Grief

My friend L is embarking on the unenviable task of clearing out her late father's estate and getting his house ready to sell. I remember this unpleasant task well, as my brother and I did it six years ago when our younger brother died unexpectedly.

With Arnie's death, I joined a cohort of friends who have a sibling who died tragically young from a freak boating accident, a drunk driver, a suicide or the Viet Nam war. What strikes me is how raw and exposed our grief is, no matter how much time has passed or how distant or close we were to our brother or sister.

K's older brother died in 1967 in Viet Nam and although we met in our 20s and she is now in her 60s, that horrible occurrence seems to simmer just below the surface, occasionally boiling over when the topic turns to history or politics. 

The weekend when I found out about Arnie plays in a constant loop in my head, like a film that unspools in real time. "I have so many questions, all unanswerable," I say to L when she asks me about Arnie. She, like many of my old friends, remembers him as a 10- or 12-year-old, a kid compared to me, almost twelve years older. Arnie and I didn't grow up together, our paths merely intersected occasionally. But that doesn't make it any easier.

I am currently reading Calypso by David Sedaris. He mentioned his sister Tiffany a lot in his previous books: she took her own life in 2013 leaving five grieving siblings. He addresses family, death and grief in this book with his usual misanthropy and drollery. It is cathartic to read. Sedaris is so erudite and clever that my own conflicted feelings are mirrored back to me brilliantly.

What seems clear is this. The agony of loss never goes away. I remember at Arnie's funeral thinking, "at every future family gathering as I long as I will live, we will acknowledge him." We knew and loved our brother and during my lifetime that fact will be ever-present, a prism through which I will always look at the world.