The Obituary

"If some lives form a perfect circle others take shape in a way we can not understand or predict. Loss is a part of my journey but it has also shown me what is precious. So is a love for which I can only be grateful."

These words in today's Statesman... The obituary of Joseph Mackey O'Steen.
He was my step brother. I've known him since I was twelve... and he was a shape I understood well. His darkness and my darkness came from the same place. Is it so hard to understand suicide? My mother and his father want to believe it was murder. I guess that would make it easier. Then they wouldn't have to realize the part they played in shaping his darkness. Or that they spent all of their money, time, and energy on my lost cause of a sister, for whom they both obsess over; but couldn't spend a few precious moments to call a son... or any of their other children to make sure they're still alive.
And so we come to the anger part of my grieving.
The part where I not only grieve for his loneliness and abandonment... but also I grieve because I have not really allowed myself to grieve!
It shows me how many steps backward I've taken on my path to healing my own past wounds.
In the past week since his death I've gotten sloppy drunk four times! Sunday was the most hung over I've been in ages. What does this solve? Even in my sloppiest state, I refused to grieve. I have spent the past two years being conditioned by "The Machine"... on how to not experience or show any human emotion that isn't positive. Fake everything. Look the part. Only talk about the client. If the client is being negative, change the subject to something happy.
Now I find I'm torturing myself once more. Hating myself for feeling grief. For being angry. To be what they want... I would have to cease to exist. I would have to numb my whole being with pills and self help tapes!
Yet on the other end of the spectrum is my journey to understanding a Toltec way of thinking. What a contradiction my life has become.
At work: the secretly bitter machine, who is judged and judges.
At home: the self accepting warrior. Moving away from self hate, towards perfect love.

I am not surprised that my brother killed himself, Mother Earth. I suffered beside him... I suffered alone. I am not ashamed that I grieve for his life, instead of his death. I am not going to apologize for my anger, or hold back my tears. And if I get a little weird or say the wrong thing, I won't punish myself for the satisfaction of "The Machine".
If Joseph had come to understand what I have... I would not be reading today's Obituary. And I will use his death as a reminder....
I must keep going. I must keep fighting to live.

Eden