UnrealisticExpectations 3.0

No good weekend goes without it’s footnote. Or silver lining without its cloud.

My mother called Saturday afternoon to let me know that my 24 year old cousin had died. He was 24 with a wife, a baby and another on the way, and the only real results I have right now are that he apparently had an enlarged heart and no one ever knew. And it gave out after he and his brother had been taking some laps on race track.

I’m not as close as I could/should be with my family in Missouri. Between my parents finding out that after almost 30 years of marriage that they no long want to be husband and wife, my father not having the stones enough to actually talk to me, even though he had the stones enough to adopt me almost 30 years ago and then rifts in the family as people take sides in divorces and such, well, things get challenging at times.

I do recall this cousin very well. Everyone does, really. Him and his brother were big highlights–and that’s not to say that their beautiful sister is not / was not a highlight, but she was far enough behind them in years that I was too far into my too-good-to-be-into-my-family teenage years that cost me my last visit with my grandfather. I know he forgives me, if not completely understands…but I need to remember him more.

These brothers, it seemed, could accomplish anything. They seemed to just tackle whatever it is they wanted, easily find their own paths and readily take on whatever today’s challenge was.

As boys, I’m sure they’re exactly what their father hoped they could be. I’m not even close to kidding on this one. As grandchildren, I’m positive they made their grandparents–and my grandparents–quite proud. You really could not help but get very attached to them.

The loss is staggering. It’s numbing. I’ve heard that everyone is in shock.

I don’t think that’s what I’m feeling exactly, but it is remorse. Remorse for someone I used to know well, but have not recently. We are worlds away.

That most likely won’t change.

When you grow-up redneck and then move to the city, people see change. I see change. But I’m a proud redneck and I love a lot of simplicity in things. I also love the value of a handshake, a word and a good friend and family.

I’ve fought for years with who I am. I’ve struggled to fit in with The City.

The City can be pretty ugly. Ugly like mud. Or Clay.

Rednecks seem to be almost Noble. I don’t think you could ever mix those two things and come up with anything too good, but…

You can find yourself somewhere out there. You can remember where you came from even when you find yourself with a little more than you ever thought possible–and far less than where your ego used to let you play.

Family can help with that. If not your blood, then those that keep you closest.

Where I come from… Well, wait.

If I would have never left where I came from, I think I would have ended up largely unhappy, largely unsure of myself and probably searching to find ways to make others as unhappy as I was. I used to think that where I came from was a place that I would not want to go back to, but something happened.

I don’t know when or where, but it did.

And even more recently it’s been happening.

I’d wager that my brother and I have become closer in the past 12 months than in the past 12 years. He’s a tough nut to crack, can be difficult to talk to and has had a rough road of trying to find whatever it is that can make him happy.

I don’t think he’s entirely found it yet, but he’s found what he needs to take care of a lot of things in his life that allow him to set is focus as broad or as tight as he needs to.

That part of his journey is just awesome to be aware of. I’m so absolutely thrilled to hang out and watch as he truly starts to live his life in a new way. I love knowing he’s doing some different things and that he’s got a lot of burdens out of his way so that he can figure out everything else; the puzzle isn’t also so simple as putting in the pieces…sometimes you’ve got to get certain pieces in order for the rest of the puzzle to even be shown to you.

Writing about my brother has made me smile. That’s how much I dig his life for him right now.

And my brother, along with my mother, my father and almost every other relative that I have in the world are all from the same small town in Missouri. Canton, Missouri. Population floating somewhere around the 2000 range, maybe? They’ve got a Pizza Hut that Bill Clinton stopped at. They’ve got a private college. They’ve got a swimming pool that you need to be a member of and that my aunt used to sign me up on every summer since she watched me. They’ve got a bowling alley. They’ve got a big new grocery store by the highway, a couple of gas stations, a couple of restaurants and some bars that most of you would never step foot in, but that I’ve been to since I was little. They’ve got a big sprawling post office–at least it seemed that way when I was little–and a lot of old, run-down or running-down buildings and home styles that don’t really get built anymore.

They’ve got my family.

But I seem to only be dealing with a small part of that circle. And hopefully I’m working my way in. And if I could only work my way in more, then these tragedies would hit home harder…

Wait.

I’ve spent the better part of 30 minutes rambling about my hometown, what’s happened to me, my brother, etc. etc.

It is hitting me. It’s obvious to me now.

At the end of the day, any loss is tragic. Young loss is horrible. The amount of times that this has caused me to hug, hold, kiss Sydney in the past 24 hours is uncountable. The amount of times I’ve told her I love her and the amount of times I’ve brushed out of my mind the thought of losing her is, as well.

While I did not truly “know” my young cousin–at least not so much any more–it’s still quite surreal. You can hear that someone is dead, but when you’re 5 hours away from it all and wrapped up in your own world…

Well, I suspect my own death would be every bit as… Whatever this is to me, but to those members of my family.

It drifts away from feeling such a true, heartfelt loss to becoming something along the lines of “That’s a shame” and I mention this not to be cruel, but to be very, very real.

I don’t think this is going to make me pick up my phone and call anyone. I call my mother enough for updates about this and about my brother who has recently had a surgery and is in the hospital. The updates either make me feel like I care or help me deal with it. That one I’ll have to figure out.

Certainly, I care. It’s hard to not care when you remember watching someone grow and remembering them as the little favorites and then seeing them grown up and trying to adjust your own line of thinking that they’re truly adults and that you have to get over yourself and your stupid thinking that you will always know more.

You’ll just know different, ass.

There’s so much more to learn and feel from this. More than anything, I feel for the immediate family and I do not envy their pain or loss and I wish them any serenity that they can find. I hope they are able to cope and deal with their own grief in such a way that makes him happy and I hope that they’re able to replace the feelings of loss with feelings of fond memories, but I cannot imagine that I could very easily do that, myself.

All I can do is imagine “what if it happened to me” and know that it’s dramatically more than the fraction of that pain I’ll let myself consider.

I am truly, deeply sorry.

Sometimes, words just won’t cut it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 9th, 2006 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Family, Bloggy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.