Becoming Friends with Grief

It was a beautiful December morning: the sun shined brightly on my old Kentucky hometown. I sat in a row of chairs with my wife and family in front of a coffin, celebrating one last time a life gone too soon, and a family wrenched by grief. I remember my wife’s hands being cold, the sight of my oldest daughter and only son embracing one another and crying, and my sister valiantly at my mother’s side holding her hand and rubbing her back (my sister has a strength to her touch I simultaneously admire and envy). Our childhood pastor, whose voice alongside my father and UK Sports radio voice Tom Leach mark so many of my memories when I was younger, said a few short words as we committed this body to the ground and to God. We hugged one another, said goodbyes to those attending, and headed home. Despite the sense of hope I felt from the sun glistening off sets of flowers on the top of the casket, warm embraces from family, and a slew of friends and extended family around us, I had never felt more alone.

For two days I told stories about my younger brother, heard stories about his life from his friends, and celebrated a person so many knew and loved. At the funeral I gave a short eulogy about my brother. I did my best to honor his life, acknowledge his shortcomings, and recognize what we all knew but so rarely saw during the shortened 35 years of his time with us: at his best, he was the best of us. From the outside someone might conclude that my brother and I were close or that time smiled on our relationship even if it demonstrated usual wears and tears of brotherly love. You might conclude from my words I was overcome with sadness that my brother had passed; that I was overtaken with grief as any good brother would. But you would be wrong.

I had virtually no relationship with my younger brother for the better part of a decade; I had not seen him in person for years. Sure, we occasionally talked on the phone or through social media, but I had not been in my brother’s presence for a long, long time. We both made decisions that forced distance between us, or so I told myself. There were times when he was doing well that I saw glimpses of my brother; little sparks of hope that perhaps this time would be different. As the space between those moments became wider so also did my attachment with the person I spent hours riding bikes, playing wiffle ball, and riding four wheelers through windrows (thus making our grandfather furious). I became so angry, so cynical, so desperate for any sign of hope that eventually I just gave up. And so, keeping my brother at both a literal and emotional distance, I cut him out of my life and my heart. I told myself it was all for the right reasons: “being a good dad”; “protecting my family”; “I will not help in ways that ultimately hurt”; and so on. Looking back, I rushed to absolve myself quicker than I should; I did not — would not — consider the possibility that I could be right for all the wrong reasons.

Luke 15 houses the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son. Here, the youngest son demands his inheritance and squanders it. He returns in shame only to find a father rushing toward him to embrace, forgive, and celebrate his son’s return. The eldest son sees all of this in full view, dutifully laboring in the fields, goes to his father, and sets the contrast: I have been faithful; my younger brother on the other hand has not and yet you celebrate like he has been here all these years. The anger is palpable; the frustration as clear as the midday sun bearing down on the conversation between a gracious father and a son who cannot see his father’s heart. But like any good dad, he turns to his well-meaning but self-righteous son and offers words of life: “you are always with me and all I have is yours. Celebrate your brother’s return.”

If have often wondered if the son’s return was followed by squandering and another return, followed by squandering once again, would that change the equation of the father’s heart? I do not know, and it does not matter. I recognized myself in the elder brother. I wondered what might be going through his head and if I would find the same in mine. I realized so much of what I operated on was fear. What if this brother of mine did get better and lived his life in freedom? What, then, would separate us? I was the good son. What if he becomes the good son, too? I lived in self-righteousness because I lived in fear. Fear of others. Fear of the unknown. But what I feared most was being confirmed in every impulse to hang on to anger toward my brother; an elder brother that wants what the younger brother had: self-awareness and acceptance.

A decade of anger and self-importance stood in front of me. I told myself I had the high ground. Perhaps. But reality spoke differently and it simply said this: I did not want to forgive my brother. To forgive was to finally let go of the façade I built separating me from my brother. On the other side it would be harder to criticize; to feign superiority. I had to acknowledge the fact that I was not responsible for his actions, nor could I judge them from a morally superior distance. My responsibility started and ended with me. I didn’t reckon with my brother’s death because I didn’t want to reckon with myself. Forgiving, honoring, holding him close required a kind of work I thought I didn’t need.

