the day that was

August 8, 2005 was my father's 62nd birthday. It was also (entirely coincidentally, I believe) the first anniversary of the day my brother King killed himself.

I spent most of the day with my family and surprisingly... happily, the vast majority of the day seemed like any other day. We even managed to acknowledge my dad's birthday a few times (First thing I heard in the morning was Mom asking him if he felt any older today. He answered, "I feel older every day." Knowing Dad's sense of humor was intact helped me start the day more optimistically than I might have thought I could.).

Worked out. Ate dinner with the family. Spent some time talking to King in the backyard (his ashes are in the base of a birdbath there). Ate sushi, drank a bottle of wine (I drank the bottle. They drank cocktails.) and had honest, fearless, revealing late-night conversations with dear friends who live two blocks away. Called my middle brother, Eric, on the walk back home and shared our love and fear and loss for an hour, more openly than ever.

I know:

My father's birthday will be reclaimed... maybe not soon, but someday.

I do not have adjectives to describe how much I miss King every day... but I am not, nor have I ever been, mad at him for his decision. Those who speak of the selfishness of suicide can not truly know the depression, frustration and sadness that bring one to the moment of that decision.

I regret regret regret, but not that I might have done something to change his mind. I regret that outside influences kept us from being as close as we longed to be in the last year of his life. I regret that the path he took to shed his depression took him from me.

I will never fully comprehend the bond that brothers who are close in age have. Although Eric and I have long been the "friendliest" pair in my family, I have always envied the primal, "thick as thieves" relationship he shared with King. After talking to Eric tonight, I have a new appreciation for the identity crisis into which he has been thrust.

I am ever so grateful that my family and most of my close friends find no shame in telling each other, "I love you."