mind and soul full of grief.
No one can take your place in existence,
or in absence.”
― Rumi,
You Left Ground & Sky Weeping.....
mind and soul full of grief.
No one can take your place in existence,
or in absence.”
― Rumi,
Dana & Mary Ann Cushing's Fairyland Property: Brendan's Ashes
Corinne & Al took me to meet Dana & Mary Ann Cushing and walk around their property, knocking on fairy doors and looking at Cairns.
I am just saying it never really goes away..................
― Michael Lee West
Remembering Brendan's Valentine's Gift 2019
I wrote the following in response to questions on a Grief Group's FB page today.
and
I told the story to a woman who works at UCSC while we were walking to work super early this morning. She both cried and laughed at the same time and told me she had goosebumps all over her body. I was so happy to give her such a great Valentine's Day story.
Last year 2019, was my first Valentine's day without Brendan. It was the week before Valentine's Day and I had already made Brendan one of my traditional pop-up cards and bought him some gifts. Last year at this time my heart ached terribly, yet something magical happened. I came into the library an hour before opening because I was supposed to open that day. I spotted a Fresh Rose in the Lost & Found. At first, I took a double-take. I went over to the rose expecting it to be a fake, plastic replica. But it turned out to be real and very beautiful. I put it in water and set it on the circulation desk counter. It bloomed slowly over the following week and became more and more beautiful. Brendan's mom said, "See Brendan hasn't forgotten Valentine's Day." My friends and colleagues agreed. I still make Brendan Valentine's Cards, Birthday Cards, etc etc. He's become my muse.
and
I told the story to a woman who works at UCSC while we were walking to work super early this morning. She both cried and laughed at the same time and told me she had goosebumps all over her body. I was so happy to give her such a great Valentine's Day story.
Last year 2019, was my first Valentine's day without Brendan. It was the week before Valentine's Day and I had already made Brendan one of my traditional pop-up cards and bought him some gifts. Last year at this time my heart ached terribly, yet something magical happened. I came into the library an hour before opening because I was supposed to open that day. I spotted a Fresh Rose in the Lost & Found. At first, I took a double-take. I went over to the rose expecting it to be a fake, plastic replica. But it turned out to be real and very beautiful. I put it in water and set it on the circulation desk counter. It bloomed slowly over the following week and became more and more beautiful. Brendan's mom said, "See Brendan hasn't forgotten Valentine's Day." My friends and colleagues agreed. I still make Brendan Valentine's Cards, Birthday Cards, etc etc. He's become my muse.
Grief...does it pass or do you just get used to it?
“The path back to normal life is indescribably long once death has swept the feet out from under those of us who are left. Grief is a wild animal that drags us so far out into the darkness that we can’t imagine ever getting home again. Ever laughing again. It hurts in such a way that you can never really figure out if it actually passes or if you just get used to it.”
― Fredrik Backman
He would continue to exist within her.......
From:
‘Last Stop Auschwitz’ by Eddy de Wind
This is how I feel about Brendan...(switching pronouns)
“…He had her image still before his eyes. That vision would always stay with him,” wrote de Wind. “She would continue to exist within him, she would not have lived for nothing and her soul would live through him, although her body rests there in those hazy blue mountains.”
Dialogue between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester
Months after Jane Eyre has been working as a governess for Edward Rochester's daughter he expresses his true feelings during one evening in the garden:
Edward:
"Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. .....Especially when you're near me as you are now. ....It feels as though I had a string....tied here under my left rib where my heart is....tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go to Ireland, with all the distance between us. I'm afraid that this cord will be snapped, And I shall bleed inwardly."
______________________________________________
This confession to Jane is similar to my own feelings for Brendan. I can say that the situation proves true. The difference was that I felt not so much that our hearts were tied together but that we were one being. That he was already a part of me. I knew that he didn't know that I was a part of him. That would have taken a very long time for him to realize. He had started to understand it only several weeks before he was killed.
He has never left me. He is always just under my skin so to speak. Not in the negative way that the phrase "under my skin" is used. Instead, It is the feeling of love and yearning and oneness I have with him. He is a part of me and I hope he always will be. When I die I so much hope I will meet him again. I believe he knows my thoughts and so he knows how much I love him.
____________________________________________________________________
At the very end of the movie, after Jane and Edward are separated for many months, Jane goes back to Edward. However, he has been temporarily blinded. He can't see her when she walks into his room but he senses someone different yet familiar.
Edward: "My brain will burst.......What illusion is this? What sweet madness?" (he touches her hands and fingers) "Her fingers, her very fingers....So many times I've dreamed of the moment. The dream vanishes and flies away. Gentle dream, kiss me before you go. "
Jane kisses him, she kneels before him.
Edward: "You will stay with me? How?"
Jane: "I will be your friend, your nurse, your companion....You will not be left alone for so long as I shall live."
Edward: "I'm no better than a ruined tree. I'm lightning-struck and decayed."
Jane: "You are no ruin, sir. You are vigorous and full of life. Plants will grow and wind around you because your strength offers them so safe a hold."
January 18, 2020 Brendan's Birthday
My FB Posts Today:
I put Brendan’s electric green bowling shirt on, and drove to the Derby Skate Park while listening to his favorite Bowie soundtrack, to visit Brendan's skateboard bench. It’s being used EXACTLY in the way he would have wanted it to be used! Wallets, keys, smokes, beer, MJ, even a green lighter! I introduced myself to the boys. I asked them if I could take a few pics because today would have been B’s 44th b-day. The guys wanted to “clean all the stuff off of it first.” NO, no, no!” I said, “this is what Brendan would have been doing on a bench like this.” They replied, “We sit on this bench every single day.” They were truly the sweetest young men!
