Family Matters

On Friday February 14, 2003 at 2:30 AM my dying brother's daughter called my brother Mike to tell him that our brother Jim was in the hospital and that he wasn't expected to live much longer. I don't know if my nieces asked Mike to call me but I don't hold them responsible nor do I blame Jan. I do know that Mike was with Jim for several hours because Mike told me this and he went on to say that Jim was able to communicate quite lucidly at times. So we have fourteen hours before Jim died where Mike could have phoned me and he didn't. Actually, Mike wasn't with Jim when he died at 5:00 PM because Mike had to lah_dee_dah his way home to take a shower without a thought about calling me while on his way home. Mike clearly made the decision that I didn't need to know that my brother was in the process of dying, and he must have felt that I didn't need to be with Jim. I can only assume that Mike's decision came from his cold heart and because of his negative feelings about me he probably believed that Jim had no need or desire to be with his sister as he was exiting earth.

Following the news that Jim had died I was left with the feeling that my feelings were again deleted, if they ever did exist in Mike's mind & heart. I believe that this wasn't an oversight and that this isn't about a brother who was too distraught to think about picking up his cell phone to make a call to his sister. No, this has been going on for a very long time. My best friend told me that Jim knew how I felt but I don't know what Jim knew and I will never know what Jim was thinking when he was dying, what thoughts were going through his mind as to why I wasn't there because I WAS NOT GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE WITH OUR DYING BROTHER!

Meanwhile I received phone calls from 'family' telling me what I should and shouldn't feel about Mike not calling me. I had spent months working on growing, making healthy choices and changes and again many of my sick family members came back into my life bringing with them their poisonous dysfunction. I didn't attend Jim's funeral...why would I want to be with people who have no respect for me, those who see me as having the problem? Ah but they're all healthy, they have no issues because in their minds I have them all.

Sunday morning I was in despair and when I attempted to write about this in my journal I looked at the empty space and it all seemed futile to me, I had no words to express what I felt at that moment. I went upstairs fell on my bed and I sobbed for hours. I felt a deep primal despair, an intense pain and aloneness. And I felt to my core the reality that there would never be a family for me and there never was a family for me. Any illusions I had of ever having a family are gone and I know that I needed to look at the truth -- although I knew the truth but never to such an extent. So my endless longing in my heart for the family I never had and never will, is gone forever. Good for me!

Family History

Excerpt from Photo Synthesis
(written 2000)

Another funeral. My family will reunite and this is how we have family reunions in our family. Most of us would only be caught dead in the same room together and this is when one of us has died. We are estranged; looking at us you'll see the negatives of photographs. Brothers, Ken, Jim, Mike. Mike is the youngest. Mike doesn't like me because I'm too sensitive & he thinks I'm crazy. I won't talk with my oldest brother Ken an addict who steals money from his mother. Jim the second oldest doesn't want me in his life, from Jim you won’t get much empathy. Mike won’t talk to Ken and Ken won’t talk with Jim. We will gather to pay tribute to Danny. My mother will be there, her heart broken when she sees how estranged her children are. She seldom sees her role in this and when she does see her role she cries out her shame "I was a bad mother, a bad mother I blame myself for this."

ADDENDUM: While attending Danny's funeral an amazing thing occurred. Jim and I had a heart to heart talk and as a result we both agreed to let go of our resentments & misunderstandings and I believe that we forgave each other.

A few years later Jim called me from the hospital and told me that he was dying and had less than three months to live. When Jim was discharged from the hospital I went to see him in his home. We had a good visit, teased each other about little things we did when we were children. I asked Jim what kind of music he liked... he told me what Cd he really wanted and I bought the Cd by his favorite musician & brought it to him. A few days later Jim called me but wasn't home so he left a message on my voice mail thanking me for the Cd. He said that he loved listening to it, snd he left me these beautiful words. Sister I love you a bunch...I love you with all my heart and thank you again for the Cd. I'll talk with you later, goodbye. I could hear Jim crying when he was hanging up the phone... This was the first time Jim had ever told me that he loved me.

It's true that I had many problems and so did Mike but he didn't act out in the way I did and he cannot see that much of what I did came from the same reasons his problems came from. We were both abandoned; I was sent away and Mike was left with whoever mom could leave him with. I always had this deep sadness for what was done to Mike but then he always saw my being sent away as being my fault. He didn't see that mom and Russ had no room in their lives for children, he didn't see that my chronic truancy was the result of deep emotional trauma. His memories: I was a bad girl & he was a good boy. And in our adult lives everytime we have had an argument he's thrown the *crazy card* at me. Ironic... Mike once told me that one of his favorite movies was "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." But there's yet another problem... Mike is irony challenged.

Soupy Wisdom.

