Today I met an old school Hip Hop artist from the late 1980's. I was personally ecstatic. I finished some of the lyrics of a jam that he rapped to me. After making him feel old (yet proud), he walked away and I reached for my phone in my back pocket to call Charley. But as I unlocked the phone and his photo surfaced, my excitement dropped like a drenched sand bag and I mourned the call I couldn't make. Deep breath. My eyes glossed over and the world around me fell away- feels like that often as though the volume around me is on automatic. Could also be that my body goes into fight-mode and reactively shuts everything out so that I can center with my sorrow.
Chatter and movement faded out of scope and I embraced deep longing with my brother. It is only him that I can share that particular excitement with because he's the only person it's relevant to. He and I grew up on old school Hip Hop and Motown so he's the only person who knows EXACTLY what I was feeling. I wished so badly I could call him and he'd pick up, listen to my mile-a-minute gab, quietly chuckle and say, "oh yeah?". Man of few words sometimes but loud in substance.
It's not just a call I want to dial, but it's also a hug, a smile, a run, some news, a knock on the door or a ride. Sometimes I drive his truck and look over at the passenger seat for him and pretend he is riding shotgun. Or I sleep in his bed and pretend that I'm escaping Mom life for an afternoon and hiding away at his home, in his sleeping sanctuary, cuddling with his energy. I pretend all the time. Shit, even when he was alive, I'd pretend. You can only imagine what life for me is like without him. Someone text me after six months of distancing herself with, "i know it was hard to lose someone".
1. you don't know, 2. it wasn't hard, IT IS more than difficult, 3. that someone is my brother.
I understand that most people don't know what to say so they say nothing. Or don't want to say something that will hurt or offend me. Unfortunately for this chic, she accomplished both. Needless to say, I didn't reply and I remembered that I had forgotten about her.
For Charley's 95% of his world, he has been lost. People "lost" him. For myself and my family, we LOSE him everyday. Each day is another day that his presence is being missed, his voice is fading, his scent hangs in the air of his home, his truck smells of his musk, the cabinets and closets that house his belongings are perfumed with his aura, and everyday we reach for him. I lose a fraction of his presence everyday even though I search for him here in his home- hoping to turn a corner and say, "There you are. I miss you". God, how I wish I will see him and how I hope it's not years from now or never. I hang onto the hope that he will appear to me someday and I will be unafraid and speak to him. He will comfort me with assurance that I'll be okay without him because he has never left.
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