__________________________________________________________________________________
Hello friends. Brendan would have been 44 years old tomorrow, Jan 18th. He'd probably be celebrating with his good friend Vinnie Chiarpotti (whose birthday is today). He would most likely go skateboarding, bowling and playing darts while drinking his traditional Coors beer and slowly sipping shots of whiskey. (He thought it sacrilegious to 'throw-back' a shot.) Have a toast to him this weekend. I'm not a drinker so instead I will visit his Memorial Skate Bench. I'll make his favorite food, buy his favorite TJ snacks and listen to his favorite David Bowie Soundtrack. Here are the lyrics that I think describe Brendan the best, appropriately titled: 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'.By Pink Floyd.
Perhaps This Is The Way My Life Will End
PERHAPS THIS IS THE WAY MY LIFE WILL END
by Stuart Kestenbaum
I will find myself
walking down a hidden lane.
The spring rain
will have just ended
and I will smell the fertile earth.
I have never been
this present before.
My bones know
that I am home.
My teeth unclench.
Once I stared at a crystal bowl
dividing the light into
the unseen colors of the world.
Something is soaring
inside me or outside of me.
I can't tell which.
by Stuart Kestenbaum
I will find myself
walking down a hidden lane.
The spring rain
will have just ended
and I will smell the fertile earth.
I have never been
this present before.
My bones know
that I am home.
My teeth unclench.
Once I stared at a crystal bowl
dividing the light into
the unseen colors of the world.
Something is soaring
inside me or outside of me.
I can't tell which.
Letter from the Donor Recipient and My thoughts about Brendan's Bench
Brendan’s family received the first letter from one of the donor recipients this past weekend. A 59 year old woman who wrote to B’s family about the incredible gratitude she feels for getting a second chance at life. She is married, has children and grandchildren so her family is so very grateful. It was a beautiful letter! Yet a searingly painful letter to me. I’ve never felt both gratitude & agony at the same time. While I feel happy for the woman and her family and loved ones, I feel agony for Brendan’s family and friends, and I feel agony for Brendan’s mum who was the one and only hero in his life. I think of all the people whose lives are affected in a joyful way. Not only receiving Brendan’s organ donations but the trickle down effect it has on all the recipient's loved ones too! And everyone in each recipient’s life going forward! We will never truly know the lives that Brendan affected because of the anonymity of the Organ Donation Process.
I know from a distance people naturally think: “how beautiful! At least you can feel good that he lives on in others.” Doesn’t that sound rational? I know it does. However, when you’re up close to the grief and loss it doesn’t feel so good. Corinne wants her ‘baby boy’ back and we all want our dear friend and Love back. But death is a part of life and there it is; as simple as that. It sucks and we wish it weren’t true. And it comes as a shock because our western culture doesn’t like old age and death….But that’s a whole different story.
Corinne and I talked for a long time yesterday. I told her that I am still so devastated and yet I am fully aware that my pain and B’s friend’s pain, can never come close to hers and B’s family. How could it? In terms of the length of time being in Brendan’s life, my devastation doesn’t make sense. Corinne’s response touched my heart, she said “This just shows that it’s not the time but the intensity that made your love so strong.”
You’ve probably all heard the saying, “Grief is just love with no place to go.” That’s what has given me the determination to honor Brendan by jumping the hurdles we had to, in order to get this beautiful skateboard bench, this work of art, this manifestation of love that Payson had for Brendan. This love for Brendan has been contagious. People who have never met Brendan, yet meet us and see our love in action, can’t help but love Brendan for bringing out this love and inspiration. For me the past year, working on getting approval of the bench sculpture, has been confusing, thrilling, agonizingly slow, an amazing creative outlet, disappointing at times, scary as hell a lot of the time. l was indecisive, I ruminated endlessly, woke up quite a few nights with “great” ideas, only to realize, “No Wendy, that is not a great idea.” And in between all these actions I regularly dipped into the pit of grief and then rose up into that feeling of excitement and joy, and then back down into the pit of despair. You get the idea.
I met the best people in my life these past 18 months since Brendan died. Who would have thought a bunch of skaters, and lovers of skateboarders would change my life the way it has? Who would have thought a gathering of Brendan’s south shore childhood friends would teach me so much about life and love?? I watched as Payson McNett worked tirelessly on the bench. Love can be so creative can’t it? The memory of my visit to Payson and being taken to the back of the shop to the “concrete graveyard” where two replicas of Brendan’s bench sat. Payson explained, “These are the two benches I had made. I put them through the endurance test and they both failed but this 3rd one! This 3rd bench has passed the test!” Of course I’m paraphrasing Payson. He may not have said those exact words but that’s what I heard. That’s the dedication of love and friendship that Payson took within himself and placed into a jumble of concrete, aluminum and steel, and transformed into an alchemy of art!!
Just when you think a majority of humanity is pretty disappointing and you’re daily fed the horror and hopelessness of 24 hour “news” through social media; meeting “real” people who love and care as much as you do gives one hope and meaning in today’s troubled and hopeless world.
Please come out and honor Brendan September 7th. Come by and meet Brendan’s folks Al & Corinne Leung. They are the most amazing people I have ever met! Friends that have had the honor to meet and know them all agree.
Come by and meet Payson McNett and see his work of art. He will inspire you, you will have hope for humanity when you meet him. Meet my right-hand man: Kristof Tigyi, (Stem Cell Biologist & Lab Manager Haussler Lab At UCSC.) The co-author of the Proposal which we presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission, then on to the Santa Cruz City Council. And come meet the many others that have helped make this vision a reality.
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