Many a mile I have traveled and I've met many a fork on the road. But not one spoon came to me while I sat on those dusty forked roads holding in my hands yet another bowl of bean soup. As I gazed into the bowl, a lonesome bean floated to the top and in that bean I saw my entire life as it flashed before my eyes. At last, I understood the meaning of everything.

It was in that slip of time when I realized (in retrospect) -I should have been eating chicken soup.




Carol Brown ©

Addicted to oil?

War wins the ratings race!

Peace was canceled in this time slot.


Spoil Sports

[Machine]

Tell-a-vision toss a dog
a bone. Stocks stack up
for wall street junkies,
white house flunkies the
good old boys got business
suit monkeys in their back
pockets.
Playing for the pot of
black gold.
Ante up the stakes meet
the dealer in the oval
office...
He's got slick up his
sleeve, Dick on his back
and the generals' stars
and stripes are tied to
schemes pending terrorism.
Speeches threaten the
American dream-
No constitution can't
stomach the truth can't
be recognized behind
the guise of conservative
lies.

Death is the price of the ticket, war is hell rings the liberty bell!

As the toll mounts.... it's the money they count.


Carol Brown ©

What we leave behind

From 2004-04-25

Miggie left here around 4:00 AM. Our sculpture is complete and it's beautiful but it's almost unbearable for me to look at.

When I was fifteen years old my IQ tested at 97.

I think that I'm going to cry...

It's like I'm looking through the eyes of someone who once lived and I'm seeing all that I've left behind. I'll try to explain it but I don't think that I can articulate just what it is that I'm feeling.

Remembering... at age 14 I was sitting on a bus bench waiting for my bus to arrive and I'm not sure why I looked up but when I did I saw an old man as he was being hurdled through the air. While crossing the intersection he was hit by a car and just before I looked up I remember having a sensation of what I would describe as a pause in time. And I remember that the background sounds were somewhat muted. Here I was just sitting on the bus bench, my mind wandering and suddenly I felt like I was picked up and hurdled through the air with the old man. In that air born moment I think it's possible that both our hearts ceased to beat. Perhaps this perception came from the 'time pause'...I don't know if the old man had any sort of awareness, if he was able to observe his accident as it was taking place. And if he was aware perhaps he had no awareness of an event which could have been his last life event.

And I wasn't aware at that time that I was possibly experiencing an observation of my own life experiences which had already taken place in my future. An accumulation of what hadn't occurred but I'm not talking about what's usually referred to as predestination or reincarnation. My observation was that everything which would occur in my life had been penciled in; Each day, every week, month after month, year after year to this very moment had already taken place.

After Miggie and I finished our sculpture we watched a movie. It wasn't an emotional movie but half way through the movie I experienced an immense amount of fear and sadness and I felt that I had to get out of the house. I went out to the porch and when looking through the windows I could see most of my sculptures but from the perspective of after my death and when seeing some of what I would be leaving behind I began to weep. It was a feeling of intense loss, of being completely alone.

I stayed in the porch until I felt that I could go back into the house and watch the movie without crying -- I didn't want to upset Miggie anymore than I already have because I think that he has the need to make it all better for me.

What I sensed was that something painful was going to happen to me but then I realized that many painful 'somethings' had already occurred. What took place this past month along with a lifetime of experiencing an immense amount of trauma, the pain of all that I lost had returned. I don't know if I'll ever be able to allow myself to trust people like I once did and without trust I don't know how my heart can heal.

This is about wanting to be remembered and the fear of being forgotten; It's about loss and the solitude that comes with it.


Link to mentioned sculpture here.

Dead Man Floating

Still playing with this one. I think that it has potential and along with some wonderful illustrations, who knows?

Rough and chilly draft

Blanco's Search

My short, short story is about a ghost named Blanco.

Floating in the haunts among his fellow Zen ghosts Blanco becomes aware of has low self esteem issues; Blanco feels alienated, alone, he knows that he's different. As he aimlessly searches for his repetitious mantra Blanco's dead peers mock his obvious learning disability. Poor Blanco cannot grasp the techniques of meditation, he's clearly lacking yin_yang in his din_dang. As Blanco desperately struggles to learn how to relax it becomes apparent that he's having difficulty in letting go of his life ghosts because at the very moment of his death Blanco was carrying a suitcase packed tight with life_trauma.

Blanco's frustration causes him to spend much of his time crying redundantly and this is how Blanco accidentally discovers his very own *mantra!

Blanco's Mantra:

*boo hoo
*boo hoo
*boo hoo
*boo hoo
*boo hoo
*boo hoo


Blanco's after-life story is one of those tragic kind of tragedies with a sappy ending. The reader easily bonds with Blanco while traveling with him on his long and lonely search. We find ourselves cheering for our beloved ghost as he triumphantly emerges with a face full of pride.

We see that Blanco has attained in his death what many of us are unable to attain in an entire lifetime... Self acceptance.

Carol Brown ©