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I found his obituary yesterday only because I was searching for the link to the notice of his death.  This reminds me of another recent death—that of my stepbrother, Adam, after a painful fight with melanoma—and the tears and trauma that accompanied the writing of his obituary.  Obituaries.  Strange.  I think I’m going to go ahead and write mine, maybe tomorrow, just for funzies, just to inject a little fun into obituaries…because they’re no fun, you know that?  Epitaphs are kind of fun—I even did a report on epitaphs when I was a freshman in high school and death was far, far away.  But obituaries.  I have to give the family props for admitting that he committed suicide—no euphemisms or omissions there—but it’s still not real to me.

What is going to make it real?

Adam and I weren’t close.  I used to think it ironic that his name and my first love’s name were the same; but he was always there, and when he wasn’t, I staggered a little.  There was a blip in my consciousness.  I tried to be there for my stepmother, but I faltered there as well because of my own fears and prejudices (to be covered in some future month’s topic: FAMILY).  But he died, leaving behind a wife, a son, a mother...and I think my metaphorical fingers tightened even harder on Daisy. 

JP was in the house when my stepmother called with the news of Adam’s death.  Daisy and I clung to one another in the bathroom of our old Jack-and-Jill cottage, and JP offered to stay at the cottage when I flew down south to be with my stepmother.  Which he did.  Daisy felt comfortable with him.  He was her father figure, for better or for worse.  I don’t think I ever forgave him for managing to make it work with Daisy, while not being able to make it work with me; but at the same time I was thankful we hadn’t made it work, and jogging along blithely with THOSE conflicting emotions was the love I always have for anyone who sincerely loves Daisy.  There you have it: jealousy; bitterness; indifference; love; and boredom.  Five things I thought of, when I thought of JP.

Now there are none, yet fifty million more.  Now there is a hole, but that hole is full of worry and doubt and guilt and anger. I thought today, if I could just punch him in the face, and I remembered wanting to punch him years ago...for different reasons.  Now I couldn't care less about his heart; now I care about my daughter's heart.  Which he broke, the moment he put himself out of his misery.

Yesterday the radiologist put a needle into my hip so that they could inject something that would make the MRI more easily read.  It hurt like blazes, and I started to cry and thrash around a little bit--just above the sternum, because I knew if I moved a muscle below my belly button, that enormous needle would wreak havoc.  An enormous bruise blossomed on my hip, regardless; I wrote that it's shaped like New Hampshire, because it is.  What does this have to do with death, you ask...nothing, really, but it's news, and the MRI was coffin-like enough, I suppose.