“Excessive severity in criticizing others,” John Webster once wrote. “usually goes hand in hand with a basic incapacity to see ourselves as we really are — a basic deficiency in admitting that we, too, are fallible and frail, that if we haven’t sinned, it’s usually only because we haven’t had opportunity.” Self-righteousness is tricky. It leans into the notion that you are standing up for what is right and good; you are the anchor, the strong tower protecting the weak behind your walls. But like all acts of self-deception, you cannot see clearly and so cannot see the fatal flaw right under your nose.

A little before he passed away, I wrote my brother a letter. I described to him all the reasons I have for feeling anger and resentment, how I have kept them in my heart, and how it has nearly destroyed me. I sought his forgiveness. I told him I loved him but understood if I never heard from him about the contents of this letter. He was entirely free to read this letter and throw it away. I wanted to acknowledge that I was wrong for how deeply I detached myself; I tried to cut him out completely and I couldn’t do that anymore than I could cut my arm off and pretend it didn’t hurt or that somehow, I didn’t miss it.

I never heard from him about the letter. It wasn’t until standing in front of his open casket, having yet to shed a single tear because I was still so angry, that a close friend of my brother came up to me and told me he kept the letter. Andrew shared with this friend how much it meant to him, that he understood, and that loved me. I could barely stand. I fell into this gentleman and lost every bit of composure I had in me. There, in the arms of a stranger, I began to grieve my brother. And for the better part of a year, I have been undoing the entanglements a decade of self-righteousness had wrought.

Time, this inescapable marker of our existence brings both blessing and burden, hope and harm. The notion that time can be welcomed as a friend and fellow traveler has allowed me to see my grief in a different perspective. If the goods of time can be welcomed as a friend, so too can her effects on ordered existence — memories, aging, death. To welcome these things is to recognize the march of time as a beat you can hear, follow, and appreciate instead of one to which you must slavishly submit.

Theologian John Swinton has written extensively on dementia, human dignity, and the need for theological clarity on matters that demand the full attention of those uniquely called to care for the aging. In a remarkable work entitled Becoming Friends of Time, Swinton articulates the idea that time and created order are there and must be accounted for in how we live in the liminal spaces aging brings. These gifts reserved for age require a different way one must live with time, a life rhythm that welcomes time and what it brings as a friend,

Time, slowness, gentleness, perseverance, and love: these are the qualities of people who have become friends of time. Time should not be our enemy; it should be our friend. The redemption of time has to do with turning time from an overbearing ruler into a gentle friend.

Grieving the loss of my brother was coming to grips with his death but also what had been lost. Lost time together in the future but also time lost in the past. I cut him out. I shut the lines of communication. My children hardly knew their uncle. I barely knew my brother anymore. I had to bury my brother and gently put to rest what had become of us and what had become of me. The only way I could do this responsibly was to become a friend of time, and so become a friend with grief. Grief became a gentle friend instead of an overbearing ruler. She reminded me that my weakness is my strength, sadness is a healing emotion, and that grief gives the full measure of love, for it is somehow reassuring to learn, even by suffering, how large and powerful love is. And so, I began to welcome grief as a friend.

A few months ago, I hopped in the car, grabbed a sandwich, and drove to my brother’s final resting place. It was slightly overcast, and the wind carried enough cool air to make a hot summer afternoon pleasant. I told him how I was doing, what the kids were up to, checked in on mom and dad, and then to what we always found ourselves rallying around together: St. Louis Cardinals baseball and UK sports. As I sat, I looked to my right, where a row of plots stood open. That small strip of Kentucky land, next to my brother, is where I will one day await my resurrection body. So will my wife and the rest of my family. Will I lie next to him having fully reckoned with how I treated him? Will our place together in Haven Hill Cemetery tell the story of a brother battling demons and another who departed too soon? I do not know but I hope for the former he sees his anger must give way to sadness and compassion and healing can begin. Time offers an opportunity for compassion and patience to mark the trail I must walk. It is my friend.

