I was walking around Green Lake this evening after work and was passed by two young guys in their late teens or early 20s. One was carrying a tall can of beer openly.
I flashed on a time with Joe on the beach years ago, I don’t know where. But we had these wrappers you could put around a beer that said “Coco Colo” with a pretty good imitation of the typical Coke can. That way we could openly drink beer on the public beach.
When we’d had too much and likely needed to pee, it was easier to just step into the waves for a bit and then body surf a few waves before settling back on the shore. It was a dizzying experience, more so than the usual washing machine experience of waves.
This little blip of memory and more like it are so bittersweet. I’d love to call Joe up and say, “Remember that time we….” then a long sigh as I walk on an otherwise lovely late summer day in Seattle.
Checking my calendar from last year, it was 9/12 that we set his ashes free in a river near Annapolis followed by some flowers.
Recently, Beth and I rented a movie to watch and another the next day and damned if each didn’t have a suicide in it. I had to jokingly say, “Ok, no more movies with suicide in them this weekend, ok?” A year ago I would have had to go for a long dark walk.
And still, I miss my brother so damn much. True, many of the treasured memories were when we were much younger and the darkness of mental illness hadn’t taken him over. But even with the way he’d become those last few years, I’d treasure another evening on the phone or better yet, sitting up late at night with my newly earned but too late wisdom to say, “Seriously, tell me how it really is for you Joe.”