciating goodbyes to B. My last memory of Brendan~~~Bandages finally removed and Looking like a sleeping Prince.

Within the next 24 hours Brendan saves the lives of 3 Northern California Women with his organs and countless future others.

One Year That You've Been Gone?

How Is It Possible
that I can still miss you so much Brendan?
It's already been a year.
And yet it doesn't feel like more than a few weeks.
It doesn't feel like you are even gone.
It's as if you are somewhere around, not very far away at all.

It's as if in just a day or two I'll be seeing you again.
When you were still here on earth I longed to see you
when we were apart even for a day.
Our usual Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays nights and briefly Sunday afternoons.

And now that I look at the calendar and the calendar says that you left us at just about a year,
I realize,
You haven't been gone a year....
You haven't been gone from my life a year...
I live you every single day.
I must be visiting you during my sleep.
You must be in the dreams that I can't remember when I'm awake.

I only realize it When I think about you being gone one year
You are not gone from me
Am I gone for you?
I hope I am fully in your life still Brendan
I can't "measure" where "you" are anymore.
So I'm trying to learn how to measure where you are, using different tools

I'm getting clues, I'm researching, studying in order to find out where you are staying while I'm on the earth plane waiting to join you---- where I hope you---are waiting for me

Wait for me Brendan,
wait for me, please wait for me!
Please continue to visit me during my dreams and in your dreams.
Let's not forget each other.
Please don't forget about me.
I won't forget about you.

I Will Love You Until The Moment I Pass From This Existence

A Perfect Description Of Brendan Lai-Wing Leung

All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, In harmony. Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross There is no loss

The Wall
by Kansas

I'm woven in a fantasy,
I can't believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost

It rises now before me,
A dark and silent barrier between,
All I am, and all that I would ever want to be
It's just a travesty,
Towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit would erase

To pass beyond is what I seek,
I fear that I may be too weak
And those are few who've seen it through to glimpse the other side,
The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride

The moment is a masterpiece,
The weight of indecision's in the air
Standing there,
The symbol and the sum of all that's me
It's just a travesty,
Towering, blocking out the light and blinding me
I want to see

Gold and diamonds cast a spell,
It's not for me, I know it well
The riches that I seek are waiting on the other side
There's more than I can measure in the treasures of the love that I can find

And though it's always been with me,
I must tear down the wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be,
In harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss

"I Had My Own Notion Of Grief" by Gwen Flowers

You Cannot See Through, You Will Not See Me, So You Must Have Faith

ASCENSION

And if I go,
while you're still here...
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
--both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
...I will be there.

"Ascension"
Copyright ©1987, Colleen Corah Hitchcock

Payson's Tribute Skateboard Bench For Derby Park: Construction Process

Big Sur/Santa Lucia Mountains: New Camaldoli Hermitage---Prayers for Brendan & Sending Some Ashes in the Wind

New Camaldoli Hermitage is a rural Camaldolese Benedictine hermitage in the Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur, California, in the United States.

from Thich Nhat Hahn About His Mother's Death

“The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear