I hated that every time I looked at my blog, my last post was about death. It's been almost a month since I posted. And now I've finally thought of something new to post. And guess what? It is sort of about death. So sorry to the 2 of you who actually read this. Wait, I think I remembered a 3rd one who reads.
I love Facebook. It is so fun to find old friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances. I recently found a friend of my brother's whose name is Tom. I wasn't sure it was him, so I sent a message that said, "I think you were a friend of my brother, Eddie's. Is that you?" He wrote back and said, "Yeah, that's me. I miss Eddie a great deal."
The first thing that struck me when I read those words was that those were never my words. Not in 23 years.
On April 12, 1986, my brother chose to leave this world at the end of a shotgun. My Dad had been gone for 3 years, 1 month, and 2 days. My Mom was a widow who came home at the end of a fun day with friends to find her baby son laying on the floor in a pool of blood. My brother left behind his teenage girlfriend who was 3 months pregnant.
I've never thought that I miss him a great deal. I've only thought that he was a spoiled brat and a huge jerk for leaving my Mom and his girlfriend and baby. I've thought what a coward he was.
There's no point to this post except for confession I suppose. The problem with my brother was that I had no good memories of him. Oh maybe when I was around 8 or 9 we had some fun together on hot summer days. But from the time I was about 12 or 13, he was nothing more to me than a jerk, a spoiled brat and a nuisance. I never got a chance to know him in adulthood. I may have liked him if I'd had that chance.
If I have felt pain over the last 23 years, it has been for my Mom, my brother's girlfriend and his daughter, Heather.
Are there people in your life who you would not miss if they left today? Are you a person who would not be missed because of the way you treat others? I don't want to be that person. I don't want my absence to be a sigh of relief.
I'll try to come up with something more cheerful for the next post!
Well, you know I understand. I'm making a HUGE effort to see my "one" as God does...no matter what He loves her. I'm just glad that we have a God who loved Eddie in spite of all things and that He was probably grieved at the loss of that lost one... His love is so pure and untainted by human expectations. We humans sure don't know how to love like Him...oh how I wish.
ReplyDeleteI'm about to book a flight to see my oldest brother because I told him before he started his stem cell transplant for cancer treatment that I wanted to KNOW him adult to adult. He is doing well now so it is time to get started. I am intimidated and full of the desire to lead him to the saving grace of Jesus so I'm pulling up my boot straps and going....prayer invited:).
ReplyDeleteThere are too many people in my family that make no difference to me, nor i to them. I hate this and should try harder to fix it.
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