I have made that trip to Haven Hill once more since that afternoon. Same sandwich. Different conversation. Space and time separate my brother and I now, and he cannot tell me that he forgave me for what I said, what I harbored, or how I lived. I am confident he would forgive me, because at his best he was the best of us. He had experienced forgiveness in ways I have not. He felt the embrace of a running father while I stood in the fields harboring resentment at the welcome by my family.

My brother never overcame his trials. He tried. My God, did he try. The rest of my family helped, pled, and carried him to the end. I kept my distance. I cannot undo that, but I can live with grief and with time as friends who welcome good and bad; sorrow and joy; and to see God’s kindness is allowing me to grieve so deeply and begin to heal — even if it was tragically too late. It is not in man, Wallace Stegner would likely tell me right now, to make wildernesses. But he can make deserts and has. I cannot undo the choices I made; the deserts I’ve created in the absence of proper care. But Stegner would also remind me that a brook loses its song when you remove the rocks.

I walk with my grief now. I do not push it away; I do not see it as a burden; I do not pretend as if its presence is a pestilence. Each memory are the rocks that make this brook sing. My brother returns to me in every tear, his life is honored when I welcome the full measure of a love that hurts; future memories that will not include him and all the past events I cut him out of thinking I was in the right. In a few short weeks, the one-year anniversary of his death will arrive. I have so many things I wish I could say to him: “I’m sorry.”; “Can I take you to lunch?”; “Can my kids come see their uncle?” ; “Can I take you to a Cats game?” I cannot get his answers to these questions. But I can answer one question I have asked myself constantly in the last year and wept uncontrollably over on that warm summer afternoon next to his grave: “Would you have treated me the same way I treated you?” I am confident that answer would be no. At his best, he was the best of us. He did what we could. I never did what most usually do for their family. I was not a good brother.

“Does my son know you?” Jonathan Tjarks asked his readers in March, as he was battling a terminal cancer diagnosis with a barely two-year-old son. I think about this essay frequently. I had appreciated Jonathan’s writing on basketball for a while but his reflections about his impending death, his family, and especially his son, showed me the goods of life — even for journalists — are fragile. The essay is raw, heartfelt, and a letter to those who will follow Tjarks much later in death, charging them to care for and look after his family. He concludes his essay like this:

I have already told some of my friends: When I see you in heaven, there’s only one thing I’m going to ask — Were you good to my son and my wife? Were you there for them? Does my son know you?

Jonathan passed away on September 10. My brother, like Jonathan, also left behind a young son. We celebrated my nephew’s third birthday this past weekend. Like many things in my brother’s life, I was not present. Instead we called, said Happy Birthday, and heard about the festivities from my parents. Perhaps the hardest part of losing my brother is losing the chance to see him raise a son where we could share battle scars from late night Colic episodes, diaper failures, and all the funny ways our kids would pronounce utensils so they sound like cuss words. If there was anything that could have helped him overcome his own challenges, it would have been that bright eyed boy who loved his daddy more than the world.

Will my brother ask me “were you good to my son? Were you there for him?” I do not know. But I can assure I will not leave those questions up for interpretation nor will I allow the elder brother to answer them for me; he has spent enough time carrying the day. I hear my brother in my nephew’s laugh — as infectious as Andy’s — and in his hands. His hair resembles yours when we were younger. I hear you in his voice when he asks if my son is coming to play. I see and hear you every time “Gunky” Bryan is around. You have not left me and now your presence feels like a blessing. You feel like a friend.

Grief is a friend because I love my brother. I grieve deeply because I love deeply. I am still angry. I don’t know if I will ever move entirely beyond it. But now, I welcome the dissonance. I seek to understand why I’m angry, what must be done, and what must be left to wisdom of God. It is here, next to the babbling brook of anger, grief, sorrow, and sadness that I begin to hear redemption. But you must bend your ear and your pride.

It took losing my brother to bend my ear. If Larry Morgan could speak, he would say despite what I may believe, I do not make my mark on time but time makes its mark on me. Put more simply: grief had a made its mark on me. I frequently wonder how my time will be marked this side of his life. I hope it is carried along with grief welcomed until the plot of Kentucky soil that awaits me to share with a brother breaks open in resurrection hope. Then we will stand side by side once again, welcomed as a friend to my brother.

I love you, Andy.